For a week, Étienne followed Valérie. He photographed her leaving her house. In an alley behind the train station. In a supermarket parking lot. Then, with a nervous man in a black jacket, to whom she gave money in exchange for a small handbag.
But that still wasn’t enough.
She also had to prove to Elias what she had done.
Then my son remembered Julien Morel, a friend who had been on the yacht that evening.
“Julien had a drone,” Elias said. “He was filming everything constantly.”
We found Julien at his architecture studio in Nantes. When he saw Elias enter the office alive, he turned pale, as if looking at a ghost. Then he cried. For a long time. Repeating that he never stopped blaming himself for not seeing anything.
He searched through old hard drives, forgotten archives, files organized by year.
After an hour, he found the recording.
A bird’s-eye view of the yacht. The upper deck. Music. Laughter. Champagne glasses. Then two figures walking away from the group. An argument. A sudden movement.
And then…
My son’s body falls into the void.
Push.
No accident. No dizziness. No mistake.
Pushed by a woman who, after seeing him disappear into the dark water, simply fixed her hair before returning to her guests.
Julien covered his mouth with both hands.
“Oh God… it’s Valérie…”
I didn’t even scream.
