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Reine-Marie went across to the Marché des Enfants Rouges to get food for that evening, while Daniel and Roslyn took the girls home for ice cream.

Annie walked with Honoré back to their apartment, for a nap.

“Coming?” she asked Jean-Guy.

“Do you mind if I speak to your father?”

“Not at all. Don’t forget the key.”

“The key,” Jean-Guy said as he and Armand flagged down a taxi, “is a box of mille-feuilles. I’m not allowed in without them.”

Armand smiled. With Reine-Marie, it had been spicy sausage pizza.

“Hôtel Lutetia, s’il vous plaît,” he told the driver and closed the glass partition between them.

It was the first chance they’d had to be alone since Jean-Guy’s visit to his office at GHS Engineering.

“What did you find out?”

“Well?” said Claude Dussault. “What did you find out?”

“Nothing concrete, sir,” said Fontaine over the phone.

Dussault could hear it in her voice. The hesitation. “But?”

“But I think Monsieur Gamache has suspicions. He was courteous, but I don’t think he was completely open.”

“I see. How did he react to the file on Stephen Horowitz?”

“Angrily. It shifted the focus, as you predicted.”

“Good. Maybe he’ll focus on that and not so much on the investigation.”

“He did ask to see the box. I told him I didn’t have it. Why can’t you just tell him to back off, patron?”

“I tried. Didn’t work. Besides, best if we can keep an eye on him. I’m going to their place for dinner. I might find out more.”

After he hung up, Dussault sat back and considered. He’d initially been annoyed at Monique for accepting the invitation to the Gamaches’ for dinner that night. It would, at the very least, be awkward.

Now he thought it might be a good idea.

CHAPTER 20

Gamache sat in the back seat of the taxi and looked down at the printout Beauvoir had given to him.

The Luxembourg funicular project. There was a schematic and all sorts of technical language Gamache could not begin to understand.

Taking off his reading glasses, he looked at Jean-Guy. “Do you have any idea who was erasing all those emails and progress reports?”

“No, but obviously it was someone familiar with the system.”

“It at least confirms that GHS has something to hide. I wish we knew what was in those messages.”

Beauvoir smiled and hit play on his iPhone.

Both squinted in concentration as the video he’d taken at GHS came on.

“The emails?” Armand asked.