Chapter 4
The passports created a second problem.
Elodie’s was real.
Sabine had taken it from the locked family document cabinet.
Security footage showed her entering Cassian’s study the previous afternoon.
She had legitimate access to the room.
She did not have permission to take Elodie’s passport.
More disturbing was the travel-consent form Rebecca found inside Sabine’s handbag.
It appeared to authorize Sabine to take Elodie internationally for two weeks.
Cassian’s signature was at the bottom.
He had never signed it.
A forensic document examiner compared it with older family travel forms.
The signature image had been copied from a consent Cassian signed eight months earlier when Elodie traveled to New York with her nanny.
The notary section was incomplete.
Whoever prepared the document had not finished making it usable.
Rebecca looked at the dates.
“They were rushing.”
Cassian glanced at the canceled wedding schedule on his phone.
“Why before the wedding?”
“That may be exactly why.”
Once Sabine married Cassian, her movements would be more visible.
Security protocols would change.
Her travel would be coordinated through Cassian’s staff.
Right now she was still an independent adult with her own residence, accounts, and travel habits.
The wedding weekend created chaos.
Guests everywhere.
Vehicles moving constantly.
Private aircraft arriving and departing.
People assumed luggage belonged wherever it was going.
The moment was ideal.
Cassian’s head of security, Michael Hart, looked ashamed when he explained how Sabine reached the hangar without challenge.
“She was your fiancée.”
“She isn’t anymore.”
“I know.”
“No.”
Cassian kept his voice calm.
“You need to understand the problem. You didn’t verify because you thought her relationship to me was verification.”
Michael nodded.
Cassian ordered a full security review.
No family title would ever again substitute for confirmed authorization involving Elodie.
That afternoon Elodie’s child therapist asked permission to share one sentence from their session.
Cassian agreed.
Elodie said Sabine had told her:
“We’re going somewhere Mommy went.”
Cassian felt cold.
The therapist emphasized that Elodie was three.
Her language could be imprecise.
Nobody should build an entire case around one sentence.
Cassian agreed.
But the sentence matched Halifax.
Claire had gone there.
Sabine knew that.
Adrian knew that.
Now they were taking Elodie there.
And they had hidden the child from the flight manifest.
Rebecca closed the travel file.
“I think we need to stop asking only where they were going.”
Cassian looked at her.
May you like
“What else?”
“Ask what they expected to happen after they landed.”
