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Spray from waves beating against the rocks stung their faces, but while Beauvoir winced, the Chief Inspector never flinched. Never turned away. His deep brown eyes never wavered, never left Beauvoir’s.

With every word the man uttered, the young agent grew more and more perplexed.

More and more afraid.

Screaming, yelling, threatening he understood, even went out of his way to provoke.

But this? It wasn’t just a foreign language, it was alien. As though the man in front of him had appeared from some strange world unknown to Beauvoir. He understood the individual words, but their meaning eluded him.

And then it got worse.

“We have a duty,” the Chief was saying. His voice steady, never rising above normal level, even as the wind whipped around him and lake water coursed down his face. “Sacred or otherwise, to the murdered person and those who love and care for them. Part of that duty is to make sure their humanity is preserved. Do you understand, Agent Beauvoir?”

Don’t say it, don’t say it. Do. Not. Say. It.

“What I understand, sir, is that you’re a laughingstock, a joke, in the Sûreté.”

Stop. Stop. For God’s sake, stop. He’s not the enemy.

And yet it felt like he was. Gamache was threatening, in his soft, even gentle voice, all Jean-Guy’s defenses, fortifications that had taken a lifetime to erect.

“Your department is made up of all the garbage no one else wanted. They’re the only ones who’ll work for you. You don’t even wear a gun. You’re a coward. Everyone knows that.”

Word after word, like a shotgun blast to the chest, he aimed at this senior officer.

It was, of course, suicide. But necessary. A panicked effort to push away what now seemed inevitable. That this man would breach his walls. Would see inside. And so, Beauvoir lashed out. Wildly. Saying the most insulting things any cop could hear. Any human could hear.

He braced for the counterattack. But none came. The older man just stood there, his face gleaming with lake water, his hair, just touched with gray, tousled in the wind.

Around them the other agents, members of Gamache’s team, had stopped to watch. Some must have moved to intervene because the Chief Inspector made a subtle gesture to stop them.

Jean-Guy raised his voice to be heard above the ruckus of the waves and the wind and the water drumming against their clothing, as though nature was trying to drown him out.

“Only a fool would follow you.”

What happened next shocked and terrified the young agent. And changed his life.

Armand Gamache strolled through the early-morning sunshine, past the three soaring pines. Past the bench, where Ruth raised her middle finger in greeting.

He smiled at the elderly woman and continued on, past his grandson, already caked in mud. Past Monsieur Béliveau’s General Store and Sarah’s Boulangerie. Past Olivier’s Bistro.

The door to the bookshop opened, and Armand turned to greet his friend and neighbor Myrna Landers.

“Big day,” Armand said to her as they continued the walk together. “Can we give you a lift?”

“Thanks, but I’ll take my own car. I’m driving Harriet in.”

Myrna studied her companion. His hair, curling slightly around his ears, was almost all gray, though he wasn’t yet sixty. The lines down his face were accentuated in the morning light. Creases and furrows made from worry, and sorrow, and pain. One, a deep scar by his temple, was made from something else entirely.

Not for the first time the retired psychologist wondered who’d decided to name that part of the body the temple. No doubt some man who worshipped information. Thinking that the brain was the temple where knowledge was housed.

But she knew, as did her companion, as did the dogs, and Gracie, trotting beside them, that anything worth knowing was kept in the heart.

Armand turned to her. “How’re you feeling?”

“About today? Nervous for Harriet. She’s almost sick with anxiety. Panic attacks.”

Armand nodded. He was nervous too, though not for Harriet. He told himself it was ridiculous. Nothing bad could happen.