Camille Moreau lived in a high-rise apartment building on the north bank of the river, the kind of glass-and-steel tower that had gone up during the brief downtown revival before the money ran out. The lobby had a doorman who didn't want to let me up, but I told him I was with the County Prosecutor's office and showed him my investigator's license, which looked official enough in the dim light of the marble foyer. He buzzed me through without further questions.
The elevator smelled of new carpet and old money. I rode it to the fourteenth floor and walked down a quiet corridor to apartment 1407. The door was painted a tasteful gray, and there was a brass knocker shaped like a seashell, which seemed out of place—too whimsical for a woman who sent cryptic warnings to disappearing fixers and worked for a man who might be a murderer. I knocked, and after a long silence, the door opened a few inches on a security chain.
The face that appeared in the gap was younger than I'd expected. Camille Moreau couldn't have been more than twenty-eight, with dark skin and hair cropped close to her scalp, her eyes wary and intelligent. She looked at me the way people look at process servers—resigned, already calculating the cost.
"Ms. Moreau, my name is Nora Keswick. I'm a private investigator looking into the death of Miriam Holt. I believe you knew it was going to happen before it happened."
The eyes didn't blink. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"You sent an email to Sylvie Thorpe on November fourteenth warning her that the alderman was moving forward with plan B. Sylvie Thorpe disappeared the next day. Miriam Holt was dead. You knew. And I think you want to tell someone what you know, or you wouldn't have left that email in Sylvie's trash folder where it could be found."
A long pause. Then the door closed, the chain rattled, and the door opened again—wide this time, an invitation. I stepped inside.
The apartment was sparse but expensive, decorated in shades of gray and white with occasional splashes of color from abstract paintings that looked original. The furniture was minimalist, the kind that cost more because it had less. Camille Moreau gestured toward a white leather sofa, and I sat. She remained standing, her back to the floor-to-ceiling window that looked out over the river, the water gray and sluggish under the overcast sky.
"I've worked for Alderman Royce for four years," she said. "I started as an intern during my master's program in public policy. He was charming then. He's still charming. It's his primary skill. He makes you feel like you're part of something important, something righteous. The Reproductive Transparency Ordinance was supposed to protect women. That's what he said, and I believed him."
"When did you stop believing him?"
"When he brought in Sylvie Thorpe. I'd been handling the Health Department coordination for the ordinance enforcement. It was my job to track the inspection reports, to make sure the centers were in compliance. Most of them were. The Lighthouse Center was the only one that fought back—not with lawyers, at that point, but with letters and public statements. They were a nuisance. But they weren't breaking the law. They were just stubborn. And Royce couldn't stand it."
She walked to a side table and poured herself a glass of water from a crystal decanter. Her hands were steady, but her voice had the tightness of someone holding back a flood. "Sylvie Thorpe showed up about a year ago. Royce told me she was a compliance consultant, but she didn't act like any consultant I'd ever met. She didn't write reports. She didn't attend meetings. She just... showed up at the clinic. She'd come back to the office and tell Royce about the conversations she'd had, the way she'd made the staff feel. He liked it. He'd smile that smile and say, 'Good. Keep the pressure on.'"
"Did you know about the false inspection reports?"
"I suspected. Frank Loomis was always at the office, always in Royce's ear. He'd bring inspection reports, and Royce would read them and nod, and then Loomis would leave looking like he'd been given orders. I didn't ask. I told myself it wasn't my job to ask."
"And the night of November fourteenth?"
Camille set down the glass. Her reflection in the window was pale and ghostly against the gray sky. "I was working late. Royce had left for the Yacht Club fundraiser, but he came back to the office around six-thirty. I heard him on the phone in his office, his voice low but intense. He was talking to someone about the Lighthouse Center. He said—he said, 'If she files the complaint, we're done. All of us. We need to make sure she doesn't file it.' And then he said something about 'the usual method' and 'make it look natural.'"
My skin went cold. "He was talking about killing her."
"I didn't know that. I told myself I didn't know that. I told myself it was just talk, political talk, the way powerful men talk when they're venting. But then I saw Sylvie Thorpe in the hallway. She was coming out of Royce's office, and her face was white. She looked like someone who had been told to do something she didn't want to do. I asked her if she was okay. She said, 'He wants me to do it tomorrow. I don't think I can.' And then she walked away."
"Did you send the email after that?"
"Yes. I went back to my desk and typed it out. 'The alderman is moving forward with plan B. You should be ready.' I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't call the police—Royce has friends in the department, and I didn't know who to trust. I couldn't warn Miriam Holt directly—Royce monitored all my communications. But Sylvie... I thought if I warned her, she might back out. She might refuse. And if she refused, maybe Royce's plan would fall apart."
"But she didn't refuse."
"No. She called Miriam Holt the next morning—I saw the call log on Royce's phone records. She asked Miriam to come in early. And then..." Camille's voice broke. "And then Miriam was dead. And Sylvie was gone. And Royce came into the office that morning looking perfectly calm, perfectly in control, and he said, 'The problem has been resolved.' He said it the way he'd talk about a zoning issue or a budget dispute. The problem has been resolved."
"Why didn't you go to the police then?"
"Because I was afraid. Because Royce had told me once that he had 'friends everywhere'—in the police, in the prosecutor's office, in the media. Because I didn't know who else might be involved. Because I thought if I said anything, I'd end up like Miriam. Or like Sylvie, wherever she is." She turned to face me, her eyes bright with unshed tears. "I'm a coward. I know that. I've been living with it every day since Miriam died. When I heard about your investigation, I thought maybe—maybe someone else could do what I couldn't."
"You can still do it. You can give a statement to the County Prosecutor. Webb is investigating Royce. He needs witnesses."
"Webb works for the county. Royce owns the city. The county can't protect me from Royce's friends."
"The county can offer you immunity. Protection. A chance to do the right thing before Royce finds out you're talking to me and decides you're a loose end." I stood up and walked toward her. "You're not a coward, Camille. You warned Sylvie. You kept the email. You let me into your apartment and told me everything. That's not cowardice. That's someone who wants to be brave but doesn't know how. Let me help you figure it out."
She looked at me for a long moment. Then she nodded, a small, trembling nod. "What do I need to do?"
"First, you need to write down everything you just told me. Dates, times, names, exactly what you heard and saw. Don't leave anything out. Then you need to call Webb—I'll give you his direct number—and tell him you want to make a statement. He'll protect you. He's already building a case against Royce, and your testimony could be the thing that brings him down."
"And if Royce finds out before I testify?"
"Then you call me. I know people. I can keep you safe." I didn't know if that was true, but I said it with enough conviction that she believed me. Sometimes that's all courage is—believing someone who might be lying.
I left her apartment and rode the elevator down to the lobby, my mind racing. Camille Moreau's testimony was powerful, but it wasn't enough. She had heard Royce talking about "making sure she doesn't file" and "making it look natural." She had seen Sylvie Thorpe come out of his office looking terrified. She had sent a warning email. But she hadn't witnessed the murder. She hadn't seen what happened in the exam room. She hadn't seen who held the needle.
Sylvie Thorpe was still the key. If Sylvie had killed Miriam, she was a murderer, regardless of how reluctant she might have been. If she had refused and someone else had done it, she was a witness who could identify the real killer. Either way, finding her was the only way to close the case.
I needed to figure out where a terrified woman with a suspended nursing license and a daughter she loved would go when she was running from a man with power and connections. She had no digital footprint, no recent financial activity, no friends who would admit to knowing her. But she had the prescription bottle, half-empty, filled three weeks ago at a pharmacy in Kelson. And pharmacies kept records.
I drove back to Kelson, the landscape the same as it had been that morning—gray fields, bare trees, the empty spaces between small towns. The pharmacy was a chain store in a strip mall, its aisles bright with fluorescent light and Muzak. I asked for the pharmacist on duty, a tired-looking man with reading glasses pushed up on his forehead, and told him I was investigating a missing person and needed to know if Sylvie Thorpe had filled any other prescriptions in the past three weeks. He was reluctant, but a call to Crowder—who had the authority to request medical records in a death investigation—loosened his tongue.
Sylvie Thorpe had filled one other prescription, two days after Miriam Holt died, at a pharmacy in a town called Halston, a hundred miles north of Kelson. The prescription was for the same anti-anxiety medication, but it had been called in by a doctor I didn't recognize—a Dr. Elena Vasquez, whose office address was in Halston as well.
I thanked the pharmacist and got back in my car. Halston was a small town on the edge of the state forest, a place people went to disappear. It was the kind of town where people paid in cash and didn't ask questions and the winters were long and the summers were brief. If Sylvie Thorpe was hiding, Halston was a good place to do it.
I called Crowder and told her about the pharmacy lead. She was quiet for a moment, then said, "Halston is out of our jurisdiction. I'll need to coordinate with the sheriff's department up there. But if she's there, we'll find her. Give me a day."
"I don't have a day. Royce has to know we're closing in. If he finds her first—"
"He won't. He doesn't know we have her name. As far as Royce knows, Sylvie Thorpe vanished and nobody's looking for her. He thinks he's safe. Let's keep it that way."
I wanted to argue, but Crowder was right. Rushing into Halston without backup, without jurisdiction, without a plan, was a good way to get myself killed or to spook Sylvie into running again. I needed to be patient. Patience was not my strongest skill, but I had learned it the hard way, through years of cases that took longer than they should and endings that came only when they were ready.
I drove back to Lakehurst as the sun was setting, the sky turning from gray to bruised purple. The city lights were coming on, the streetlamps flickering to life along Foundry Square, the municipal building looming dark against the sky. Somewhere inside, Theodore Royce was going about his evening—making phone calls, signing papers, smiling his politician's smile. He had no idea that the walls were closing in. He had no idea that a special assistant, a health inspector, and a missing nurse were all about to converge on him like a trap snapping shut.
But I knew. And for the first time since this case began, I felt something other than anger. I felt the cold, steady certainty of a hunter who had finally spotted her prey.
I stopped at my office before going home, needing to file the day's notes and check my messages. The building was quiet, the other offices dark, the hallway smelling of old coffee and the faint must of the radiator. I unlocked my door and stepped inside, reaching for the light switch.
The light was already on.
Sitting in my desk chair, her hands folded on the blotter, her dark peacoat draped over the back of the chair, was Claire Marchand. She looked up when I entered, and her expression was different from the night before—not guarded, not warning, but something else. Something that looked almost like grief.
"Ms. Keswick," she said. "We need to talk. It's about Sylvie Thorpe."
"How did you get in here?"
"I used to work in intelligence, before I became a consultant. Picking locks is the least of my skills." She gestured toward the chair across from the desk. "Please. Sit down. What I have to tell you—it changes things."
I didn't sit. "Tell me now."
Claire Marchand took a breath. "Sylvie Thorpe is dead. Her body was found this morning in a motel room outside Halston. Single gunshot wound to the head. The local police are calling it a suicide, but I've seen the crime scene photos, and it doesn't look like a suicide to me. It looks like someone got to her before you could."
The room felt very cold. "How do you know this?"
"I have contacts in the state police. I've been tracking Sylvie for months, the same way I've been tracking Royce. When I heard she was dead, I knew the clock had run out. Royce is cleaning house. Loomis is cooperating with the prosecutor, which makes him a target. Camille Moreau talked to you today, which makes her a target. And you—you've been asking questions all over the city, which makes you a target too."
"If Royce wants to come after me, let him."
"He won't come after you himself. He'll use the same fixer he used before." She reached into her coat and pulled out a photograph. It was grainy, taken from a distance—surveillance footage, maybe, or a long-lens camera. It showed a woman getting out of a dark sedan, her face partially obscured by the angle, her build athletic, her hair short and dark. "This is the woman who's been doing Royce's dirty work. Her name is Anya Voss. She's a former military medic who was dishonorably discharged for reasons the army sealed. She's been working as private security for high-end clients for about five years. Royce hired her through Kestrel Solutions—the same shell company he used for Thorpe. But Voss isn't a fixer. She's a killer."
I looked at the photograph. The face was hard to make out, but the posture was unmistakable—the same straight-backed confidence I had seen in the dark sedan the night before. "You told me you were trying to identify her. Now you have."
"Now I have. And I'm telling you because I need your help. I've been trying to bring Royce down through legal channels—audits, reports, internal investigations. He's blocked every one of them. But if we can prove he ordered Miriam Holt's death, and if we can prove Anya Voss carried it out, we can put both of them away. And the only way to prove that is to get Voss to turn on Royce. She's the trigger. We need to pull it."
"Turn her? She's a killer."
"She's a killer with a pattern. She's loyal to her employers as long as they're loyal to her. But Royce just had Sylvie Thorpe killed—probably to keep her quiet—and Voss will know that if Royce could do that to one contractor, he could do it to another. She's smart. She'll see the writing on the wall. We just need to give her a reason to talk."
"What kind of reason?"
"Immunity. Protection. A deal. Webb can offer her the same thing he offered Loomis, but only if we can get to her before Royce realizes we're looking. She's in Lakehurst tonight—I tracked her to a hotel downtown. She's waiting for instructions. If we approach her now, before Royce gives her the next order, we might be able to flip her."
I stared at the photograph. Anya Voss. The woman in the dark sedan. The woman who had smiled at Miriam Holt and talked about consequences. The woman who might have put a needle in Miriam's arm and watched her heart stop.
"Fine," I said. "Let's go flip a killer."
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