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Gamache and Billy got into the backseat, with Tracey between them.

“She isn’t dead, you know. She’s messing with you all. Trying to get me into trouble. I bet she threw that fucking bag into the river herself. You wait. When she shows up, after a bender with some guy, I’ll be suing your ass.”

“Let’s hope,” said Gamache.

Beauvoir drove while Billy pointed the way to the old logging road.

They came to little more than a break in the trees. Turning in, Beauvoir felt the tires begin to sink. “We have to walk from here.”

The five of them followed the flashlight beams down the narrow lane through the trees.

The limbs of the trees loomed overhead, a tunnel of dead branches. Their flashlights created shadows so macabre that even Beauvoir, not given to fantasy, felt his skin crawl. This was how horror films began. Or ended.

And then it got worse.

Beauvoir’s stronger beam landed on something up ahead. Blocking the way. A car.

“Stay here,” Gamache said to the others while he and Jean-Guy approached.

It was Vivienne’s.

Gamache nodded to Beauvoir, who carefully walked around to the other side and shone his light through the rear window while Gamache looked in the front.

Nothing.

Opening the driver’s door, careful not to touch too much, Gamache played his light over the seat. The wheel. The footwells. There were assorted wrappers, some change. It smelled of stale cigarette smoke. He checked the ashtray and found stubs.

The same brand Tracey smoked.

There was a smear of blood on the steering wheel and another in the shift. The hair on the back of Gamache’s neck was standing on end. Something awful had happened here.

He pulled a lever and popped the trunk.

“Nothing,” Beauvoir reported.

Gamache closed the car door, and both investigators made for the wooden bridge.

“Don’t worry,” shouted Tracey. “It’s safe.”

“No it’s not,” called Billy. “It’s probably rotten.”

Beauvoir reached out and stopped Gamache, who was just about to step on the wooden boards. Armand had heard Billy but hadn’t understood.

Beauvoir turned and glared at Tracey, who was smiling.

“Worth a try,” Tracey said, his eyes cold. Calculating.

Reine-Marie took a step away from this creature while Beauvoir wondered if all five of them would make it out of the woods.

From the safety of solid ground, Gamache and Beauvoir shone their beams along the old logging bridge. Then stopped. The two circles of light converged on a single spot.

A section of wooden handrail was missing. The side opened up to thin air.

Gamache pointed his beam down. Into the drop-off. Twenty feet below, maybe more, was the churning river. Grabbing, dragging, swallowing all that it could.

They played their lights over both shores, but there was nothing. Then Beauvoir’s beam stopped.

“Wait, I think I see something.”