me to move you, but where could we go?”
Dupree beckoned him close. “If I stay here, I’ll die. I need a traiteur. You have to take me to the swamp.”
Johnson straightened up. He turned to the others. “What the hell is he talking about?”
Bull explained. “A traiteur is a Cajun medicine man.”
Thunderstruck, Johnson turned back to Dupree and sputtered. “I swear by all that’s holy—”
“Let’s go,” Dupree whispered hoarsely. “And let’s take Médora with us.” Before Johnson could react, he added, “They can’t cure her here.”
Amaia gave Dupree a grim look. “We’re going after him, aren’t we?”
He said nothing.
“That’s why you want to take Médora. You think she knows where the girls are. And you’re expecting her to lead us there.”
Dupree took a deep breath and spoke with great effort. “Ten years ago, we had something that was maybe a lead,” he said, his eyes on Amaia. “It led us to a shanty town out in the swamp where we found evidence, a little brooch Médora’s mother identified as hers. Solid proof. And that clue took us to an enormous estate, a former plantation abandoned years before. When we got there, we found a fence around it, electrified and equipped with security cameras. We couldn’t get a search warrant the same day, because that was the day Jerome Lirette disappeared and Agent Carlino turned up . . .” He looked away, unable to complete the sentence.
Bull continued the account. “I’ve kept an eye on the place ever since, and we know the estate belongs to a Dutch corporation. In the property records, it’s been retitled as Janssen Huis, but originally it was known as Le Grand Bayou Plantation. The Cajuns always simply called it Le Grand.”
“That’s what Médora said,” Charbou confirmed, almost against his own will, “when you asked her about Samedi.”
“Do you really believe there’s any possibility at all they’re still keeping abducted girls out there ten years later?” Amaia asked.
Bull responded, “Why not? We never got a search warrant. And we never mentioned the place in any of our reports. No one’s aware we even know about it.”
Charbou looked Dupree directly in the eyes. “Bull and I would be outside our jurisdiction.”
“Kidnapping is a federal offense. You two would be on my team purely as guides, that’s all.”
“Listen,” Bill Charbou said. “We’ll take you to your traiteur, and we’ll take a look at the house. And if we find nothing, we’ll come back to NOLA with leeches up our butts.”
Bull was impressed. “I didn’t think he’d be able to convince you.”
“Yeah, well, I get excited at the idea of sticking my nose outside my own jurisdiction.”
All eyes turned to Amaia.
Dupree spoke. “Salazar, what do you say?”
“What about the Composer? We’ve made a lot of progress here. I believe we correctly refined the profile regarding the ages of the children. Nelson still doesn’t fit it exactly. We talked with his partner on the rescue team, who admitted he covered for him. But he also described disorderly, impulsive, and confused behavior that’s completely inconsistent with the actions of Martin Lenx and the Composer. The hypothesis that he’s an adjustor sent to disaster scenes is starting to look like our best bet. I talked to a senior manager at the American Insurance Association, and in just a few hours, I’ll have a list of names we can work with.”
“In a few hours?”
“Yes, probably by noon tomorrow. It all depends on my finding a telephone line.”
“Give me those hours,” Dupree said. “Please.”
“What?”
“You’re right. I brought you along to track down the Composer. Samedi simply turned up along the way, but now that we’re aware of a crime and have the means to pursue the perpetrators, we can’t let it drop. I won’t abandon you here, and I won’t force you to come if you don’t want to. But I’m begging you to give me those hours. Give me until tomorrow.”
“I have a lot of unanswered questions,” she warned him.
“I’ll answer them all.”
“And I’ll ask them all,” she said in a steely voice. “Even the most complicated ones. I want the whole truth; if I think for a moment that you’re hiding something from me, you can count me out.”
“Agreed.”
“And we come back to NOLA for the Composer as soon as possible.”
Johnson interrupted them. “Bad news!” He was aghast. He held up his BlackBerry to show them the email he’d just received.
Dupree and Amaia looked at him.
“Tucker arrested Nelson in Tampa. They staked out his wife’s house and even had SWAT team members