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Jean-Guy sat in his car in the long shadow of Archambault penitentiary and wrote. He’d been unsure how much to say to the Chief but decided on everything.

This was clearly no time to be diplomatic or practice restraint. And he did not want Armand to come across it by accident.

Armand sat in the peaceful study and read the message, while outside his window villagers knelt in their gardens and children ran and leaped and no doubt shrieked with delight as they scattered the carefully collected autumn leaves.

He read what the young highways agent had said. About him. About abandoning his agents and saving only his own family. Leaving the rest to possibly die.

This was no lie spread by conspiracy theorists on marginal sites.

It was true. It was true.

Even as he knew it was not the whole story, it was still enough of the truth to make him lightheaded. He was followed day and night by the image of himself, standing on the threshold of his office, watching his senior inspectors, his junior agents, the men and women whom he led. Who followed him. Who trusted him with their lives.

He’d wanted to shout, Leave! Get your families and leave the city! The drinking water is about to be poisoned!

Even now he felt those words burn his throat.

But he’d swallowed the warning, not willing to risk triggering the attack by alerting the terrorists with an exodus.

And so he’d kept quiet and felt part of his own humanity die.

The fact that decision was almost certainly the right one didn’t matter. The fact that he’d gotten his own children and grandchildren quietly out of Montréal and down to Three Pines also followed him every day. Haunting and taunting, and whispering that he’d been a hypocrite and a coward. A traitor to his team.

But really, how could he not save his own family? If he had to do it again, would he?

Yes. In a heartbeat. He’d sacrifice his own life—it was his to give—but not those of his family.

Once the crisis had passed and he’d left the hospital, his first stop was to Sûreté headquarters and a meeting with his department. As he’d entered, they’d stood and applauded, and Armand could feel his cheeks burning.

Stepping onto a chair, then up onto a desk, so all could see him, he’d thanked them, and then …

“There’s something you need to know.”

He’d steeled himself for this moment, practicing what he’d say. Words mattered, these words mattered. But finally, as he stood there and looked into their upturned faces, his mind went blank.

“We know, patron,” one of his senior inspectors spoke.

But Armand couldn’t hear. The shriek in his head was at a fever pitch. It was all he could do not to lose his equilibrium and tumble off the desk. He stared at the inspector, whom he’d worked with for decades, who also had children and grandchildren. He’d gone to their weddings and bat mitzvahs. But Armand could not decipher what he’d just said.

The man’s eyes, though, were kind, and there was a gentle smile that created lines down his familiar face.

Clearly he didn’t know what his Chief Inspector was going to say. Otherwise he would not be smiling.

Armand held up his hand, and the smile vanished. They all looked worried now. What was their Chief about to tell them?

And then he began to speak, his voice much louder than it normally would have been. He wasn’t yet practiced in modulating it, so he was unintentionally, unknowingly shouting at them over the noise only he could hear.

When he’d finished, there was silence. He swayed slightly but caught his balance. And looked out at the dozens of faces. Of men and women who’d trusted him. And who he’d abandoned.

Then one of the agents stepped forward. The youngest. The newest recruit. Mélanie Fontaine. Just out of the academy, she had her whole life ahead of her. The agent who knew him least, and who had the most reason to despise him.

“I understand.” She’d spoken slowly, her actions managing to also convey meaning. “You had no choice. My own father would have done the same. As would I.”

Others around the room were nodding. Not all, perhaps, but the vast majority.

He did not catch every word the young agent said, and yet he’d understood her meaning more clearly than anything else that had been said to him practically his whole life. Except that first time Reine-Marie had whispered, “I love you.”

This young woman had, in effect, said, I forgive you.