And as he walked he thought about AA, and Lillian, and Suzanne. About the Chief Justice. About the artists and dealers, asleep in their beds in Three Pines.
But mostly he thought about the corrosive effect of secrets. Including his own.
He’d lied to Beauvoir. It wasn’t over. And he hadn’t let it go.
Jean Guy Beauvoir washed the beer glass then headed toward his bedroom.
Keep going, just keep going, he begged himself. Just a few more steps.
But he stopped, of course. As he’d done every night since that video had appeared.
Once on the Net it could never, ever be taken off. It was there forever. Forgotten, perhaps, but still there, waiting to be found again. To surface again.
Like a secret. Never really hidden completely. Never totally forgotten.
And this video was far from forgotten. Not yet.
Beauvoir sat heavily into the chair and brought his computer out of sleep. The link was on his favorites list, but intentionally mislabeled.
His eyes heavy with sleep and his body aching, Jean Guy clicked on it.
And up came the video.
He hit play. Then play again. And again.
Over and over he watched the video. The picture was clear, as were the sounds. The explosions, the shooting, the shouting, “Officer down, officer down.”
And Gamache’s voice, steady, commanding. Issuing clear orders, holding them together, keeping the chaos at bay as the tactical team had pressed deeper and deeper into the factory. Cornering the gunmen. So many more gunmen than they’d expected.
And over and over and over Beauvoir watched himself get shot in the abdomen. And over and over and over he watched something worse. Chief Inspector Gamache. Arms thrown out, back arching. Lifting off, then falling. Hitting the ground. Still.
And then the chaos closing in.
Finally exhausted, he pushed himself away from the screen and got ready for bed. Washing, brushing his teeth. Taking out the prescription medication he popped an OxyContin.
Then he slipped the other small bottle of pills under his pillow. In case he needed it in the night. It was safe there. Out of sight. Like a weapon. A last resort.
A bottle of Percocet.
In case the OxyContin wasn’t enough.
In his bed, in the dark, he waited for the painkiller to kick in. He could feel the day slip away. The worries, the anxieties, the images receded. As he hugged his stuffed lion and drifted toward oblivion one image drifted along with him. Not of himself being shot. Not even of seeing the Chief hit, and fall.
All that had faded, gobbled up by the OxyContin.
But one thought remained. Followed him to the edge.
Restaurant Milos. The phone number, now hidden in the desk drawer. Every week for the past three months he’d called the Restaurant Milos and made a reservation. For two. For Saturday night. The table at the back, by the whitewashed wall.
And every Saturday afternoon he canceled it. He wondered if they even bothered to take down his name anymore. Maybe they just pretended. As he did.
But tomorrow, he felt certain, would be different.
He’d definitely call her then. And she’d say yes. And he’d take Annie Gamache to Milos, with its crystal and white linen. She’d have the Dover sole, he’d have the lobster.
And she’d listen to him, and look at him with those intense eyes. He’d ask her all about her day, her life, her likes, her feelings. Everything. He wanted to know everything.
Every night he drifted off to sleep with the same image. Annie looking at him across the table. And then, he’d reach out and place his hand on hers. And she’d let him.
As he sank into sleep he placed one hand over the other. That was how it would feel.
And then, the OxyContin took everything. And Jean Guy Beauvoir had no more feelings.
FIFTEEN
Clara came down to breakfast. The place smelled of coffee and toasted English muffins.
When Clara had woken up, surprised she’d even fallen asleep, the bed was empty. It had taken her a moment to remember what had happened the night before.
Their fight.
How close she’d come to getting dressed and leaving him. Taking the car, driving to Montréal. Checking into a cheap hotel.
And then?
And then, something. The rest of her life, she supposed. She hadn’t cared.
But then Peter had finally told her the truth.
They’d talked into the night, and fallen asleep. Not touching, not yet. They were both too bruised for that. It was as though they’d been skinned and dissected. Deboned. Their innards brought out. Examined. And found to be rotten.
They didn’t have a marriage, they had a parody of a partnership.
But they’d also found that maybe, maybe, they could put themselves together again.
It would be different. Would it be better?
Clara didn’t know.
“Morning,” said Peter when she appeared, her hair sticking up on one side, a crust of sleep on her face.
“Morning,” she said.
He poured her a mug of coffee.
Once Clara had fallen asleep, and he’d heard the heavy breathing and a snort, he’d gone down to the living room. He found the newspaper. He found the glossy catalog for her show.
And he’d sat there all night. Memorizing the New York Times review. Memorizing the London Times review. So that he knew them by heart.
So that he too would have a choice of what to believe.
And then he’d stared at the reproductions of her paintings in the catalog.
They were brilliant. But then he already knew that. In the past, though, he’d looked at her portraits and seen flaws. Real or imagined. A brush stroke slightly off. The hands that could have been better. He’d deliberately concentrated on the minutiae so that he wouldn’t have to see the whole.
Now he looked at the whole.
To say he was happy about it would be a lie, and Peter Morrow was determined not to lie anymore. Not to himself. Not to Clara.
The truth was, it still hurt to see such talent. But for the first time since he’d met Clara he was no longer looking for the flaws.
But there was something else he’d struggled with all night. He’d told her everything. Every stinking thing he’d done and thought. So she’d know it all. So there was nothing hidden, to surprise either of them.
Except one thing.
Lillian. And what he’d said to her at the student art show so many years ago. The number of words he could count on his fingers. But each had been a bullet. And each had hit its target. Clara.
“Thanks,” said Clara, accepting the mug of rich, strong coffee. “Smells good.”
She too was determined not to lie, not to pretend everything was fine in the hope that fantasy might become reality. The truth was, the coffee did smell good. That at least was safe to say.
Peter sat down, screwing up his courage to tell her about what he’d done. He took a breath, closed his eyes briefly, then opened his mouth to speak.
“They’re back early.” Clara nodded out the window, where she’d been staring.
Peter watched as a Volvo pulled up and parked. Chief Inspector Gamache and Jean Guy Beauvoir got out and walked toward the bistro.
He closed his mouth and stepped back, deciding now wasn’t the time after all.
Clara smiled as she watched the two men out the window. It amused her that Inspector Beauvoir no longer locked their car. When they’d first come to Three Pines, to investigate Jane’s murder, the officers had made sure the car was always locked. But now, several years later, they didn’t bother.
They knew, she presumed, that people in Three Pines might occasionally take a life, but not a car.