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No longer needing to follow the prints, Gamache moved through the woods as fast as he could, weaving between trees. Brittle branches scraped his coat, his hands, his face.
Once he had to stop as the mist grew thick and he lost his bearings. But he reoriented himself and pressed on.
It took ten minutes of slipping and slogging through mud and ankle-deep slush before he broke through to what was little more than an overgrown path.
He could hear labored breathing ahead of him, but it wasn’t until he turned the corner that he saw.
Homer. On the bridge. The mist rising from the Bella Bella almost enveloping him.
But he wasn’t alone.
Carl Tracey’s body was slung over his shoulder.
“Homer!”
Godin turned.
“Here,” shouted Cameron from the back of the house. “In the studio.”
Beauvoir hurried back there, expecting to find Tracey, either cowering behind his pots or dead. Instead he found Cameron standing by the back door.
“Godin must’ve gotten in this way,” said Cameron.
“No sign of Tracey?” said Beauvoir, pushing past Cameron. “Jesus, there’re footprints coming and going.”
“There’s blood on the floor,” said Lacoste, pointing to the stains. “Not a lot. Someone’s hurt, but doesn’t look like a fatal stabbing. There’d be lots more blood.”
“And a body,” said Beauvoir.
He stepped outside and saw what Gamache had seen. Not just two sets of prints, but one was deeper than the other.
“Homer must’ve taken Tracey with him.”
“And the Chief’s following them,” said Lacoste, pointing to another set of prints.
“Oh, God,” said Cloutier, and when they turned to her, she said, “He shouted something I didn’t hear. I should’ve stopped and asked, but I just kept running.”
Lacoste turned to Beauvoir. “He thinks we’re right behind him. He thinks he’ll get backup.”
Cameron started past Beauvoir to follow the prints, and the man, into the forest, but Beauvoir stopped him.
“Wait.”
Every fiber in his body wanted to run into the woods. He could feel the others straining to do the same thing.
But he remembered the Chief’s advice.
Think. Take a breath. Take a moment. Just a moment. To think.
So now, almost vibrating with the need to act, Jean-Guy Beauvoir thought.
“Godin’s taking Tracey to the bridge.” Turning to Lacoste, he said, “Take the car. You two go with her.” He pointed to Cameron and Cloutier.
“You?” she asked.
But Jean-Guy Beauvoir was already doing exactly what he always did. He was following Armand Gamache.
By the time Lacoste reached the car, Jean-Guy Beauvoir and the other two agents were well into the forest. Racing through the mist and trees.
