Her feet, in running shoes, were wet through and caked in slush. Why hadn’t she brought her boots when she left the academy? All she’d grabbed were her books.
She hadn’t been back to the rooming house since leaving the day before, but she’d have to go back later that night. Marc needed his room. For business.
And she had her own business to do.
“I’m looking for David,” she said to a prostitute.
“Unless you’re looking for pussy, I can’t help you, little man.”
Amelia bristled, then realized that in her coat and tuque and jeans she did look a bit like a little man.
She trudged along rue Ste.-Catherine, a street named for the patron saint of illness. Peering into the dark alleyways, she saw the dregs, the detritus, the sick, the addicted, the whores, the near-dead and dying.
All kids. Most younger than herself. What had happened in the two years she’d been gone?
But she knew the answer. Opioids had happened. Fentanyl had happened. And worse was coming.
Amelia stared down a dark alley and thought she saw a child. In a bright red tuque. But it was just a hallucination, she was sure. An echo from the drugs she’d taken the night before.
Armand turned off all the lights in the house but didn’t go to bed, though he was longing, after that horrible day, to crawl under the warm duvet and hold Reine-Marie close. In the curve of his body.
Instead he settled into an armchair in the living room, with a pillow and blankets.
Just down the dark hallway were the bedrooms where Billy and Benedict slept. Peacefully, he hoped.
But if one should wake up with night terrors, Armand needed to be there.
Clara turned off the lights in the loft above the bookstore. She’d made sure that Myrna was fast asleep and was about to leave when she paused at the top of the stairs and looked back.
And thought of all the times Myrna had stayed with her. After Peter. To be there when the nightmares began.
Clara put on the kettle, made herself a strong cup of Red Rose tea. And settled into the large armchair by the fireplace.
Armand sat up with a start. Some sound had awoken him, but as he listened, the house was silent.
And then it came again. A cry.
He threw off the blanket and walked swiftly down the hallway.
“Benedict?” he whispered, knocking on the young man’s door and listening. There was the sound again. More like a whimper now.
Armand went in, and, pulling a chair up to the bed, he found Benedict’s hand. And held it. Repeating, softly, over and over, that he was safe. And when that didn’t work, he began to quietly sing. The first song that came to mind.
“‘Edelweiss, Edelweiss…’” Until the boy stopped crying and his breathing relaxed. And he fell asleep.
In the next room, Billy Williams lay awake staring at the ceiling. In the darkness it seemed to be dropping, plunging toward him. He gripped the sides of the bed and repeated to himself it was just a hallucination.
I’m safe. I’m safe.
But he could barely breathe for the debris on his chest, and still the ceiling kept collapsing.
He heard a cry and felt his adrenaline spike. It was that very same sound he’d heard in the shrieking house. Inhuman.
And then he heard whispering. Murmuring. And then something else. Unintelligible but familiar.
His grip loosened, and his lids closed, and he fell asleep to someone softly singing.
Amelia pounded on the door to the landlady’s room. It opened just enough for the ferret eyes to see who was there.
“What the fuck do you want?” the old woman demanded.
Her stained bathrobe was open, revealing more than Amelia wanted to see.
“I want my room. Someone else’s in it.”
“Yeah, someone who pays.” The landlady’s anger was replaced by satisfaction. “You had that room in exchange for cleaning. But you didn’t, did you? You kicked over the bucket. I had to clean it up.”
It was a lie, Amelia knew. She’d found the overturned bucket and mop still lying in the hallway outside her room.
The tiny eyes looked at Amelia through the crack in the door.
“Get out, before I call the cops,” she said, and went to close the door, but Amelia’s body stopped her.
“My things, give me my things, you filthy old slut.”
“Don’t have them.”
“Where are they?”
“You feel that heat?” The old woman paused. Then smiled. “That’s your stuff.”
Amelia relaxed her pressure on the door as the landlady’s words, and what they meant, hit her. In that moment the door banged shut and the dead bolt was pushed into place.
“You bitch,” she screamed, and threw herself against the door. Over and over, until her voice was raw and her shoulder was so bruised she had to stop. Until she slid to the floor, exhausted.
She felt the carpet, crusty beneath her. She smelled the stale tobacco, and shit, and sweat, and piss. And she felt the warmth.
Her head dropped into her hands. And Amelia wept. For her life in ruins and her books in flames.
And then, the warmth too painful, she got up and walked back into the cold. In search of a drug so new, so powerful, it could take her away, far away, from there. Forever.
Reine-Marie found Armand nodding by the fire.
On seeing her, he roused and told her about Benedict. “I need to stay here.”
“Oui,” she said, and, after adjusting the pillow and blankets, she pulled up a chair and sat beside him. Holding his hand and talking softly about Honoré. About their granddaughters in Paris. About Gracie and Henri.
Until he fell into a deep and peaceful sleep.
CHAPTER 19
The sun was streaming through the mullioned windows of the bistro, hitting the wide-plank floors, the comfortable chairs, the pine tables. The patrons.
But it didn’t quite reach into the far corner, beside the large open fireplace, where Myrna, Benedict, and Armand sat with Lucien.
Armand had called the notary and asked him to meet them there and to bring some documents with him.
The notary listened, his face getting more and more slack as Myrna and Benedict related what had happened the day before.
“The house I was just in?” he asked when they’d finished. “Fell down?”
“Yes, we’re feeling much better,” said Myrna, responding to a question unasked. “Some bruising, but the bath last night helped. Thank you.”
Lucien looked at her, puzzled.
They sat in wing chairs, their breakfasts and cafés au lait in front of them. Beside them the fire roared, fed by large maple logs.
“A body was found when the farmhouse fell,” said Armand. “It was Anthony Baumgartner.”
The notary’s eyes widened. “Monsieur Baumgartner? He’s dead?”
“Oui.”
“But we were just with him.”
“He must’ve gone to the house after we left,” said Myrna.
“But why?” asked Lucien.
“We don’t know.”
Gamache had decided not to tell them, yet, that Beauvoir was investigating it as a homicide. The longer that could be kept quiet, the fewer people who knew, the less guarded that people would be.
It would come out soon enough.
“Did Monsieur Baumgartner say anything to you after we left, about going to the house?” asked Gamache.
Lucien shook his head. “No, nothing. We just made small talk while I organized the papers. I didn’t stay long, but it all seemed normal.”
Both Myrna and Armand knew that Lucien might not be the best judge of what was normal human interaction. But even he would’ve noticed a fight breaking out.
“Do you know why they were replaced as liquidators in their mother’s will?” Gamache asked.