(Isobel's Point Of View)
I couldn't sleep.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the photos from Julien's folder. The birthmark. The scar. The way both men stood with their weight on the left leg. The images replayed like a skip in a record, a single, jagged groove I couldn't smooth.
At three in the morning, I gave up and opened my laptop.
If Etienne was Alexander, there would be proof. Real proof. Not just Julien's conspiracy theories.
The screen's pale light felt too intimate in the dark. My fingers hesitated above the keys, then began to move—search after search, each one a small incision into the past. I started with the obvious: Alexander's death certificate.
It took twenty minutes of scrubbing through archives and civic records before I found it. Cause of death: helicopter crash. But at the bottom, in small, indifferent print: Body not recovered.
