*
Jean-Guy Beauvoir saw a body facedown in the snow and ran to it, falling onto his knees.
Oh, no, no, no.
He turned it over.
Francoeur. Dead.
Beauvoir got to his feet and looked around, frantic. Then he forced himself to calm down. To listen. As the quiet of the forest descended, he heard it. Up ahead. Someone running. Away from him. Toward Three Pines.
Toward the schoolhouse.
Jean-Guy Beauvoir took off. Running. Screaming. Screaming. Running.
“Stop! Stop!” he screamed.
But the man ahead didn’t hear. Didn’t stop.
Beauvoir ran as fast as he could, but there was too great a distance between them. Gamache would reach the schoolhouse. Believing Beauvoir was inside. Believing Beauvoir was in danger.
Gamache would take the stairs two at a time, rip the door open, and …
“Stop! Stop!” Beauvoir screamed. And then he shrieked. Not words, just a sound. All his fear, all his rage, everything he had left he put into that howl.
But still the Chief ran, as though pursued by demons.
Beauvoir stumbled to a stop. Sobbing.
“No. Stop.”
He couldn’t catch him. Couldn’t stop him. Except …
*
Isabelle Lacoste knelt beside Tessier but sprang to her feet at that godawful sound. She’d never heard anything like it. It was like something breaking, being torn apart. She ran toward it, following the unholy scream deeper into the forest.
*
Armand Gamache heard the shot. Saw the bark fly off the tree ahead of him. But still he ran, and he ran. Unswerving. As fast and as true as he could.
Straight for the schoolhouse.
He could see it now, red through the white and gray of the forest.
Another shot hit the snow beside him, but still he ran. Tessier must have found Francoeur, and was now trying to stop him. But Gamache would not be stopped.
*
Jean-Guy’s hand quivered and the gun wavered, sending his shots off the mark. He’d been aiming at the Chief’s legs. Hoping, praying, to graze him. Enough to bring him down. But it wasn’t working.
“Stop, oh, please stop.”
Beauvoir’s vision was blurred. He dragged his sleeve across his face, then tilted his head back, for a moment, and looked through the bare limbs. To the blue sky above.
“Oh, please.”
Gamache was almost out of the woods. Almost at the schoolhouse.
Beauvoir closed his eyes briefly.
“Please,” he begged.
He brought his gun up again. His hands steady now. The gun unwavering. The aim sure. No longer for Gamache’s legs.
*
“Stop,” screamed Lacoste, her gun trained on Beauvoir’s back.
She could see, ahead through the woods, the Chief Inspector racing toward Three Pines. And Jean-Guy Beauvoir about to gun him down.
“Drop it,” she commanded.
“No, Isabelle,” Beauvoir called. “I have to.”
Lacoste braced herself and took aim. From there it would be impossible to miss. But still, she hesitated.
There was something in his voice. Not pleading, not begging, not madness.
Beauvoir’s voice was strong and certain. His old voice.
She had no doubt what he intended to do. Jean-Guy Beauvoir was going to shoot Chief Inspector Gamache.
“Please, Isabelle,” Beauvoir called, his back still to her, his weapon raised.
Isabelle Lacoste steadied herself. Steadied her gun with both hands. Her finger pressed against the trigger.
*
Jean-Guy Beauvoir had Armand Gamache in his sights.
The Chief was at the tree line, just steps from the schoolhouse.
Beauvoir took a deep breath in. A deep breath out.
And pulled the trigger.
*
Armand Gamache could almost touch the schoolhouse now. The shooting had stopped.
He’d make it, he knew. He’d get Jean-Guy out.
He had just cleared the trees when the bullet hit. The force lifted him off his feet and spun him around. In the instant before he hit the ground, in the split second before the world disappeared, he met the eyes of the man who’d shot him.
Jean-Guy Beauvoir.
And then Armand Gamache fell, spread-eagled, as though making an angel in the bright snow.