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“Is it candy?”

“Better. It’s a warrant for your arrest unless you open this door in twenty seconds.”

His voice had gone from playful at the beginning of the sentence, to neutral, to actually menacing. It was both impressive and more than a little disconcerting.

She opened the door.

“Merci,” he said and introduced Inspector Lacoste. “May we?”

“Can I stop you?”

His answer was to step inside her tiny, tidy studio apartment in the Petite-Bourgogne quartier of Montréal.

“All this to stop me from going into AQB? You do know that because of what I did there you’re so much further along. I found out that those numbers on the map are isobars. And I got into Chalifoux’s computer and found the money being laundered through Action Québec Bleu. And I’m sure there’s more to find. I can do what you cops can’t.”

“And that is?” Lacoste asked. The bed was so tightly made, there was no give when she sat on it.

“Break the law,” said Shona.

“Nice that you think we won’t,” said Gamache, taking a chair at the table by the compact kitchen and waving her to join him.

Shona stood for a moment, then realized she just looked mulish. “You’re in my place.”

To her amazement, he got up and moved. She’d lied. It wasn’t where she normally sat, though he was now in her actual place.

Gamache was staring at her with such intensity, it almost frightened her.

She sat down. “What? What’s happened?”

He was trying to decide how much to tell her.

All the way there from Three Pines, he’d been discussing it with Lacoste. Getting her take. But finally, neither of them had an answer. It wasn’t that they suspected Shona of working for the other side; it was that information was her fuel, and giving her more could, almost certainly would, propel the young investigative journalist into dangerous waters.

“You’ve figured out what’s happening, what’s going to happen,” Shona said, leaning toward him. “Come on, Papa, tell me.”

Lacoste raised her brows when she called him “Papa.” But realized it was said ironically, and maybe, maybe, with just a little nascent affection.

“In exchange for this information, you need to promise not to act on it. Not to post about it until I say so. And to leave AQB. In fact, to pack a bag and come with us now.”

“Where to?”

“First Ottawa, and then down to my home in Three Pines.”

“Where?”

“Exactly,” said Isabelle.

While the two cops stared at her, Shona Dorion had her own decision to make. She hated, loathed, having to make any sort of deal with cops, especially this one. But she also recognized that they were offering her an exclusive on what might be the story of a lifetime. One that could win her a Polk award.

She also recognized that she almost certainly had no choice. Gamache was framing it as her decision, but that had already been made. Unless …

“May I see the warrant?”

Lacoste got up and showed Shona a document on her phone. A warrant for her arrest.

“It’s signed by you,” she said, turning to Gamache.

“True.”