It didn’t make the painting good, but it was the first of Peter’s works that had produced any feeling at all in him.

He turned to look at the table. Even those paintings had created a feeling, though he didn’t think nausea was considered an emotion. But it was at least something. In the gut. Not in the head.

If this was the start, Armand Gamache was even more anxious to know where the smiles led.

Chapter 17

SEVENTEEN

Reine-Marie was smiling.

Gamache had shown her the parade of tiny lips. It had taken her a moment to actually recognize what they were, but he knew the moment it clicked.

Her own lips curled into a grin. Then into a full-blown smile.

“How could I have missed it, Armand?” She turned to him, then back to the painting.

“I missed it too. It was Jean-Guy who found them.”

“Merci,” she said to her son-in-law, who bowed slightly in acknowledgment. She wondered if he realized that was one of Armand’s mannerisms.

While Reine-Marie turned back to the painting, Gamache turned his attention to the other two canvases on the floor. Clara was staring down at them.

“Anything?” he asked.

She shook her head, then leaned closer to the paintings. Then stepped back.

Was there something in those pictures like the lips? An image, an emotion Peter had embedded there, waiting to be discovered, like a country or planet or strange new species.

If there was, neither Gamache nor Clara could see it.

Gamache sensed eyes on him and assumed they were Beauvoir’s, but the younger man was busy making sandwiches in the kitchen.

Reine-Marie was still smiling down at the lip painting. Clara was examining the other two canvases.

And Myrna was examining him.

She led him away from the others.

“Is this too much, Armand?”

“What do you mean?”

She gave him a shrewd look and he grinned.

“You noticed the little exchange with Beauvoir.”

“I did.” She studied him for a moment. “Clara would understand if you told her you needed to stop.”

“Stop?” He looked at her with astonishment. “Why would I do that?”

“Why did you snap at Beauvoir just now?”

“He was standing on a chair. An old pine chair. It could’ve broken.”

“‘It’ could’ve broken?”

“Oh, come on.” Gamache laughed. “Don’t you think you’re reading more into this than it deserves? I was momentarily angry with Jean-Guy and showed it. Point final. No big deal. Drop it.”

His voice, on the last two words, had hardened. And his eyes contained a warning. Do not cross this line.

“Life is made up of ‘no big deals,’” said Myrna, crossing the line. “You know that. Isn’t that what you say about murders? They’re rarely provoked by one huge event, but by a series of tiny, almost invisible, events. No big deals, that combine to create a catastrophe.”

“What’s your point?” His eyes hadn’t wavered.