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“Shoot, you fucking coward!”
He lowered his gun and shook his head. Isabelle stepped forward and grabbed the end of the rifle, lifting it to the ceiling.
“Do it,” Abby begged, even as the rifle was twisted out of her grip and she slumped to the floor. “Please.”
“Abigail Robinson,” Jean-Guy began, “I’m arresting you—”
He could go no further. His knees began to buckle.
Armand grabbed him, holding him up. Holding Jean-Guy in his arms as he sobbed.
Chapter 47
The chamber was full,” Isabelle reported. “She meant to kill you.”
“No,” said Jean-Guy. “She meant for me to kill her.”
He was slumped in the back of the car, utterly drained and still trembling. Not from the cold, but from exposure.
“Suicide by cop,” said Gamache. It was one of the nightmares. One few cops had come out of without being forced to actually do it.
But Jean-Guy Beauvoir was far from the average cop.
They’d taken Abigail Robinson into the Sûreté station, where she was booked for possession of a dangerous weapon and assault on a police officer.
They hadn’t yet charged her with the murder of Debbie Schneider, or Maria. They didn’t know if they had enough evidence to convict. That might take some time. If ever. Though they still hoped for a confession.
By the time the booking was done, the statements taken, the paperwork completed, it was late afternoon.
Colette Roberge had been driven back home to Jean-Paul, and Vincent Gilbert and Haniya Daoud had returned to the Auberge.
Once there, Vincent had asked Haniya to walk down to the bistro with him, for a drink.
“I need some fresh air.”
“We’re going to walk?”
“It’s just down the hill,” he said. “You can see it from here.”
“You can see the horizon too. Doesn’t mean I want to walk there.”
The two Asshole Saints bickered all the way down the hill and into the bistro, where Gabri got them a table away from polite company and pumped them for information.
He left with an order for a double scotch and a hot chocolate, but no information.
Isabelle drove the Chief and Beauvoir back to Three Pines.
Jean-Guy sat in the back seat and passed a shaky hand over his face. He wondered if they realized how close he’d come. He thought they probably did.
What he didn’t know is why he hadn’t fired. And whether he’d live to regret it.
“So you didn’t take Abigail to your cabin to kill her?” Haniya asked.
“Me? Murder someone? I got a belly full of cruelty with Ewen Cameron. No. I asked Professor Robinson to join me, away from distractions, so I could apologize for what I allowed to happen to her mother. But I never got the chance.”
He looked down at his veined hands, clasped together on the table. His scotch was untouched in front of him.
Haniya picked up her bowl of hot chocolate topped with peaks of whipped cream. She’d felt the need for something soothing. Never having had hot chocolate, but watching the pleasure it gave others, she felt it might be just the thing.
