“Must’ve really hurt.”
“It did. But I think it hurt others more.”
He obviously has no idea who Armand is, thought Myrna. And saw that Armand had no intention of telling him.
“Either way, we should decide,” she said, walking over to the window. “Snow’s getting heavier.”
“You’re right,” said Armand. “We need to get going soon. So are we in or out?”
“You?” Myrna asked him.
He already had his answer. Had it from the moment the notary explained why they were there.
“I have no idea why Madame Baumgartner chose us, but she did. I don’t see any reason to refuse. I’m in. Besides”—he smiled at Myrna—“I’m curious.”
“You are that,” she said, then looked at Benedict. “You?”
“Years, you say?” he asked.
“Worst case,” said Gamache. “Oui.”
“So it could take years and we don’t get paid,” Benedict recapped. “Oh, what the hell. I’m in. How bad can it be?”
Myrna regarded the handsome young man with the grievous haircut and the steel-wool sweater. If he could put up with that, she thought, he could put up with irritating strangers fighting over a pittance.
“You?” Armand asked Myrna.
“Oh, I was always in,” she said, smiling. And then there was a shudder and the rattle of windows as wind rocked the house. It gave a creak, then a sharp crack.
Myrna felt panic rise up. And spike. They weren’t safe in the house. But neither were they safe outside.
And they still had the drive home to Three Pines.
“We need to leave.”
Walking rapidly back into the kitchen, she looked out the window. She could barely see her car, now buried under blowing and drifting and eddying snow.
“We’re in,” she said to Lucien. “And we’re leaving.”
“What?” said Lucien, getting up.
“We’re leaving,” said Armand. “And you should too. Where’s your office?”
“Sherbrooke.”
It was an hour’s drive away, at least.
They hadn’t taken off their coats or boots, and now they grabbed their mitts and hats and made for the back door.
“Wait,” said Lucien, sitting down again. “We have to read the will. Madame Baumgartner stipulated that it be done here.”
“Madame Baumgartner’s dead,” said Myrna. “And I plan on living through the day.”
She rammed a tuque onto her head and followed Benedict out of the house.
“Now, monsieur,” said Armand. “We’re leaving. And that means you.”
Benedict and Myrna were wading through the snow, already knee-deep in places, toward her car. The young man had yanked a shovel from the snowbank and was starting to dig her car out.
Lucien leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.
“Up,” said Armand, and when the notary didn’t move, he grabbed Lucien by the arm and pulled him to his feet.
“Put your things on,” he ordered, and after a moment’s shocked pause, Lucien did.
Armand checked his iPhone. There was no signal. The storm had knocked everything out.
He looked out at the blizzard, then around at the creaking, cracking, crooked home.
They had to leave.
He thrust the paperwork back into the briefcase, which he handed to the notary. “Come on.”
When Gamache opened the door, the snow whacked him in the face, taking his breath away. He closed his eyes and winced against the pellets that all but blinded him.
The sound was deafening.
Howling, hitting, furious movement. It burst in on them and over them. The world unraveling. And them in the middle of it.
As the snow plastered itself against Gamache’s face, he turned his head away and saw Benedict furiously shoveling, working to free Myrna’s car from the snowdrifts that had formed around it. No sooner had the young man dug out one section than the wind picked up the snow and filled it back in.
The only thing not white in the landscape was Benedict’s tuque, its long red-striped tail looking like lashes of blood on the snow.
Myrna was using her hands to scoop snow off the windshield.
Benedict’s own truck, parked in the open, was already covered, and the notary’s car had disappeared completely.
By the time he reached the others, Armand could feel snow down his boots, and down his collar, and up his sleeves, and under his tuque.
Myrna was trying to yank her car door open, but the snow, blown against it, was trapping it shut.
“It’s too deep,” Armand called into Myrna’s ear. “Leave it.” Then he trudged to the back of the car and grabbed Benedict’s arm, stopping the shovel. “Even if we could dig everyone out, the roads are too bad. We need to stay together. Your truck’s probably the best bet.”
Benedict looked over at it, then back at Armand.
“What is it?” shouted Armand, sensing there was an “it.”
“I don’t have snow tires.”
“You don’t—” But he stopped himself. When the house was burning, it was not the best time to lay blame. “Okay.” He turned to Myrna and Lucien. “My car is slightly protected by Myrna’s. Hers is acting as a windbreak. We can probably get mine out.”
“But I need to get back to Sherbrooke,” said Lucien, waving behind him to his vehicle, which was now just another white lump in the yard.
“And you will,” Myrna shouted. “Just not today.”
“But—”
“Dig,” said Myrna, waving toward Armand’s Volvo.
“With what?”
Armand pointed to Lucien’s briefcase.
“No,” said the notary, hugging it to him like a teddy bear.
“Fine,” said Myrna.
Yanking it away from him, she went to work, using the briefcase to push the snow from around the doors while Benedict shoveled and Armand ripped wooden planks from the front steps of the house and pushed them under the rear wheels, using his boots to kick them firmly into place.
And Lucien stood there.
Finally they managed to get the doors open.
Myrna all but rammed the notary into the backseat, then got in beside him.
“You drive,” shouted Benedict to Armand, motioning to the driver’s side. “I’ll push.”
“Non. When we get moving, we can’t stop. We’ll sink in again. Whoever pushes will be left behind.”
Benedict paused.
My God, thought Armand. He’s actually considering it.
“In,” he commanded.
The young man stared at the older man, still undecided.
“This will work,” said Gamache, softly this time, while the snow piled up around them again and the precious moments ticked by. “Get in.”
Benedict reached for the driver’s-side door, but Armand stopped him.
“In,” he said, with a smile, and pointed to the passenger door.
Myrna double-checked her seat belt, then closed her eyes and breathed. Deeply. And prayed.
The car started to back up, and Gamache slowly, slowly, gently, gently pressed the gas.
There was a hesitation as the tires worked to mount the planks.
They caught and climbed the inch or so out of the snow and ice and onto the wood.
With traction now, the car moved. An inch. Six inches. A foot.
Benedict exhaled. Myrna exhaled. The notary hyperventilated.
Then Armand put it in gear and gently turned the wheel, so that they were headed back down the pine drive.
“Oh, merde,” said Benedict.
Myrna leaned forward between the seats and saw what he saw.
A wall of snow blocked their way out. So high they couldn’t see the road beyond.
“It’s okay,” said Gamache. “It means the plow’s been by. This is good.”
“Good?” asked Benedict.
“Look what it did,” said the notary, finding his voice. Or someone’s. It was unnaturally high and breathy. “We can’t get through that.”
The plow had pushed snow across the entrance to the driveway, creating a barrier. There was no way to tell how thick, how packed it would be. Or what was on the other side.
But they had no choice. There was only one way to do this.