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Isabelle checked the tracking on her phone and shook her head in frustration. “Yes and no. They sent it to Sûreté headquarters. Not here. It’s sitting in my office.”

“Get one of the agents on duty to drive it down. Right now.”

“On it.”

As she put in the call, Armand turned to Jean-Guy. “It was there all the time, for us to see. And we did. We even talked about it, but didn’t pursue it.”

“What?” said Jean-Guy.

“That.” Armand pointed at the photograph.

They’d been so focused on the picture of the four people that they’d failed to notice they were actually looking at a screen shot of Debbie Schneider’s desk.

The picture of the happy people, the last one, was sitting on top of the other things that had been locked in the drawer. The ink, the cards, the staples . . .

“The agenda,” said Jean-Guy.

“Yes,” said Gamache. “The agenda. That’s what Debbie found. That’s what Debbie hid.”

The evidence box arrived at the Auberge within the hour.

By then they’d showered and changed into warm clothes. Armand had wound a bright red cashmere scarf around his neck and tucked it into his parka, to better protect himself against the biting cold.

The night was impossibly clear, the sky awash with stars.

It was preternaturally quiet. Still. Peaceful.

The only sound was the rhythmic crunching of their boots on the snow-covered road as they made their way past St. Thomas’s, past the New Forest. Toward the only light visible. Toward the Old Hadley House, at the top of the hill.

It was like a beacon, thought Gamache. A lighthouse.

Except a lighthouse was a warning, of shoals, of rocks. It was not a destination. No mariner would steer toward one, he knew, as their steps took them closer and closer.

Once there, they found the agent sitting on a straight-backed chair in the lobby, the box on her knee and her arms around it.

“Agent Lavigne, isn’t it?” said the Chief Inspector.

“Oui, patron.” She stood up so quickly the box almost fell to the floor. When Inspector Lacoste took it, the young agent turned to Gamache.

“If you don’t mind . . .” She was holding out a receipt.

Beauvoir pressed his lips together and made a mental note to buy her a coffee. If not for good sense, then for valor.

She left with a receipt signed, Armand Gamache. And they were left with the box.

Putting it on the conference table in the Incident Room, Beauvoir handed around sterile gloves. Gamache put them on, trying not to show the nausea he still felt as the memories came flooding back, carried on the scent of latex.

Lacoste brought out her phone to record the proceedings.

Breaking the seal, Beauvoir picked up the various items, dictating as he went. All went into bags and were labeled.

The last three items he placed on the desk.

“Four birthday cards.”

Isabelle opened them. “For Abigail’s sixteenth to nineteenth birthdays. All signed, Love, Debbie. So now we know exactly when the falling-out happened.”

“Not long after Maria died,” said Gamache.