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Gamache wondered if he should say something, but decided against it. There was no need to throw dirt on that idol. Yet.

“What was your question, Armand?”Advertisement

“The one Quint who was alone in the womb. Would that have made any difference once they were born?”

“What sort of difference?”

Gamache thought about that. What did he mean?

“Well, she would have looked like her sisters, but would she have been different in other ways?”

“It’s not my specialty,” Jérôme qualified, then answered anyway. “But I think it couldn’t help but affect her. Not necessarily in a bad way. It could make her more resilient and self-reliant. The others would have a natural affinity for the girl they shared the sac with. Being that close physically, physiologically for eight months, they couldn’t help but bond in ways that go beyond personality. But the girl who developed on her own? She might have been less dependent on the others. More independent.”

He went back to spreading jam on his toast.

“Or not,” said Gamache, and wondered what life would have been like for a perpetual outsider in a closed community. Would she have yearned for that bond? Seen their closeness, and felt left out?

Myrna had described Constance as lonely. Is this why? Had she been alone and lonely all her life, from before her first breath even?

Sold by her parents, excluded by her sisters. What would that do to a person? Could it twist her into something grotesque? Pleasant, smiling, the same as all the others on the outside, but hollow on the inside?

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Gamache had to remind himself that Constance was the victim, not a suspect. But he also remembered the police report on the first sister’s death. Virginie had fallen down the stairs. Or maybe, he thought, been pushed.

The sisters had entered into a conspiracy of silence. Myrna assumed it was in reaction to the extreme glare of publicity they’d suffered as children, but now Chief Inspector Gamache wondered if there was another reason for their silence. Something from within their own household, not from outside.

And yet, he had the impression that seventy-seven-year-old Constance was returning to Three Pines, to Myrna, and bringing with her not simply the only photo that existed of the grown-up girls, but also the story of what really happened in that home.

But Constance was killed before she could say anything.

“She’d have brought it on herself, of course,” said Jérôme.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, she killed her sister.”

Gamache gawked. How could Jérôme possibly know that, or know Gamache’s suspicions?

“The reason she was alone in the sac. There were almost certainly six of them, two to a sac, but the singleton would have killed and absorbed her twin,” Jérôme explained. “Happens all the time.”

“Why do you want to know all this, Armand?” Thérèse asked.

“There’s been no public announcement, but the last Quint, Constance Ouellet, was murdered two days ago. She was preparing to come down here, to Three Pines.”

“Here?” asked Jérôme. “Why?”

Gamache told them. He could tell, as he spoke, that this was more than another death to them, even more than another murder. There was an added weight to this tragedy, as though Thérèse and Jérôme had lost someone they knew and cared about.

“Hard to believe they’re all gone,” said Thérèse, then she thought about it. “But they never seemed completely real. They were like statues. Looked human but weren’t.”

“Myrna Landers said it was like finding out her friend was a unicorn, or a Greek goddess. Hera, come to earth.”

“An interesting thing to say,” said Thérèse. “But how did this get to be your case, Armand? Constance Ouellet was found in Montréal. It would be the jurisdiction of the Montréal police.”

“True, but Marc Brault handed it to me when he realized there was a connection.”

“Lucky you,” said Jérôme.

“Lucky all of us,” said Gamache. “If not for that, we wouldn’t be in this home.”

“Which brings us to another issue,” said Jérôme. “Now that we’re here, how are we going to get out?”

“The plan?” asked Gamache.

They nodded.

The Chief paused to gather his thoughts.

Jérôme knew now would be the time to tell them what he’d found. The name. He’d only just glimpsed it in the moment before he realized he’d been caught. In the moment before he’d run. Run away. Back down the virtual corridor. Slamming doors, erasing his trail. Running, running. pqdm.com