*
Thérèse Brunel got Jér?me and Gilles settled in the schoolhouse, in front of the woodstove. Heat radiated from it and the men stripped off their heavy parkas, hats, mitts, and boots and sat with their feet out, as close as they could get to the fire without themselves bursting into flames.
The room smelled of wet wool and wood smoke. It was warm now, but Gilles and Jér?me were not.
After shoving more wood into the stove, Thérèse went over to Emilie’s to get Henri, then to the general store, where she picked up milk, cocoa and marshmallows. The hot chocolate now simmered in a pot on top of the stove, and the scent joined that of wet wool and wood smoke. She poured it into mugs and topped each with a couple of large, soft marshmallows.
But the hot chocolate shook so badly in Gilles’s hands, Thérèse had to take the mug from him.
“You asked what this is about,” she said.
Gilles nodded. His teeth chattered violently as he listened, and he alternately hugged himself and held his hands out to the stove as she spoke. His beard had melted a wet stain on his sweater.
When she finished speaking, Thérèse handed him back his hot chocolate, the marshmallow melted to white foam on the top. He gripped the warm mug to his chest like a little boy, frightened by a scary story and trying to be brave.
Beside him, Jér?me had remained quiet while his wife described what they were looking for, and why. Dr. Brunel kneaded his feet, trying to get the blood flowing again. Pins and needles stabbed his toes as the circulation returned.
The sun was now barely visible over the dark forest, the forest that still contained Armand Gamache and Agent Nichol. Thérèse turned on the lights and looked at the blank monitors her husband had set up that morning.
What if this doesn’t work?
They’d have made a very poor Scout troop, she thought. Not only were they unprepared for this to fail, they were using stolen equipment to hack into police files. If there were badges for deception, they’d be covered in them.
They heard heavy footsteps on the wooden porch, and Thérèse opened the door to find Armand there, puffing with exertion.
“You all right?” she asked, though they both knew she was really asking, “Are you alone?”
“Never better,” he gasped. His face was red from exertion and the bitter cold. Dropping the cable on the stoop, he entered the schoolhouse, followed a moment later by Agent Nichol. Her face was no longer pallid. Now it was blotched, white and red. She looked like the Canadian flag.
Thérèse exhaled, unaware until that moment just how concerned she’d really been.
“Do I smell chocolate?” Gamache asked, through frozen lips. Henri had run over to greet him and the Chief was on one knee, hugging the shepherd. For warmth as much as affection, Thérèse suspected. And Henri was happy to give him both.
Space was made by the woodstove for the newcomers.
Thérèse poured them mugs of hot chocolate, and after Gamache and Nichol had stripped off their outerwear, the five sat silently around the woodstove. For the first couple of minutes Gamache and Nichol shuddered with cold. Their hands shook and every now and then they spasmed as the bitter winter, like a wraith, left their body.
Then the little schoolhouse grew quiet, except for the odd squeal of a chair leg on the wooden floor, the crackle of the fire, and Henri’s groans as he stretched out at Gamache’s feet.
Armand Gamache felt he could nod off. His socks were now dry and slightly crispy, the mug of hot chocolate warmed his hands, and the heat from the stove enveloped him. Despite the urgency of their situation, he felt his lids grow heavy.
Oh, for just a few minutes, a few moments, of rest.
But there was work to be done.
Putting down his mug, he leaned forward, hands clasped together. He looked at the circle huddled around the woodstove in the tiny one-room schoolhouse. The five of them. Quints. Thérèse, Jér?me, Gilles, Armand, and Nichol.
And Nichol, he thought again. Hanging off the end. The outlier.
“What’s next?” he asked.
TWENTY-SEVEN
“Next?” asked Jér?me.
He never expected it to get this far. Looking across the room at the bank of blank monitors, he knew what had to happen.
Beneath the thick sweater he felt a trickle of perspiration, as though his round body was weeping. If Three Pines was their foxhole, he was about to raise his head. Armand had given them a weapon, but it was a pointy stick against a machine gun.
He walked away from the warmth of the fire and felt the chill again as he approached the far reaches of the room. Two old, battered computers sat side-by-side, one on the teacher’s desk, the other on the table they’d dragged over. Above them, glued to the wall, was the cheerful alphabet, illustrated with bumblebees and butterflies and ducks and roses. And below that, musical notes.
He hummed it slowly, following the notes.