Peter had seen and felt and tried to paint the ever-changing face and fortunes of the river.

“We’re still at sea,” said Jean-Guy.

“But perhaps a little closer to the shore.”

“Yeah, well, the shore isn’t always such a great place to be,” said Beauvoir, stumbling over to the bed.

“True, mon vieux,” said Gamache. “I’m going to take a bath.”

Outside the picture window the darkness was complete, but every thirty seconds or so a fist of water hit it.

Half an hour later Gamache turned off the lights and got into bed.

“We’ll be there tomorrow,” said Beauvoir, already half asleep. “Do you think we’ll find Peter?”

“I do.”

Gamache drifted closer to sleep, thinking of what awaited them.

Isolation and the company of a madman could twist even the most stable person, never mind someone already foundering. As Peter was.

They would almost certainly find Peter Morrow the next day, but Gamache was far from sure if he’d be a Peter they’d want to find.

*   *   *

Jean-Guy woke up to pale pink light coming into the cabin and the smell of coffee. It was early. The women weren’t yet stirring.

But Gamache was up and at the dining table. Staring at Peter’s paintings and humming to himself.

“Okay, patron?” Jean-Guy asked, sitting up in bed. Something seemed off. Wrong.

And then he realized what it was. For the first time in days the Loup de Mer wasn’t lurching and twisting and heaving.

“Oui.” But Gamache’s voice and mind were far away.

“Are we still moving?” Beauvoir looked out the window.

The storm had gone, moving off down the river. Toward Anticosti, and Sept-Îles, Quebec City and finally Montréal.

On his way to the bathroom, Beauvoir paused at the table long enough to see that Peter’s painting had been turned around. So that the overwhelming sorrow was now giddy joy.

And yet the expression on the Chief’s face was grim.

“What is it?” Jean-Guy asked when he returned and set mugs of strong coffee on the table.

“Merci,” said Gamache, still distracted.

And then he told Jean-Guy what he’d found hiding in that painting.

There, among the lips, the waves, the sadness and hope, he’d found a sin-sick soul.

*   *   *

Myrna and Clara woke up to shafts of sunlight through the picture window.

The Loup de Mer seemed not to be moving at all. If it wasn’t for the now-comforting thrum of the engines, they’d have thought the ship was dead in the water. But out the window, Clara and Myrna could see the shoreline gliding past.

The sky had cleared and the river was glass. The Loup de Mer sailed into a gleaming, pastel day.

The shore rose smoothly out of the water, as though the river itself had simply turned to stone.

The main cabin was empty. The men had gone.