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“You don’t know?” The officer looked around, intentionally, it seemed, avoiding the warning in Lacoste’s eyes. “Gamache wasn’t just Beauvoir’s boss. He’s his father-in-law.”

“You’re kidding,” said the agent, knowing that the officer was not.

“Non. He’s married to Gamache’s daughter, Annie. They have a kid.”

While the personal connection between Gamache and Beauvoir wasn’t exactly a secret, neither did the two men go out of their way to advertise it.

There was a snort from down the table, and an agent looked up from his cell phone. “They’re really going after the man. Listen to this—”

“Non,” said Lacoste. “I don’t want to hear it.”

There was movement by the door.

They looked over, then jumped to their feet.

The senior officers saluted. The younger ones looked momentarily taken aback.

Some in the room had never seen Armand Gamache in person. Others had not seen him in months. Not since that steamy hot July afternoon in the forest. The air filled with the stench of gun smoke and the cries of the wounded. When it had cleared, they’d seen the head of the Sûreté, weapon in hand. Hauling a body through the pretty woods.

Had Gamache known when he’d dressed that summer morning, putting on the clean white shirt and the suit and tie, that that was how the day would end? With blood on his clothing. And on his hands.

He’d risen that sultry day the Chief Superintendent of the Sûreté du Québec. A confident leader. Unhappy about, but committed to, a dangerous course of action.

He left the woods, late that afternoon, shattered.

And now he was back.

A better man? A bitter man?

They were about to find out.

CHAPTER TWO

The man they saw at the door was in his late fifties. Tall, not heavy but sturdy. Clean-shaven. And while not classically handsome, he was more attractive, certainly more distinguished, than the pictures on social media that morning had led the younger agents to believe.

Armand Gamache’s hair, once dark, was mostly gray and slightly wavy. His complexion was that of someone who’d spent hours in open fields, in damp forests, in knee-deep snow, staring at bodies. And tracking down those who’d made them.

He had the appearance of someone who’d spent years shouldering heavy responsibility. Weighing dreadful choices.

The lines down his face spoke of determination. Of concentration. Of worry spread over years. And sorrow. Spread over decades.

But as the agents watched, Gamache smiled, and they saw that the deepest of those lines ran from the corners of his eyes.

Laugh lines. Far more pronounced than those caused by worry and pain. Though they did meet, mix, intersect.

And then there was the unmistakable, unmissable scar at his temple. Like a calling card. A mark that distinguished him. It cut across the worry lines and laugh lines. And told a story all its own.

That’s what the newer agents saw.

For the veterans it was different. They didn’t so much see as feel.

There was silence, stillness, as Armand Gamache stood on the threshold, looking at them, meeting eyes that were suddenly moist.

The agents in the room never thought he’d return. Not to the Sûreté and certainly not to homicide. This senior officer they’d worked alongside for years. Who’d mentored most. Who’d taught them how to catch killers. And not lose themselves in the process. How to be great officers and even better men and women.

He’d taken each for a leisurely walk, early in their placement in homicide, and told them the four statements that led to wisdom.

Never repeating them.