Page 75

And then they were there.

Gamache was panting and holding his flashlight out in front of him with both hands, like a gun. Aiming the beam, steadying it as he stood beside Beauvoir.

Their lights, pointed in the same direction, merged.

And then they saw it. Her.

Gamache had been there earlier, when he and Olivier had checked the river levels.

They hadn’t come quite this far, but still, he’d seen it then as he’d leaned out. Olivier holding on to him.

The growing dam.

He’d noted the pale tree limbs and leaves bobbing up and down in the current. Trapped in the broken ice and debris that was forming.

He’d hesitated, trying to get a closer look. But Olivier’s grip had been slipping, and he was pulled away.

Now he was back. And he saw, in the bright circle of light, his mistake.

At the logging bridge, Beauvoir had momentarily taken trees for a body. And in that moment, Armand Gamache realized he’d done the same thing, only in reverse.

He’d mistaken a body for trees.

Now he looked once again at the tangle of ice and tree limbs. Debris and detritus picked up by the Rivière Bella Bella as it rushed down from the mountains.

Here was Vivienne Godin.

This is where she’d come to rest.

Her dark hair, like leaves, floated on the surface, moving with the current. Her pale arms and legs. Limbs. Now so clearly human.

Armand Gamache crossed himself, just as Beauvoir shoved his flashlight into Gamache’s hands.

“What’re you doing?”

“What does it look like?” Beauvoir stripped off his coat. “I’m going to get her.”

“You can’t.” Gamache placed himself between Beauvoir and the Bella Bella and reached out. “Stop.”

But Beauvoir wasn’t listening to reason. He looked at the bobbing head. At the arms.

And he saw Annie.

“Step aside,” he said to Gamache.

“Non.”

“Step aside. That’s an order.”

“Non.”

Jean-Guy then did something he’d not have thought possible twenty-four hours earlier. An hour earlier. A moment earlier.

He shoved his father-in-law. Who dropped the flashlights and took a step back, partly from the force of it, partly from the shock of it.

“Get out of my way,” Jean-Guy yelled, desperate to get to the young woman. As he hoped someone would try to save Annie, if …

This time Gamache saw him coming and wrapped his arms around Jean-Guy. Gripping him in a bear hug so tight that Jean-Guy could smell the slight scent of sandalwood and feel Armand’s heart thudding against his own.