Page 232 of A Better Man

After he’d opened it, he smiled and put it back in his pocket. Beside him, Reine-Marie closed her eyes and tilted her face up.

Then they walked back to the bistro to join the others.

Unheard by anyone else, Armand bent down and whispered to Ruth. “I forgive you, but don’t ever do it again.”

“Do what?”

“You know.” While he couldn’t bring himself to say the words, especially to the elderly woman, even this elderly woman, he brought out his phone and showed her. The Twitter handle @dumbass. And the link to the real Sûreté video of the raid on the factory. There were other posts by @dumbass, defending Gamache. But when the video went up, they’d stopped.

There was no longer any need to defend him once that vile video went viral.

“How did you find it?” he asked.

“I didn’t. You think I’d defend you?”

“I do.”

“I would,” the old poet admitted. “I did. But that’s not me.”

Armand stepped back and stared at Ruth. He knew her to be many things, but never a liar.

So if she wasn’t @dumbass, who was?

Madeleine Toussaint sat at her desk and opened her computer.

Putting in her Sûreté code, she went back over her posts, aimed at Gamache, and deleted them all. Pausing just a moment at the final one.

Then Chief Superintendent Toussaint hit delete. And @dumbass disappeared. Never, she prayed, to be found. Because if anyone knew … If the Premier found out she’d defied him, and defended Gamache by posting the real video …

It was an act of contrition. An amend. And now they were even, and she owed her former mentor nothing.

Looking across the room, her eyes fell on the last remnant of the last occupant. Something she kept meaning to take down. But had kept up. The framed poster, nailed to the wall by the door. The first, and last, thing seen each day.

Noli timere.

Armand sat on the sofa beside Reine-Marie and reached for the café au lait Olivier had brought them.

He seemed distracted, but now he reached into his pocket and handed Reine-Marie the envelope. “You might want to read this.”

“Jean-Guy’s recommendation?” She put on her reading glasses. “Will you take it?”

“I think so.”

Armand watched her face as Reine-Marie read. He saw the smile. And relief. As she stared at Jean-Guy’s familiar hand and the name he’d so carefully written.

Armand’s new second-in-command.

Isabelle Lacoste.

Reine-Marie lowered the paper to her lap and looked into the fireplace. Everything might be all right, after all, she thought.