“Good” was what Beauvoir said, but good was not what he felt. “Anything in the case files?”

“No, nothing yet,” she said, and hanging up, she went back to them. Like the play, she knew her answer was right in front of her if only she could find it.

Isabelle Lacoste had gone over and over the notes. The interviews. The evidence from both murders.

Antoinette Lemaitre had been killed either by someone she’d invited into her home, or when she’d surprised an intruder. It was someone who knew about Project Babylon, and knew Brian would be in Montréal. Someone who knew that her uncle was Guillaume Couture and that Dr. Couture had been Gerald Bull’s main designer. Perhaps even knew he was the real architect of Project Babylon.

Someone who thought the plans were hidden in his home. Someone who might’ve been looking for them for years.

The gun couldn’t be sold. Not anymore. But the plans could.

Lacoste stopped herself.

Sidetracked by the goddamned plans again, she thought, and gave a heavy sigh.

But still, she’d come close, before veering off. Where had she gone astray?

All right, she told herself. Let’s set aside Antoinette’s murder and go back to the first one. Laurent’s death.

She herself had been in the bistro when the boy had raced in with yet another ridiculous story, so clearly a product of his imagination.

Isabelle Lacoste tried to remember what he’d said and done.

Laurent had run in and come up to their table, jabbering excitedly, announcing to the room that he’d found a huge gun in the woods. With a monster on it.

When no one paid attention, Laurent had tugged at Gamache’s arm to follow him.

Instead, the Chief had driven him home. In the car, Laurent had entertained him with more tales about the gun, and about winged monsters and alien invasions and whatever else his fertile imagination produced.

A day later, Laurent was dead.

Who else had he told? His parents. His father. The one person who would know it wasn’t a fantasy, though Lepage claimed not to know what Dr. Bull and the others were building. Was that one more lie in a life that was itself a fabrication? Did he kill his own son to shut him up, knowing that if the massive gun was found, with his etching, questions would be asked and Frederick Lawson might be revealed?

Is that what happened? Or had Laurent run into someone else in the hours after Gamache had dropped him off? Someone who knew Laurent was telling the truth. Someone who had Laurent show him the gun, and then killed him there and placed his body by the side of the road, to make it look like an accident.

She was missing something. Or misinterpreting something. There was something she wasn’t seeing.

That’s when Beauvoir called and reported that they’d found nothing in the play. Her heart dropped. It wasn’t their only hope, but it was their best one.

She went back to the file folder and began reading again.

And then she forced herself to stop. She knew the case. Had just refreshed her mind. Now it was time to use her mind. Isabelle Lacoste closed the file, swung her chair around, and stared out the window. Forcing herself to do nothing. Except the most important thing. Think.

*   *   *

Gabri had called from the bistro and asked Gamache to meet him there, leaving Beauvoir alone in the study.

Jean-Guy hadn’t meant to pry but, once alone, his eyes had strayed to papers on Gamache’s desk. Letters. Offers. Stacks of them. The top one was from the UN to head up their policing division, with a particular focus on Haiti.

For reasons he couldn’t explain, Jean-Guy’s heart dropped. Haiti was close to Gamache’s own heart. It was a job that demanded diplomacy, and patience, and respect. And French. It would be dangerous, but it would be fulfilling, to train the local police in that shattered nation. It was a perfect fit for the Chief.

Then Beauvoir refocused and returned to the script in a desperate, last-ditch attempt to find something in the play.

It seemed more and more likely that Fleming was lying, at least about the play. Probably about the plans too.

The words swam in front of Jean-Guy’s eyes and nothing was going in. He read and reread the same passage. It was like the recurring nightmare where he had to get away, but couldn’t run.

He looked at the words and willed his mind to settle down. But all he could think of was Annie and the baby and a world where a goddamned gun was in the hands of a madman. And another madman was on the loose, freed by them.

Jean-Guy forced himself to close his eyes. And from his mind he pulled the fresh memory of the play being read by Clara and Myrna, Madame Gamache and Brian and Gabri. Ruth and Olivier and Monsieur Béliveau. Their familiar voices lulled him, like his grandmother’s voice reading to him at bedtime about the hockey sweater.