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She hung up and looked at the small, slightly disheveled young woman standing at the door to her office.

“You’re not going, are you, patron?”

“No choice.” She put on her fall coat and large hat. “Besides, I do need Brussels sprouts.”

“Can’t you get them at the grocery store?”

“I was kidding.”

They were walking briskly down the long, deserted corridor toward the elevators.

“Stop!”

“What is it?”

Her assistant now hesitated. “I heard what Moretti said. He’s right. You should have had Gamache killed.”

She nodded. They both knew that was true. That was her mistake, the chink in her armor through which Joseph Moretti was peering. And did he see the big lie?

“Should I get you a car?”

“Non. I’ll take the Métro.”

Just as the elevator doors closed, she heard, “Fais attention.”

Be careful.

As she searched her handbag for her subway pass, Chief Inspector Evelyn Tardiff knew they were well beyond careful. It was now just degrees of reckless. Her skates had slid out from under her. Her arms were pinwheeling. She was suspended in midair, and the only question was how bad, how hard, would the fall be? How much would this hurt?

On the station platform, her back pressed against the tile wall, she heard the singsong of an approaching subway train. And sighed. She’d been at this too long. She was getting too old, too tired, too sloppy. She had no idea how to regain her balance, never mind get to the shore.

Survival was not guaranteed.

You should have had Gamache killed.

There was nothing vindictive in it. It was simply true. And might still be necessary. Her only way to shore might be over his body.

Don Moretti slid his phone into his pocket. Picking a plump beefsteak tomato off a neat pile, he caressed its flesh for firmness in a gesture that managed to be sensual. Bringing it to his nose, he inhaled and smiled as he caught his wife’s eye, one aisle over. Then he cocked his arm and pretended to throw the tomato at his young daughter, who squealed with laughter and ducked.

Moretti then carefully replaced the tomato. Its thin skin undamaged.

It was a few minutes to seven on this autumn morning, the market not yet open. The farmers still putting out their produce.

The sky was a deep velvety blue at the horizon. The day would dawn bright and fresh and filled with promise. Anything might happen.

CHAPTER 2

Clara Morrow brought the mug of tepid coffee to her mouth, forgetting that she had a paintbrush clasped between her teeth, like some gunslinger preparing to have a bullet removed.

The analogy wasn’t that far off. This stage in her creations was always painful, wracked as she was with insecurities. The bleeding was internal. The wound worse than it appeared.

Survival was not guaranteed.

Through the window of her small home in the Québec village of Three Pines she could see a light at the rambling white clapboard house across the village green, and smoke rising from the chimney.

Someone was up and functioning at the Gamache home. And so early.

Then she noticed a soft glow over the forests and hills that surrounded the village. The sun was rising.