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Since silence was already broken, Jean-Guy decided to make one more call.

As soon as he heard Annie’s voice, he relaxed. Until that moment, he had no idea how tense he’d become.

“Everything all right?” he asked.

“Just fine. Honoré and the girls have had their dinner and baths, and we’re just tucking them in. Did you know Great-Aunt Ruth has taught him a song?”

“Oh, God, what now?”

Their son’s very first word hadn’t been “Mama” or “Papa,” or “milk,” or “please.”

Thanks to Great-Aunt Ruth and her duck Rosa, Honoré’s first word had been “fuck.” Which he’d screamed, loud and clear. In the middle of a party. Repeatedly.

Annie and Jean-Guy had tried to explain that he was actually saying “duck,” but his enunciation was so perfect no one believed that.

Honoré adored Great-Aunt Ruth and her duck Rosa and absorbed anything they chose to imprint.

“Here, listen,” said Annie and held the phone out.

In a clear, high voice, their son was singing, “What do you do with a drunken sailor?”

“A sea shanty? Jesus,” sighed Jean-Guy. “Still, he can hold a tune.”

“Yes, that’s the thing to focus on.”

“You’re all right?” he repeated.

“Yes.”

A few minutes earlier she’d felt a twinge. It was, she told herself, indigestion. Though in her heart, and slightly further down, she knew it wasn’t that.

She could feel panic rising, but she wouldn’t say anything to him. Not yet. Not until she was sure.

“I’ll tell you more when I see you,” Jean-Guy was saying.

“Come home when you can,” she said. Soon. Soon.

As he said goodbye he heard, in the background, “Way, hey, and up she rises …”

“No need to take off your coat,” said Armand, as they entered the apartment. “We aren’t staying long.”

“Long enough for me to use the facilities?” Madame Arbour asked, her voice brusque. Clearly not used to being lugged all over the city like a sack of occasionally intelligent potatoes.

“Oui. Certainement,” he said. “It’s just off the bedroom.”

When she left, he went over to the box from the hospital. It was still where they’d left it the night before, sitting beside the armchair in the living room. Taking the top off, he looked in.

And jerked back in surprise.

Something had been added. Even covered in a cloth he knew what it was.

He unwrapped the gun, careful not to get his prints on it. Was this the weapon that had killed Alexander Plessner? Was he being set up now?

He smelled the muzzle. It had not been fired recently, but that meant nothing.

Using a handkerchief, he released the magazine.

It was fully loaded. But …