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“You knew it?”

“From hunting. Yes. It was close to her home and private.”

Gamache said nothing. They were almost there. Almost.

“It was summer. Dark. Hot. She was there when I arrived.”

“You had sex?”

“We made love.”

But that wasn’t the end. Not yet. Not even close.

“You confronted Tracey outside the bar in town,” said Gamache. “More than once.”

“Yes.” Cameron was defiant, still far from willing to admit it was wrong.

“You told him to stop hurting his wife.”

“Yes.”

“It didn’t work, of course. As she predicted, it only made it worse,” said Gamache.

“Yes.”

“When did your affair start?”

“Last July.”

“How often did you meet?”

“Every Saturday night. At midnight. By then Tracey was drunk and passed out.”

“And your wife? Didn’t she suspect?”

“I always took the Saturday-night shift at work. No one else wanted it. It was quiet, so I could get away.”

“Last Saturday night?”

“No, no, you don’t understand. I broke it off. In the fall.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t want to lose my family. My job.” He paused. “Have I lost them?”

“Why didn’t you tell us this?”

“I knew you suspected—”

“You knew because I came right out and asked, and you denied it.”

“Because I knew how it would look. And I knew I hadn’t killed her. Vivienne was gone. Carl Tracey killed her. Admitting the affair would just muddy things. Hurt the investigation.”

“You mean hurt you.”

“No.”

“She was calling you.” Gamache pushed. “You’d given her your private cell-phone number. You told her only to call in an emergency. And she hadn’t called. Hadn’t needed to, until that night. She told her husband she was going to meet her lover—”