Page 213

She was breathing heavily, the muzzle of the rifle lifting and falling with each breath. But she was so close to Vincent Gilbert she couldn’t miss. It was just a question of inhale or exhale. Chest or head.

“Your father made a copy of his suicide note.”

“So? You found the original at Colette’s.” She kept her eyes on Gilbert. “You’ve read it.”

“But Debbie hadn’t. I don’t think you wanted her to.”

Now Abigail’s eyes darted to Gamache. “Yes, she did. At the cottage, when Colette gave it to me.”

“You read it, Abby,” said Colette, taking a small step forward. “And you told Debbie what was in it, but she never actually read it.”

“How could it matter? What more was there?”

“A great deal more,” said Gamache, his voice calm. Calming. “I think she found the copy of the letter among your father’s things when she was helping you clear them out. It was probably in his agenda along with this.” He nodded to Lacoste, who placed the old photograph on the table, then backed away.

Abigail glanced at it. “How can any of this matter? Gilbert killed Debbie to get back the letter that he wrote Dad. He did it to protect himself. This has nothing to do with what Dad did. With what happened to Maria.”

“It has everything to do with it,” said Gamache. “When Debbie read the suicide note your father left, she realized it wasn’t quite the same as you’d said. Inspector Lacoste saw it too. She pointed out that Paul Robinson never actually confesses to killing Maria.”

“He does,” said Abigail. “He says it. He did it for me. So I wouldn’t have to look after Maria for the rest of my life. So that I could go away to university, do my research. He did it for her too. To free her too. And then he killed himself, to free himself of the guilt. And yes, whether he meant to or not, he put that guilt on me. Do you know what that did to me?”

“It made you write a report on the pandemic that suggested euthanizing the frail and vulnerable,” said Gamache. “It made what happened to your sister no longer murder, but a mercy killing.”

“That’s a lie.” Her voice rose higher, strained, her breathing heavier now, more rapid.

Chest, head. Chest, head.

If Gamache had come to the cabin looking for emotion, he’d found it.

“But suppose your father didn’t kill Maria,” he said.

“What do you mean?” asked Abigail.

“Why would he confess to a murder, to killing his own daughter, for God’s sake,” said Haniya, “if it wasn’t true?”

“Ahhhh,” said Gamache. “And that’s where we come to it. You might be here for your own reasons, but that’s why we’re here. To answer that question.”

“Answer it if you want, if you can. But it’s too late,” said Abigail. “Too much damage done. The only truth that matters is that he”—she shoved the rifle toward Gilbert—“helped Cameron kill my mother, my sister, my father. And now he’s killed Debbie. It stops here. Now. Nothing else matters.”

She hiked the rifle up.

Gilbert took a step back and stumbled on the chair behind him, while Beauvoir warned Abigail. “Don’t!”

“Your father’s letter wasn’t written out of guilt,” said Gamache, taking a small step forward. His voice was soft, almost mesmerizing. “It was love.”

He could see her hesitating.

“It was love,” Gamache repeated, his voice dropping, forcing her to listen. “He didn’t kill Maria. The letter was to you, always to you. He didn’t want you to be alone, to be afraid, when you read it. That’s why he sent it to someone he knew he could trust. With his life and with yours.”

Gamache glanced at Colette, who gave a small nod of acknowledgment.

“When your father got home from the conference that day,” he continued, “Maria was already dead, wasn’t she? He could see she’d been smothered. He knew it could only have been you or Debbie. I think he had to assume the worst.”

“The worst?” asked Haniya. She looked at Abigail. “You? You killed your sister?”

Colette shook her head. “No, she didn’t. But Paul had to assume she had, in case it was true. So he covered it up. And took the blame.”

Jean-Guy tried to keep his focus on Abigail. Tried to erase an image that would never completely go away. Of Paul Robinson hurriedly making the peanut butter sandwich, while one daughter called for help and the other lay dead. And then, picking up the sandwich, he . . .