Chapter 4 - The Legal Weapon
Doctor Bellanger was waiting for me in his private office, despite it being two in the morning. He looked exhausted, but his eyes lit up with profound relief when he saw me walk through the door, completely unaided.
"Mathilde," he said, rushing forward to close the door behind me. "Thank God. When I got your message, I didn't know whether to call the police or wait."
"If you had called the police to the apartment, Antoine would have destroyed the evidence and used his legal influence to call me insane," I said, sitting down, my body finally collapsing into a fit of violent shivering. I placed the brown vial and the thermos on his desk. "Here is the poison. He has been putting it in my medication and my water."
Bellanger picked up the vial, his face darkening. "We ran the initial analysis on the residue from your first blood test. It’s a compound derived from high-dose chloroquine mixed with a localized paralytic agent. In small, consistent doses, it mimics the symptoms of severe bilateral optic neuritis. It kept your pupils dilated and your retinas incapable of processing light correctly. It’s monstrous, Mathilde. A few more months of this, and the damage would have been irreversible."
"Can you prove it came from him?" I asked, my voice tight.
"With this vial and the chemical match in your blood? Absolutely," he said. "But you need a lawyer who can handle this before Antoine realizes you've escaped and tries to flee the country with your assets."
He picked up his desk phone and dialed a number. Within an hour, a woman arrived. She wore a sharp, tailored gray suit, her dark hair pulled back into a flawless bun. Her name was Maître Clarisse Vance, one of the most formidable criminal defense and financial fraud lawyers in Lyon.
I spent the next three hours telling Clarisse everything. I told her about the accident two years ago, my sudden blindness, Antoine’s complete control over my life, my sister’s sudden disappearance—which was actually her moving into my home—and the documents Antoine had tried to force me to sign.
Clarisse listened intently, taking meticulous notes, her expression hardening with every detail. When I finished, she tapped her pen against the legal pad.
"Antoine Delcourt is a notary," Clarisse said, her voice like a striking gavel. "He knows the law, which means he knows exactly how to exploit its loopholes. If we simply file a police report for domestic abuse or poisoning, the investigation could take months. During that time, he could liquidate your mother’s gallery shares through his offshore shell company and vanish with your sister."
"So what do we do?" I asked, desperation creeping back into my throat.
"We catch him in the act of financial fraud and attempted murder simultaneously," Clarisse replied, a cold, brilliant smile spreading across her lips. "Tomorrow morning, you are going to go back to that apartment."
I froze. "Back? Clarisse, I can't. If he realizes—"
"He won't realize," Clarisse interrupted gently, placing a hand over mine. "Because you are going to give him exactly what he wants. You are going to sign those documents. But you won't be using a regular pen, and you won't be alone."
She pulled a small, sleek black fountain pen from her briefcase. "This is an encrypted digital recording pen. It records high-definition audio, and the ink contains a specific synthetic chemical signature that can be tracked instantly upon digital scanning. Furthermore, I am going to contact the Brigade Financière (Financial Police). We are going to wire your apartment with hidden audio and video surveillance early tomorrow morning while Antoine is at his office preparing the final papers."
"And Élise?" I asked, a bitter pang of grief hitting my chest.
"Your sister is an accomplice to grand larceny and conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm," Clarisse said without a shred of pity. "She will fall with him. Mathilde, this requires immense courage. You must look him in the eye, pretend to be blind, and sign away your life, knowing that the trap is actually closing around him."
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I looked at Doctor Bellanger, then at Clarisse. I thought about the two years I had spent crying in the dark, begging a god I didn't believe in to let me see my husband's face again, only to find out that my husband was the one holding the blindfold.
"Let's do it," I said.
