Page 167

But you don’t kill your best friend because she was letting something inconvenient slip out, something that anyone who went looking could find easily enough. Maria Robinson was no family shame locked away in an attic. Plenty of people in the community knew about her.

No, there was a secret, but it wasn’t Maria’s life. It was her death.

Was that it? Was that the secret Abigail was desperate to hide? That her beloved father was a murderer? And with each mention of Abby Maria, Debbie was inadvertently revealing it?

What would happen if the media began digging? Got hold of Maria’s death certificate. Saw that one word.

Petechiae.

And started asking questions. About her father. About what had really happened.

Lost in thought, lost in the cave, Gamache felt something slide across his face. And he suddenly remembered where he really was.

His eyes flew open, half expecting to come face-to-face with a snake.

But all he saw were pipes. And a cord hanging from a lightbulb in the ceiling. His heart thumping, he dropped his head and caught his breath and stared at the rough wall in front of him. And it stared back. Taunting him. Mocking him. The Old Hadley House seemed to be asking which of them was really trapped.

He turned away and tried to remember what he’d been thinking.

Was it about Colette? No. Not really. Maybe.

Striding back down the long room, he grabbed his coat. “I need some air.”

As he made his way outside, Armand tried to find that thread of a thought.

The sun hit his face, and he turned to it, taking a deep breath of the crisp, fresh air. Up from the village came the sound of children laughing. From the brow of the hill, he heard screams, as toboggans were launched.

And on those rapturous cries he found it. What he’d been thinking. Abby Maria.

The one sister freed of her torment. The other freed to live her life.

The thread was tenuous. Thin and frayed. Armand had the sense that if he pulled too hard, or too soon, it would fall apart.

But if he was very, very careful, the other end could be tied to a killer.

Chapter 39

Reine-Marie and Haniya shared a box while Susan and James Horton each had their own.

They sat in the living room of the Horton home, surrounded by packing crates and newspaper and tape.

“I should have brought this back sooner,” Reine-Marie confessed, placing her hand on the file box filled with their mother’s things. “But to be honest, I was curious.”

“About the monkeys,” said Susan. “We opened the boxes you left, and James looked at the side of Mommy’s bed.”

Her brother was quiet. And quietly seething.

Did he know? Reine-Marie wondered. Was he old enough to remember his mother before, and his mother after?

Did he know what was in the box in front of them? The family secret that had somehow, as secrets often did, morphed into a shame.

“Why did she do that?” asked Susan. “Why draw monkeys? Even when she was dying? I don’t understand.”

Haniya Daoud shifted, trying to get more comfortable. But to do that, she was nudging Reine-Marie closer to the edge.

She’d introduced Haniya, but hadn’t explained who she was. It seemed, by his expression, that James vaguely recognized her, but couldn’t quite place her.

Susan, though, just stared at her. Unable, it seemed, to see beyond the disfigurement.