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If this was the start, Armand Gamache was even more anxious to know where the smiles led.

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Reine-Marie was smiling.

Gamache had shown her the parade of tiny lips. It had taken her a moment to actually recognize what they were, but he knew the moment it clicked.

Her own lips curled into a grin. Then into a full-blown smile.

“How could I have missed it, Armand?” She turned to him, then back to the painting.

“I missed it too. It was Jean-Guy who found them.”

“Merci,” she said to her son-in-law, who bowed slightly in acknowledgment. She wondered if he realized that was one of Armand’s mannerisms.

While Reine-Marie turned back to the painting, Gamache turned his attention to the other two canvases on the floor. Clara was staring down at them.

“Anything?” he asked.

She shook her head, then leaned closer to the paintings. Then stepped back.

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Was there something in those pictures like the lips? An image, an emotion Peter had embedded there, waiting to be discovered, like a country or planet or strange new species.

If there was, neither Gamache nor Clara could see it.

Gamache sensed eyes on him and assumed they were Beauvoir’s, but the younger man was busy making sandwiches in the kitchen.

Reine-Marie was still smiling down at the lip painting. Clara was examining the other two canvases.

And Myrna was examining him.

She led him away from the others.

“Is this too much, Armand?”

“What do you mean?”

She gave him a shrewd look and he grinned.

“You noticed the little exchange with Beauvoir.”

“I did.” She studied him for a moment. “Clara would understand if you told her you needed to stop.”

“Stop?” He looked at her with astonishment. “Why would I do that?”

“Why did you snap at Beauvoir just now?”

“He was standing on a chair. An old pine chair. It could’ve broken.”

“‘It’ could’ve broken?”

“Oh, come on.” Gamache laughed. “Don’t you think you’re reading more into this than it deserves? I was momentarily angry with Jean-Guy and showed it. Point final. No big deal. Drop it.”

His voice, on the last two words, had hardened. And his eyes contained a warning. Do not cross this line.

“Life is made up of ‘no big deals,’” said Myrna, crossing the line. “You know that. Isn’t that what you say about murders? They’re rarely provoked by one huge event, but by a series of tiny, almost invisible, events. No big deals, that combine to create a catastrophe.”

“What’s your point?” His eyes hadn’t wavered.

“You know my point. I’d be a fool to ignore what just happened. And so would you. It was, on the surface, a small thing. He got up on a chair, you chastised him. He got off. And if I didn’t know you, didn’t know what had happened, I would’ve thought nothing of it. But I do know you. And I know Jean-Guy. And I know that ‘broken’ means more to you, and him, than to most people.”

They stared at each other, Gamache not relenting. Not accepting that Myrna could be right.

“It’s just a chair,” he said, his voice low but not soft.

Myrna nodded. “But it’s not just a man. It’s Jean-Guy.”

“If the chair had broken he wouldn’t have been hurt,” said Gamache. “He was a foot and a half off the ground.”

“I know that. You know that,” said Myrna. “But it’s no longer a matter of knowing, is it? If life was purely rational there’d be fewer wars, or poverty, or crime. Or murders. Fewer things would be broken. Your reaction wasn’t rational, Armand.”

Gamache was silent.

She looked at him closely. “Is this too much?”

“Too much? Do you have any idea what I’ve seen? And done?”

“I have an idea,” she said.

“I don’t think you have.” He stared at her and a wave of images washed over Myrna. Of mangled bodies. Of glassy eyes. Of harrowing scenes. Of the very worst one person can do to another.

And it had been his job to follow the bloody trail. Into the cave. To face whatever was in there.

And then to do it again. And again.

The miracle wasn’t that the killer was caught, but that the man before her had kept his own humanity throughout it all. Even after he himself had been dragged into the cave. And so deeply hurt.

And now he was offering to get up and help once again.

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