The North Face of the Heart - Dolores Redondo Page 0,143

a trace of any of them. Two years later, their names were officially added to the list of people who went missing during the hurricane.”

With uneasy glances, they all held their breath, uncertain how to react.

Dupree went on. “But I was there. I was really little, but I know the hurricane wasn’t responsible. I saw who did it . . .”

Johnson said what they all were thinking, “Samedi.”

Dupree didn’t reply.

“How old were the home invaders?” Johnson asked.

“I know where you’re headed,” Bull intervened. “It happened forty years ago. Thirty years went by between the attack on the Dupree family and the Médora Lirette case. We told you we received instructions to stand down, and that’s what we did. But we’ve been watching. And we’re pretty sure Samedi’s been back several times.”

He ticked them off on his fingers. “On September 20, 1996, a year after Médora Lirette was taken, a fifteen-year-old girl named Andrea López disappeared from a trailer park outside Gretna. Her mother, a crack addict, claimed that Death came and took Andrea away.

“On January 11, 1999, a man was arrested in Acadia Parish and charged with complicity in the disappearance of his two daughters, fourteen and sixteen years old. He was a real scumbag, the sort who’d probably have sold them if he’d gotten the chance, but he kept insisting that armed men led by a demon broke in and carried his daughters off.

“In Estherwood, Samantha Oliver’s mother went to the police because her daughter disappeared during a storm. They assumed the girl was a runaway, even though the old woman across the street swore she saw dead men do it. According to her, they were led by Baron Samedi.”

Charbou frowned. “If there’s somebody abducting girls out there, why would he dress up like a weirdo?”

“To throw people off his trail,” Johnson said. “I spent two years investigating religious sects and illegal rituals. I learned back then that in eighty percent of the crimes involving magic or satanism, the magical or supernatural element was used deliberately to confuse people. And it almost always did. Media outlets go wild for that kind of thing. Only about two in every ten cases involved people who really believed that stuff.”

Bull nodded. “We don’t assume Samedi is an individual. Samedi’s more like a cult with a leader, a bokor, who puts on that identity to terrify and dominate. This wouldn’t be the first time. It’s common knowledge that down in Haiti, President François Duvalier sometimes dressed up as Baron Samedi and cavorted on the balconies of the presidential palace. He even went out into the neighborhood to scare people into believing the president himself was Samedi or at least was protected by Samedi. In any case, a witness, no matter how reliable, is immediately discredited as soon as he claims that the death baron carried the girls off. It sounds so absurd that the police turn a deaf ear. If we hadn’t been tracking disappearances of young girls that occurred during disasters, we’d probably never even have noticed.”

“Sherrington’s victimological profile,” Amaia mused. Dupree nodded, feeling understood. “You posit the existence of a predator or a facilitator—which would make him even harder to trace.”

“A facilitator?” Charbou asked.

“An individual or even an organization,” she replied, keenly searching Dupree’s face, “dedicated to identifying victims to feed to psychopaths, pedophiles, or collectors who are willing to pay enormous sums for them. They choose victims who are seriously at risk, for example, very young girls or runaways. And now Médora Lirette has reappeared, and she just told us where Samedi is.”

“That’s exactly why you have to get me out of this place,” Dupree said in a strangled voice.

“To go where?” Johnson protested. “I know they’ve told you how serious your condition is and how dangerous it is to turn down medical supervision.”

“They also told me they have no way to treat it. All they could suggest was that I lie here like a log. You have to get me out of here.”

Johnson, intent and anxious, covered one of Dupree’s hands with both of his own. “And where would we go? For the love of God, Dupree! Things out there have gone to hell since yesterday! The water kept rising throughout the night, and now eighty percent of the city is underwater. The hospitals have run out of medicine. National Guard units from surrounding states have been dispatched, and there’s still not enough personnel to deal with this. People are looting supermarkets. There’s total anarchy out there. You’re asking