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Why had he? There’d been no reason. Chief Inspector Gamache hadn’t even been to the scene of the murder yet. There was no evidence housed down in the basement of the detachment. Only a surly young agent, discarded and forgotten.

And yet, Armand Gamache had.

Because he had to. Because, Annie Gamache knew, it was fated.

From the bedroom window, Jean-Guy watched their five-year-old son pause, look both ways, then run across the dirt road and onto the village green, where a bunch of boys and girls were kicking a soccer ball. The skinny boy gave every appearance of being impetuous, even reckless, while in fact being quite cautious. Not fearful, but careful.

He was like his father that way. Filled with piss and vinegar and caution.

An elderly woman and a duck watched the children from a nearby bench. Honoré ran up, gave them both a quick kiss, then turned and tackled another kid.

Even from the open window of his in-laws’ home, Jean-Guy could hear their shrieks of laughter.

Ruth, watching from the bench, shook her head in mock disapproval, then took a swig from a mug of what might contain coffee, though no one would bet on it.

Despite the laughter and fresh sunshine and the promise of warmth in the young June morning, Jean-Guy rubbed his hands together and drew his elbows into his sides.

The memory of that November morning by the forlorn lake had called up a chill. A cold that had settled into his bones, into his marrow, all those years ago had never really left.

But it wasn’t just the past that had resurrected the chill. It was the present, what was going to happen on this shiny day. So many years later.

“There’s always another story,” whispered Jean-Guy. “There’s more than meets the eye.”

His gaze shifted from the children and the poet to the solitary man walking around the perimeter of the village green. As a guard might. Not to keep criminals in. But to keep those inside safe from an outside world that could not always be trusted. But the truth was, this man, who had no business or reason to trust, actually did.

Jean-Guy knew that, as head of homicide for Québec, his father-in-law had seen things no human should witness. Day in. Day out. The corpses had piled up. Armand Gamache had seen the worst that people could do. Acts that would harden most hearts and turn a good person cynical, despairing, and finally not caring.

And yet Gamache seemed impervious, almost blind, to the horrors, even while investigating them.

When Jean-Guy, as his second-in-command, had finally pointed out the dangers his blindness posed to his team, to the citizens he’d sworn to protect, the Chief had sat him down. Leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his fingers intertwined, Gamache had explained.

Yes, Jean-Guy was right. He’d seen the worst, truly terrible things. They both had. But he’d also seen the best. They both had.

He held the younger man’s eyes, inviting him to set aside for a moment the great brutality that existed and to remember the acts of greater courage. Of integrity and decency. Of self-control.

Of forgiveness.

Not by moral giants, not performed by superhumans. These were men and women of human size and proportion. Some were cops. Many were not.

What blinded us, he told Beauvoir, were the horrific acts. They threatened to overwhelm and obscure the decency. It was so easy to remember the cruelty because those left a wound, a scab that hid the rest. Hid the best. But those appalling acts, those appalling people, were the exception.

“You need to remember that, Jean-Guy. The blindness you mention isn’t believing in the essential goodness of people, it’s failing to see it.”

Jean-Guy Beauvoir listened and nodded but wasn’t convinced. Which wasn’t to say he thought the Chief was soft. Anything but.

Gamache was clearheaded, even ruthless when necessary.

While he hated guns and didn’t wear one in the normal course of his day, Gamache did not hesitate to use the weapon. When necessary. Aiming and firing with an astonishing precision for someone who loathed firearms.

Ghosts followed the Chief Inspector, haunting him even on this bright June morning. And yet, for all that, Armand Gamache remained a hopeful, even happy, man.

He’d chosen to spend his adult life tracking killers, looking into the minds of madmen. Exploring the dark caverns and fissures where acts of murder were born and raised, nurtured, protected, and sent out into the world.

While Gamache had become an explorer of human emotions, Jean-Guy Beauvoir was the hunter. They were a perfect, though unequal, team.

Watching his father-in-law toss a slimy tennis ball to Henri the German shepherd, Jean-Guy was under no illusions who was the leader. He’d follow him anywhere. And had.

And had. Almost. Anywhere. Almost …