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“Drop him, Homer.”

Godin, twenty paces ahead, was heaving for breath.

“Put him down.” As he spoke, Gamache approached, reaching into his pocket as he walked toward the bridge. Not for the gun still resting there but for his phone. As Homer watched, Gamache stopped, pressed a button, and placed the phone on the ground, propped against a rock.

There was no reception there, he knew. It couldn’t send, but it could record.

Homer, with Tracey unconscious and slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, said nothing. Did nothing. Except stare at Gamache and gasp for breath.

Gamache approached, slowly. His hands out in front of him. He couldn’t see the knife. It was possible Homer had already used it. And dropped it.

Was Carl Tracey dead?

But Gamache, who’d seen many, many bodies, didn’t think so. There was still a pink hue to Tracey’s hands as they hung limp. And there was no trail of blood, no sopping stain on Homer’s coat, as there would be if he’d stabbed Tracey to death.

Homer backed up a step. Two. Toward the gap in the railing, mended only with yellow police tape.

And Armand knew what he planned to do. What he’d planned all along.

He would follow his daughter into the water. And take Tracey with him. Only parting ways in the afterlife. As Tracey went to hell, and Homer went…?

“Fred,” said Armand.

For a moment Homer looked confused. Then spoke. “Keep him. He’s yours.”

“No, I mean, why didn’t Vivienne take Fred with her when she left?”

He glanced behind him. Nothing.

He’d expected Beauvoir and Lacoste to be there by now.

He was running out of time, and Homer was running out of bridge. Gamache’s only hope was to distract him long enough.

“It doesn’t make sense,” said Gamache as he stepped onto the bridge. “She wouldn’t leave without her dog. I don’t understand. Do you?”

Tracey made a sound, and Homer tightened his grip on him.

If Gamache had hoped to engage Homer, break his focus, he’d failed.

Homer looked blank. But not confused. He was certain about the only thing that mattered now.

Gamache tried again. Anything to stop Homer’s slow progress toward the edge.

“There’s something else bothering me,” he said. “Tracey was at the art-supply shop Saturday morning. Why didn’t Vivienne go to you then? Why didn’t she leave earlier?”

Again, nothing. Just the vacant stare.

Tracey moved now, groggy, and again Homer tightened his grip.

Stay still, Gamache begged the rousing man. Don’t move.

“You took twenty thousand dollars out of the bank. To give to Vivienne?”

“Yes.”

Simple question. Simple answer. But at least an answer. It gave Gamache information, but, equally important, it created a tiny crack in Homer’s focus. And, maybe, time for Jean-Guy and Isabelle and the others to arrive. If he could just engage Homer.

Though Armand was far from sure that it would matter.