A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny Read Free Book Online

but he knew his work was only half done. Now Commander Gamache would turn his attention to the academy.
    So far, while firing former professors and hiring new ones, he had not named a second-in-command. Everyone assumed he’d approach Jean-Guy. The younger man had assumed that too, and waited. And was still waiting. And beginning to wonder.
    â€œWould you take it?” Annie had asked one morning over breakfast.
    Never a petite person, she had blossomed with pregnancy, which was one way of putting it. All Jean-Guy cared about was that she and the baby were healthy. He would kill if he had to, to get her that last tub of Häagen-Dazs.
    â€œDo you think I should?” Jean-Guy had replied, and seen Annie smile.
    â€œYou’re kidding, right? Give up your position as inspector in the homicide division, one of the most senior officers in the Sûreté, to go to the academy? You?”
    â€œThen you think I should do it?”
    She’d laughed in that full-hearted way she had. “I don’t think ‘should’ has ever entered your thinking. I think you will do it.”
    â€œAnd why would I?”
    â€œBecause you love my father.”
    It was true.
    He would follow Armand Gamache through the gates of Hell, and the Sûreté Academy was as close as Québec got to Hades.
    *   *   *
    Reine-Marie sat in the bistro and looked out at the darkness and the three great pines, visible only because of the Christmas lights festooned on them. The blue and red and green lights, luminous under a layer of fresh snow, looked as though they were suspended in midair.
    It was just five o’clock but it could have been midnight.
    Patrons had begun arriving at the bistro, meeting friends for a cinq à sept , the cocktail hour at the end of the day.
    Armand hadn’t joined her, preferring the peace and quiet of the study as the first day of term approached. She looked across the village green, past the cheerful trees, to their home, and the light at the study window.
    Reine-Marie had been relieved when she’d heard his decision to take over the academy. It seemed a perfect fit for a man more inclined to track down a rare book than a murderer. But find killers he’d done, for thirty years. And he’d been strangely good at it. He’d hunted serial killers, singular killers, mass murderers. Those who premeditated and those who meditated not at all, but simply lashed out. All had taken lives, and all had been found by her husband, with very few exceptions.
    Yes, Reine-Marie had been relieved when, after reviewing all the offers and discussing them with her, Armand had decided to take on the task of commanding the Sûreté Academy. Of clearing up the mess left by years of brutality and corruption.
    She’d been relieved, right up until the moment she’d surprised that grim look on his face.
    And then a chill had seeped into her. Not a killing cold, but a warning of worse to come.
    â€œYou’ve been looking at that for a day now,” said Myrna, breaking into Reine-Marie’s thoughts and gesturing toward the paper in Ruth’s hand. The old poet held it delicately, at the edges.
    â€œMay I see it?” Reine-Marie asked, her voice gentle, her hand out as though coaxing a lost dog into a car. Had she had a bottle of Scotch, Ruth would’ve been wagging her tail on the front seat by now.
    Ruth looked from one to the other, then she relinquished it. But not to Reine-Marie.
    She gave it to Clara.

 
    CHAPTER 5
    â€œIt’s a map,” said Armand, bending over it.
    â€œWhat was your first clue, Miss Marple?” asked Ruth. “Those lines? They’re what we call roads. This”—she placed her knotted finger on the paper—“is a river.”
    She spoke the last few words slowly, with infinite patience.
    Armand straightened up and looked at her over his reading glasses, then went back to studying the paper on the table