A Better Man (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #15)(44)

“I don’t want a receipt. I want the bag.”

“You’re coming with us,” said Beauvoir, and shoved him toward the car as they all trudged across the field. Leaving the backhoe to sink further into the mire.

When they reached the car, Beauvoir placed the duffel bag in the trunk, and Gamache, having removed the bullets, put the .22 back there, too.

Tracey stood beside the car.

“Get in,” said Gamache.

When Beauvoir went to get in beside him, Gamache held out the keys.

“Why don’t you drive? Can you get in the front seat?” he asked Reine-Marie, who’d stopped recording and slipped the phone into her pocket.

Gamache and Billy got into the backseat, with Tracey between them.

“She isn’t dead, you know. She’s messing with you all. Trying to get me into trouble. I bet she threw that fucking bag into the river herself. You wait. When she shows up, after a bender with some guy, I’ll be suing your ass.”

“Let’s hope,” said Gamache.

Beauvoir drove while Billy pointed the way to the old logging road.

They came to little more than a break in the trees. Turning in, Beauvoir felt the tires begin to sink. “We have to walk from here.”

The five of them followed the flashlight beams down the narrow lane through the trees.

The limbs of the trees loomed overhead, a tunnel of dead branches. Their flashlights created shadows so macabre that even Beauvoir, not given to fantasy, felt his skin crawl. This was how horror films began. Or ended.

And then it got worse.

Beauvoir’s stronger beam landed on something up ahead. Blocking the way. A car.

“Stay here,” Gamache said to the others while he and Jean-Guy approached.

It was Vivienne’s.

Gamache nodded to Beauvoir, who carefully walked around to the other side and shone his light through the rear window while Gamache looked in the front.

Nothing.

Opening the driver’s door, careful not to touch too much, Gamache played his light over the seat. The wheel. The footwells. There were assorted wrappers, some change. It smelled of stale cigarette smoke. He checked the ashtray and found stubs.

The same brand Tracey smoked.

There was a smear of blood on the steering wheel and another in the shift. The hair on the back of Gamache’s neck was standing on end. Something awful had happened here.

He pulled a lever and popped the trunk.

“Nothing,” Beauvoir reported.

Gamache closed the car door, and both investigators made for the wooden bridge.

“Don’t worry,” shouted Tracey. “It’s safe.”

“No it’s not,” called Billy. “It’s probably rotten.”

Beauvoir reached out and stopped Gamache, who was just about to step on the wooden boards. Armand had heard Billy but hadn’t understood.

Beauvoir turned and glared at Tracey, who was smiling.

“Worth a try,” Tracey said, his eyes cold. Calculating.

Reine-Marie took a step away from this creature while Beauvoir wondered if all five of them would make it out of the woods.

From the safety of solid ground, Gamache and Beauvoir shone their beams along the old logging bridge. Then stopped. The two circles of light converged on a single spot.

A section of wooden handrail was missing. The side opened up to thin air.

Gamache pointed his beam down. Into the drop-off. Twenty feet below, maybe more, was the churning river. Grabbing, dragging, swallowing all that it could.

They played their lights over both shores, but there was nothing. Then Beauvoir’s beam stopped.

“Wait, I think I see something.”

Gamache swung his flashlight over to the far shore.

“What is it?” called Reine-Marie. “Have you found something?”

“No, it’s nothing,” said Beauvoir, relieved. “Just branches. They looked like a body for a moment.”

He moved his flashlight away. “We can’t search the bridge or shoreline right now. Too dangerous. It’ll have to wait ’til morning.”

But Gamache’s light hadn’t moved. In the beam, he saw what Beauvoir had seen. Tree branches, bobbing slightly in the current. Nothing more.

He could see why Beauvoir would mistake—

Opening his mouth, Gamache took a sharp breath, almost a gasp.

“What is it?” asked Beauvoir. “Do you see something?”

Once more he swung his light over, to join Gamache’s, until the two became one bright spot.

Beauvoir looked more closely at the clump of debris on the opposite bank. But still saw nothing. Certainly not anything that would explain the expression on his father-in-law’s face.

It was one of surprise. Shock, even.

“Vivienne’s not here,” Gamache said, then looked at Beauvoir. “But I think I know where she is.”





CHAPTER SIXTEEN


The two men ran along the path, the river on one side, the forest on the other.

Jean-Guy skidded once and went down on one knee in the mud. Armand grabbed his jacket and hauled him to his feet.

And then they continued on. Their flashlights bobbing wildly ahead of them, illuminating trees, path, rocks, river.

They didn’t have far to go. Just to the bend in the river.

When they’d arrived back in Three Pines, they’d taken Carl Tracey to the bistro, where they found Olivier and Gabri, now that the danger of flooding had passed.