Discretion (The Dumonts, #1)(69)

“I told you,” she snaps. “But now I really don’t trust talking about it here.” She grabs her purse from the back of her chair. “Come on. Blaise, you’re coming with us too. I’m not done with you.”

“Why, so you can torture me somewhere?”

To my surprise, Blaise actually gets up and follows Seraphine out the door, with me coming up behind them.

Gautier isn’t anywhere to be seen, which I take as a good sign. I’m sure he already thinks Blaise is fraternizing with the enemy, or perhaps he was sent in as a spy.

And then there’s this talk about . . . murder?

He wasn’t murdered.

He had a heart attack.

I saw it happen right in front of my fucking eyes.

Seraphine only came over after he was already dead.

The image is burned into my memory, and I’m so lost in it I barely hear Seraphine asking me if I’m okay.

I nod, trying to bring my mind back to the here and now, even if it’s not much better.

The rain has let up to a soft drizzle as Seraphine leads us outside to her car—a small burgundy Fiat—and then unlocks the doors.

I’m about to sit in the front seat as I usually do when Seraphine says, “You’re in the back, Olivier.”

Blaise passes by me and opens the door, avoiding my eyes.

Maybe he wasn’t too far off with that whole torture thing.

With a sigh I resign myself to the back seat and buckle in, completely confused and wishing I hadn’t promised Sadie I’d come here to talk to Seraphine today. My goal was to avoid these offices for as long as I lived. Without my father here, and with Gautier in charge, I’m just making things worse.

“In the future, you’re meeting me at a café,” I tell Seraphine as she swings the car onto Avenue Charles de Gaulle, heading toward La Défense. “Where are you taking us, anyway?”

She doesn’t answer. Her hands just grip the wheel harder.

“Seraphine?” I say. “I don’t even think you should be driving right now.”

“It’s fine,” she says quietly, and I meet Blaise’s eyes in the rearview mirror. He still looks a little shaken, which makes me wonder exactly what they were talking about before I arrived.

“So does someone want to explain why you were talking about murder?” My face scrunches up as I say that. I can’t even fathom it. I feel like we’re betraying our father just by saying the word.

“Why don’t you ask Blaise?” Seraphine says. “He’s the one who knew all about it.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” Blaise says. “Do you even know how insulting that is?”

“Why would Blaise murder our father?”

“I didn’t murder anyone.”

“I agree,” I tell him. “And you need to stop using that word. Look, I know you’re upset and looking to blame someone, Seraphine, but this isn’t the answer. Father had a heart attack. I saw it happen.”

“You saw him die. He was poisoned. Heart attacks don’t work like that.”

“Actually, I think they do.”

“He was in perfect health. He just had his checkup the week before. He’s never had high blood pressure or heart disease or cholesterol or anything like that. Why on earth would he just—no, it doesn’t make sense. Someone poisoned him that night.”

“And you think it was Blaise?” This is getting more and more ridiculous.

“No,” she says. “Maybe. Yes. I think Blaise at least knows.”

“I’m not even going to talk about this with you,” he says, crossing his arms and staring out the window.

“Fine, I’ll talk about it with Olivier,” she says, eyeing me. “I know this sounds crazy to you, but it’s something I feel and believe, right in my heart. Don’t you feel that something was so wrong about that ball? About the way the company merged? How easy it all was once father was out of the picture? Everyone benefited.”

“Except for Olivier,” Blaise says quietly.

“Right,” Seraphine says as she eyes me intently, “except for you. And me. And Renaud. But you look at Blaise and Pascal and Gautier, and they all moved up and over and now have complete control. If I wasn’t in the picture, they’d have everything.”

“You’ll stay in the picture if you do your job right,” Blaise says, but even as he says it, he looks uncomfortable.

Seraphine takes a left turn just as the light turns red, the Fiat skidding slightly on the wet roads, pulling onto the D1 and racing along the Seine, parks and tennis courts whizzing past us.

“What are you doing?” I ask her. “You just ran a red light.”

“I thought I was being followed,” she says.

“Followed?”

Oh, now my sister has really lost it. Even Blaise looks over his shoulder at me, brows raised, as if to say we’re screwed.

“Yes,” she says tersely, paying constant attention to the cars behind her. “It was a black Land Rover with Polish plates. It followed us all the way from the office.”

“Which wasn’t very far.”

“It looked like it waited to pull out only when we did. I noticed the driver. Bald, with glasses. Watching me.”

“Honestly, Seraphine,” I say to her, leaning forward and putting my hand on her shoulder, “I’m just looking out for you as your brother. But you need to drive yourself home. Blaise and I will find our own way back. First this talk about father being murdered; now you think we’re being followed. I hate to—”