Page 141 of Where the Snakes Sleep

I let out a breath. “She gave it to him.”

Camille does not answer.

There are more.

A lot more.

Not hundreds, but enough that opening the case becomes an excavation through the final years of a place that existed before I knew any of these people had names.

Some photographs are ordinary—staff dinners, workbenches, people standing beside greenhouses or outside stone buildings with handwritten dates along the bottom. Henri appears repeatedly. Alberte appears less often, usually half turned away from the camera or standing close enough to Henri that, now that I know what they were to each other, the intimacy becomes obvious.

There are pictures of animals too, as well as crates and transportation documents photographed beside containers.

A few images are clearly meant as evidence rather than memories, the framing pretty blunt, capturing identification numbers, handwritten labels, and paperwork that I cannot understand but Camille apparently can because his face becomes harder with each one.

One photograph makes him curse quietly in French.

“What?” I ask.

He turns it toward me. “Transfer documentation. The destination listed here does not match the institution marked on the container.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning someone wanted the paper trail to say one thing while the physical material went somewhere else.”

Eventually, underneath the photographs, we find a folded sheet of paper protected inside a clear sleeve. It is not a letter, exactly. More like a list written in Alberte’s hand of dates, abbreviated names, numbers, and fragments that mean nothing to me but make Camille lean closer.

I stiffen when his shoulder nearly brushes mine. When he notices and leans back to put more space between us, it hurts.

Which is stupid, because I’m the one who wanted space. I’m the one who literally demanded space.

I try to focus on the paper rather than my feelings and ask, “What is it?”

“I think these correspond to files.”

“On the USB?”

“Possibly.”

Near the bottom of the page, Alberte has written one line separately from the rest.

Ce qui nous a sauvés n’était jamais un lieu. C’était l’idée d’un autre.

I stare at it. “What does that say?”

Camille’s eyes remain on the handwriting. “What saved us was never a place. It was the idea of another one.”

“Well, that’s cryptic as shit.”

“Yes.”

“Very Alberte-chic.”

“I am beginning to understand that.”

There is another line beneath it, smaller.

Virginia est pour les amoureux.