"Yes, yes, I heard. Three months, the lawyer said. Very Marguerite, that. She always had to make a point." Sylvie moves behind the counter and starts pulling items from shelves with practiced efficiency. "You should go see Monique. She's at the café—she'll want to see you both. She was Marguerite's closest friend, you know. Knows all the stories."
Cat and I exchange a look. All the stories.
"We will," Cat says. "After we bring the groceries home."
"Good, good." Sylvie bags up our purchases and names a price that seems impossibly low for the amount of food she's given us. "And Catherine—" She catches Cat's hand as she reaches for thebag. "It's good you're home. Both of you. It's what Marguerite wanted."
We leave the shop laden with enough food to last a week and enough questions to last considerably longer.
The Café des Platanes is across the square from the church, its terrace shaded by the plane trees that give it its name. A woman with silver hair and sharp eyes is wiping down tables when we arrive, and her face lights up the moment she sees Cat.
"Mon dieu, look at you!" She abandons her cloth and pulls Cat into a fierce embrace. "Jacques said you were back, but I didn't dare believe it. Let me see you. Let me see."
"Hello, Monique." Cat's voice is warm in a way I haven't heard before. "You look exactly the same."
"Liar. I look old. But you—" Monique holds her at arm's length, much as Sylvie did to me. "You look like her. More and more every year."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"As you should." Monique's gaze shifts to me, and her expression goes complicated—curious and cautious and something else I can't name. "And you must be Iris."
"Monique was Grand-mère's best friend," Cat explains. "They knew each other for forty years."
"Forty-three." Monique studies me with an intensity that makes Sylvie's assessment look casual. "You have the Beaumont eyes. You look like your mother. I met her once, a long time ago. Before."
Before. The word hangs in the air like a warning.
"Before what?" I ask.
Monique's face closes slightly. "Before she stopped coming. Sit, sit, both of you. I'll bring coffee. And then we'll talk."
She disappears inside before either of us can protest.
Cat and I take seats at a small table under the trees. The morning has grown warm, the light dappling through the leaves, and somewhere nearby a fountain is burbling. It would be peaceful if I weren't so tense.
"She knows something," I say quietly.
"She knows everything. Grand-mère and Monique had no secrets from each other."
"Then why won't she tell us?"
"Because it's not her story to tell." Cat leans back in her chair, gazing at the church tower. "That's what the letters are for, I think. And the locked room. Grand-mère wanted us to learn things in the right order."
I think of the envelope still sitting unopened in my suitcase. The one with my name in my grandmother's handwriting. I'm not ready to read it yet—not ready for whatever truth it contains.
Monique returns with coffee and a plate of pastries, settling into the third chair at our table like she belongs there.
"So," she says, pouring cream into her cup. "You've been to see Duval. You know about the conditions."
"Ninety days," Cat confirms. "Together."
"Marguerite was nothing if not thorough." Monique's smile is sad. "She planned this for years, you know. Ever since Hélène died."
The name lands like a stone dropped in still water. Hélène.
"Who was Hélène?" I ask.
Monique and Cat exchange a look. Something passes between them that I can't read.
