JA: What do you mean?
EW: What you hear. Vera asked us for help. She was lucky to ask me, because I knew her. She and I have always… had our disagreements. We competed a lot, I mean. She’s very smart. So am I. (Pause.) Maybe it was just selfishness on my part, you know? I didn’t want Vera to get better grades than me for having falsified her report cards. So, I didn’t, not even once.
JA: You didn’t falsify Vera Rodríguez’s file?
EW: No, I didn’t. My colleagues didn’t, either; I made sure of it.
JA: You yourself said that you had done it, Laurent—
EW: Enzo, please.
JA: I’m sorry. Enzo. You sent the real one to Vera by mail along with the stolen money, and you also sent it to André Saidi, if I’m not mistaken.
EW: You’re wrong. I sent them a fake one. Vera Rodriguez has never been a client of the Counterfeiter, even if she thinks she was. Try to prove otherwise.
Chapter 44
I can’t believe it. Idon’tbelieve it.
“Is this a joke?” I say, my voice catching in my throat.
André glances at his watch, and I do the same. It’s almost noon.
“I thought you might like to see for yourself.” He sets his cell phone on the table, right on top of Antonia’s dossier, his tone steady as he speaks.
I fixate on the phone, my pulse quickening. Then, my eyes lift to meet my former boss.
“Really?”
He nods, his expression unreadable.
“Enzo will call in about… ten minutes. You’ll have five minutes to talk.”
“Five?” I ask. I have a feeling that his voice sounds far away. André mistakes my question for scepticism and shrugs.
“Prison rules.”
I’m going to talk to Enzo Woods.
The last time I saw him was over a month ago, at the trial against the Counterfeiter, and the last time I spoke to him was at his mansion in Bordeaux, after discovering that he had been deceiving and using me all this time.
Enzo Woods, who, according to what André has just shown me, has testified in my favour. He has cleared me of the charges against me as a client of the Counterfeiter.
Enzo has lied to the police. I know that my file is false. I know this because I sat those exams, I spoke to the teachers, I paid what I owed… to the Counterfeiter, to Enzo himself.
I don’t understand it. Everything that’s happened in the last few weeks—okay, not everything that’s happened, everything that’s happened tome—has been Enzo’s fault. Why did he bother to play with me and then take my side?
“I’ll let you have some…,” André says, getting up from his chair, “privacy.”
I’m about to grab him by the sleeve, like a little girl, and beg him to stay with me while I talk to Enzo. Instead, I thank him, and André leaves my apartment. I wait for the phone to ring—it’s André’s work cell phone, the only number theprison warden has allowed on Enzo’s contact list. I don’t know what I’m going to say to him. I don’t know what I want to hear.
My heart skips a beat when the phone rings. My hand hovers over the phone, fingers hesitating just before I swipe green.
“Hello?” I let out, breathless.
“Vera.”
My name sounds like a smile on his mouth.
