Page 3 of Nothing Hiding

The ledger was taunting her with its presence.

"You know I don't want to touch you or look at you again," she told it, as if it could actually hear her words.

But she had to.

Picking it up again, she pushed her honey blonde hair behind her ears, opened her laptop, and scooted into one of the surprisingly comfortable chairs. But she felt heavy inside with the unpleasantness and the fear about what was unfolding.

Juliette was almost relieved when her phone rang.

It was Lucien, her boyfriend.

As of last week, her long-distance boyfriend.

"Bonjour," she answered, making sure to have a smile in her voice, even though she felt so conflicted inside on so many levels. He’d been so busy since he’d left, and so had she, that they hadn’t spoken for days.

"Bonjour, Juliette," he said.

"How's Marseilles?" she asked, hating the words.

He sighed. "I'm sure you can imagine how it's been," he said. "Not easy. I'm missing you. And taking over a new police precinct, revising the protocols, looking at what can be improved—it's never easy. There’s always resistance and politics."

His voice was heavy, and she felt a pang inside. It was almost as if she were talking to a stranger. Damn, she was missing him. They'd only dated a couple of months, but he'd been an entertaining companion, a passionate, exciting presence in her life, and a tender lover to whom she'd opened up her body and her mind.

Okay, they'd also had a few arguments that had sent sparks flying! Especially at first, but also when either of them disagreed on something important. Juliette warned herself not to misremember.Keep it real,she reminded herself.

"I'm missing you, too," she admitted. "The apartment feels empty. The walk to work is very lonely on my own. Hopefully, we can see each other this weekend, if you're not too busy?"

He'd been offered the role—a minor promotion from his current job as a Paris based detective—of heading up an investigation unit in the south of France, based at Marseilles. Juliette knew he hadn't wanted to accept it, but for the sake of his career, turning it down would have meant stalling indefinitely. So, there hadn't been a choice. That was how it went with police work.

The phone crackled, the sound static for a moment, before his voice came through clear again. "I’m busy this weekend, the whole weekend. Got the national chief of police here because I wanted to revise some protocols. It’ll be the same the following weekend."

Precious time, bleeding away without any window of opportunity to see him. This wasn’t what she wanted.

"It's only a three-and-a-half-hour train ride," she emphasized, looking for the positives. "Through beautiful countryside. Even if it takes a few more weeks to get it right, I can’t wait to get that ticket and make the trip."

"A trip I look forward to making many times, if it means seeing you," he said, but she heard the flatness in his voice. Police work was unpredictable. Cases could annihilate weekends in minutes. The chance of having two or three uninterrupted days together was slim. Their daily walks to work had been so treasured, and now, they were gone.

"What are you busy with now?" he asked.

She sighed. She hadn’t wanted to confide in him about this, because it sounded as if he had a lot on his plate, but suddenly, she needed to share.

"I've been trying to piece together what happened after my dad’s murder. That's really why I wanted to get his belongings out of storage."

Lucien made a sympathetic noise. "Do you think you can find anything, with it being so long ago?"

Juliette sighed, reaching toward that book, picking it up, its cover now warm from the sun.

"I’ve found something. There's this ledger that was in his suit pocket. My dad always kept notes. This one was mostly finances, calculations, lists of expenses and payments."

"Go on?" Lucien sounded intrigued. Juliette could imagine him, his dark hair neatly cut, his lean, defined face serious.

"It goes back years and ends just a couple of days before he died. I guess it was packed up with his personal possessions and forgotten about. And there are entries in there that disturb me. And I've been researching them."

"Like what?" he asked.

"A diplomat should get his salary, right? And no other money coming in?"

"Maybe money from back home, if he had investments or interest being paid, rental income, or other businesses he was a part of?" Lucien asked doubtfully.

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