Francis’s death almost destroyed me. My heart exploded. I thought I was dying. As I rode in the back of the ambulance on the way to the hospital, part of me wanted to let go, to be with Francis, but some unknown force kept me clinging to life.

I had to fight to protect my son. I might have lost Francis, but I was determined not to lose Thomas.

I would have to finish the job, and I knew this meant I would have to kill whoever was threatening my son’s future. And make that person pay for murdering the only man I had ever loved.

When I was discharged from the hospital, I combed through my memories. I carried out my own investigation, determined to find out who had come looking for revenge after all these years. A revenge that was brutal, ruthless, and terrifying. Although I’m not a young woman anymore, I still have my wits about me. But even though I devoted all my time to searching for answers, I could not find the slightest lead. All the people who might have wanted revenge were old or dead. Something was disrupting the peaceful running of our lives and threatening to derail them. It was clear that Vinca had taken a secret to her grave. And now a secret we did not even know existed had suddenly resurfaced, trailing death in its wake.

I conducted exhaustive searches but found nothing. Until, earlier today, when Thomas dragged all his old things up from the basement and spread them out on the kitchen table. Suddenly, it was staring me in the face. I felt like sobbing with rage. The truth had been right there in front of our eyes all the time, shrouded by a single detail that none of us had been able to understand.

A detail that changed everything.

*  *  *

It is still light as I arrive at Cap d’Antibes. I pull up in front of a house overlooking the boulevard de Bacon, a house whose whitewashed façade gives little sense of the sheer size of the residence. I leave the car double-parked and press the entry-phone button. A gardener trimming hedges tells me that the person I am looking for has taken the dogs for a walk along the sentier de Tire-Poil.

I drive a few kilometers farther, to the parking lot at Keller Beach. The place is utterly deserted. I open the trunk and take out the rifle I “borrowed” from Richard.

To steel myself, I think back to the Sunday-morning hunting trips I used to take with my adoptive father. I loved going with him, even though we didn’t talk much; those shared moments meant much more than long conversations. I think fondly of Butch, our Irish setter, always snuffling for partridges, woodcocks, and hares. There was no hunting dog like him for flushing out game so that we could shoot.