15
Chantal Charlot, Chief of the Castillac gendarmerie, was holding on by her fingernails, or so she feared. Her career had been spotty, to put it generously, which was why she had landed way out in the provinces in such a small village after beginning her career in Paris. She had had high ambitions of moving through the ranks and being given the choicest appointments, but life had not worked out that way. Now she was hearing rumblings that the higher-ups weren’t happy with her performance in Castillac, either.
That Monday morning she got dressed, grumbling under her breath, not looking in the mirror but braiding her chestnut hair and then knotting it, trying to think of something she could do to reverse the bigwigs’ opinion of her. She needed to crack something big, to pull off some kin
