“What is it?” Gamache asked, seeing the look of concentration on Myrna’s face.
“I was just thinking about what Clara said, and she’s right. I think Constance was happy here, I think she genuinely felt comfortable with everyone, even Ruth.”
“What does that tell you?” Gamache asked.
Myrna thought. “I wonder…”
She stared across the room, out the window, to the pines lit for Christmas. The bulbs bobbed in the night breeze.
“I wonder if she was finally opening up,” said Myrna, bringing her gaze back to her guests. “I hadn’t thought about it, but she seemed less guarded, more genuine, especially as the days went on.”
“She wouldn’t let me paint her portrait,” said Clara.
Myrna smiled. “But that’s understandable, don’t you think? It was the very thing she and her sisters most feared. Being put on display.”
“But I didn’t know who she was then,” said Clara.
“Wouldn’t matter. She knew,” said Myrna. “But I think by the time she left, she felt safe here, whether her secret was out or not.”
“And was her secret out?” Gamache asked.
“I didn’t tell,” said Myrna.
Gamache looked at the magazine on the footstool. A very old copy of Life, and on the cover a famous photo.
“And yet you obviously knew who she was,” he said to Clara.
“I told Clara this afternoon,” Myrna explained. “When I began to accept that Constance would probably never show up.”
“And no one else knew?” he repeated, picking up the magazine and staring at the picture. One he’d seen many times before. Five little girls, in muffs and pretty little winter coats. Identical coats. Identical girls.
“Not that I know of,” said Myrna.
And once again, Gamache wondered if the man who’d killed Constance knew who she was, and realized he was killing the last of her kind. The last of the Ouellet quintuplets.
NINE
Armand stepped outside into the cold, crisp night. The snow had long since stopped and the sky had cleared. It was just past midnight, and as he stood there, taking deep breaths of the clean air, the lights on the trees went out.
The Chief Inspector and Henri were the lone creatures in a dark world. He looked up, and slowly the stars appeared. Orion’s Belt. The Big Dipper. The North Star. And millions and millions of other lights. All very, very clear now, and only now. The light only visible in the dark.
Gamache found himself uncertain what to do and where to go. He could return to Montréal, though he was tired and would rather not, but he hadn’t made any arrangements to stay at the B and B, preferring to go straight to Myrna. And now it was past midnight and all the lights were out at the B and B. He could only just make out the outline of the former coach inn against the forest beyond.
But as he watched, a light, softened by curtains, appeared at an upstairs window. And then, a few moments later, another downstairs. Then he saw a light through the window in the front door, just before it opened. A large man stood silhouetted on the threshold.
“Come here, boy, come here,” the voice called, and Henri tugged at the leash.
Gamache dropped it and the shepherd took off along the path, up the stairs and into Gabri’s arms.
When Gamache arrived, Gabri struggled to his feet.
“Good boy.” He embraced the Chief Inspector. “Get inside. I’m freezing my ass off. Not that it couldn’t use it.”
“How’d you know we were here?”
“Myrna called. She thought you might need a room.” He regarded his unexpected guest. “You do want to stay, don’t you?”
“Very much,” said the Chief, and had rarely meant anything more.
Gabri closed the door behind them.
* * *
Jean-Guy Beauvoir sat in his car and stared at the closed door. He was slumped down. Not so far as to disappear completely, but far enough to make it look like he was trying to be discreet. It was calculated and, somewhere below the haze, he knew it was also pathetic.
But he didn’t care anymore. He just wanted Annie to look out her window. To recognize his car. To see him there. To open the door.
He wanted …
He wanted …
He wanted to feel her in his arms again. To smell her scent. He wanted her to whisper, “It’ll be all right.”
Most of all, he wanted to believe it.
* * *
“Myrna told us that Constance was missing,” said Gabri, reaching for a hanger for Gamache’s coat. He took the parka from the Chief and paused. “Are you here about her?”
