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Isabelle Lacoste found herself admiring this young woman. Who refused to give in. She had guts. But did she have a conscience?

“Non,” said Lacoste quietly. “They’re not always as kind as we’d like. Especially painful when friends aren’t happy for you. You’re trying hard to get out, to make a career for yourself. To make a success of your business. Get a little money. And people are all, ‘Oh, she’s too good for us now,’ just because you dress nicely and take some care. Right?”

Pauline nodded but was guarded. Though not as guarded as she should have been.

“Can I tell you something?” Lacoste lowered her voice. “Something no one else outside the police knows.”

Pauline nodded, leaning forward.

“Vivienne was pregnant. That’s why I’m asking. But we don’t really know who the father was.”

“Really? Got it,” whispered Pauline. “Poor Carl.”

“Yes. Poor Carl. Who can blame him for wanting out of that marriage?” Lacoste leaned back in her chair, her voice once again businesslike. “Now, the second time you were pregnant, another hospital procedure?”

“D and C, yes.”

“And the third time?”

There was now, in Lacoste’s tone, a slight edge. Not of judgment but of warning. Tell the truth.

“How did you end that pregnancy, Pauline?”

“I know who you are,” said Toby, sitting at a desk in the station, not all that far from where Lacoste was interviewing Pauline.

“You’re the cop everyone hates,” said Daphne.

She was at the next desk over, also being booked.

Gamache smiled. “Not everyone, I hope.”

“Everyone I know.”

Gamache was not particularly surprised to hear that teens running a criminal operation might not be fans.

“I saw the video of you killing those kids,” said Toby. “Brutal.”

Cameron, the arresting officer, stopped typing on his computer. Jean-Guy Beauvoir, sitting nearby and going over messages, looked up.

And Armand Gamache tilted his head slightly, the smile fading. “What video?”

Toby laughed. “You haven’t seen it? Posted about an hour ago. Gone viral. Funny that I watched it, then there you were.”

Gamache drew his brows together. There was a video out there of him gunning down children? How could that be?

He turned to Jean-Guy, who still looked pale, after that confrontation in the alley. As they’d driven back, Gamache had noticed Beauvoir trembling, and quietly asked if he was okay.

“I didn’t think I’d get out of there alive,” Jean-Guy said, under his breath.

Gamache thought the same thing, but didn’t say it. He still felt the acid burning his stomach.

“You’ll be on the Champs-Élysées soon,” he’d said. “In the sunshine.”

“Not soon enough.”

While Jean-Guy knew Paris wasn’t immune to danger, it would at least be unlikely. There was a far better chance of returning home each day.

Now, on hearing what Toby said, Jean-Guy swung around to his laptop, hitting the keys.