How the Light Gets In by Penny Louise

Author:Penny, Louise [Penny, Louise]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Suspense
ISBN: 9781410460158
Amazon: 0312655479
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Published: 2013-01-01T07:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-FIVE

Mugs of steaming apple cider were placed in front of Thérèse Brunel and the Chief Inspector.

Clara and a friend were sitting by the fireplace and motioned them over, but after thanking Clara for dinner the night before, the Sûreté officers moved off to the relative privacy of the easy chairs in front of the bay window.

The mullions were frosted slightly but the village was still easily seen, and the two stared out in slightly awkward silence for a minute or two. Thérèse stirred her cider with the cinnamon stick, then took a sip.

It tasted of Christmas, and skating, and long winter afternoons in the country. She and Jérôme never had cider in Montréal, and she wondered why not.

“Will it be all right, Armand?” she finally asked. There was no neediness, no fear in her voice. It was strong and clear. And curious.

He also stirred his cider. Looking up, he held her eyes and once again she marveled at the quality of calm in them. And something else. Something she’d first noticed in that packed amphitheater years ago.

Even from halfway back, she could see the kindness in his eyes. A quality some had mistaken, to their regret, for weakness.

But there wasn’t just kindness there. Armand Gamache had the personality of a sniper. He watched, and waited, and took careful aim. He almost never shot, metaphorically or literally, but when he did, he almost never missed.

But a decade ago, he’d missed. He’d hit Arnot. But not Francoeur.

And now Francoeur had assembled an army, and was planning something horrific. The question was, did Gamache have another shot in him? And would he hit the target this time?

“Oui, Thérèse,” he said now, and as he smiled his eyes crinkled into deep lines. “All shall be well.”

“Julian of Norwich,” she said, recognizing the phrase. All shall be well.

Through the frosted window she could see Gilles and Nichol carrying equipment up the slope and into the woods. Superintendent Brunel returned her gaze to her companion, noting the holster and gun on his belt. Armand Gamache would do what was necessary. But not before it was necessary.

“All shall be well,” she said, and went back to her reading.

Gamache had given her the documents he’d found on the Ouellet Quints while researching in the Bibliothèque nationale, with the comment that something was bothering him after watching the films the night before.

“Just one thing?” Thérèse had asked. She’d watched the DVD that morning on an old laptop Nichol had brought with her. “Those poor girls. I once envied them, you know. Every little girl wanted to be either a Quint or young Princess Elizabeth.”

And so they settled in, Superintendent Brunel with the file on the girls, and Chief Inspector Gamache with the book by Dr. Bernard. Thérèse put down the dossier an hour later.

“Well?” asked Gamache, taking off his reading glasses.

“There’s a lot in here to damn the parents,” she said.

“And a lot in here,” said Gamache, laying a large hand on the book. “Did anything strike you?”

“As a matter of fact it did.

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