The North Face of the Heart - Dolores Redondo Page 0,188
put his hands out where she could see them, and unfolded the notebook page with her sketch of a heart. “Nice drawing.”
“I learned what a heart really looks like when I was twelve. A doctor showed me.”
“Mine’s a bit more compressed in the middle. Like one of those Japanese octopus traps.”
“Takotsubo.”
Dupree smiled, giving her that enigmatic look that had so disquieted her at first. This time she didn’t mind.
“Tell me, if you had to choose a single image or a single moment to define your experience back then, what would it be?”
She didn’t have to reflect. “The night.” A pause followed as she digested her spontaneous reply. Dupree knew she’d surprised herself. “I could put up with the daytime, but when the night fell in Baztán . . .”
“And is it night in Baztán right now, Salazar?”
“It’s always night there.”
Dupree responded with a sad but affectionate smile. “You’re frightened, Salazar.”
She opened her mouth to answer but couldn’t find the words.
“That’s why you leave the light on when you go to bed.”
She said nothing.
“You’re frightened, but you want to see your enemy coming. You’re frightened, but you’re ready for your foe. That makes you courageous.”
She refused to look at him, but Dupree touched her chin gently to turn her head. “I knew it the first time I saw you. You were a student at that conference in Boston. I saw it again in Quantico. You’re a born investigator. Keep a check on your arrogance, but a loose one, because unless you let your instincts guide you, you’ll be no better than any of the others. And listen to your heart. You’re going to be one of the best investigators I’ve ever had the good fortune to know. Listen to your heart, because that’s what you and I have in common with the famous Inspector Sherrington. All three of us had the same experience: our hearts stopped, but for some reason we came back. Each of us had to die and find our way back from hell. That gave us a special advantage. Not only do we know the path to hell and back, we recognize those on that same road.”
“It’s more of a curse than a privilege,” she muttered.
“I need to ask a favor of you. There’s someone in NOLA named Nana. She’s like a mother to me. Lives in Treme, but she said she was going to stay at the Superdome.”
“I don’t know if they’re keeping a record of people’s names, but I can look.”
He nodded, aware of how absurdly hopeless that request probably was, but he had to ask. “And now let me tell you a story before we go back. I’ll have to give the others a different version later. You’ll get used to that. You’ll have to do it often enough throughout your career. You’ll get used to hiding the truth, because stupidity and intolerance are everywhere, and not everyone sees the world as you do. Make up a lie if you have to, lie to save your skin, to protect justice and the truth. But promise me you’ll always remember that those are lies and that you’ll keep the truth clearly in mind. And never lie to yourself or to me.” He paused. “I’m going to tell you something. Something I know you’ll understand.”
“First tell me this,” she interrupted him. “Are we friends?”
“You can bet my life on it.” He took her right hand and placed a little gray bag in it.
Amaia smiled.
69
WITCH
Elizondo
When Amaia Salazar was twelve years old, she was lost in the forest for sixteen hours. A shepherd named Julián Andía found her in the center of a field, and for years he insisted to everyone willing to listen that a lightning bolt deposited the child at his feet. They found her in the earliest hours of the morning, eighteen miles north of where she’d wandered off the trail. She was unconscious, her clothing blackened and scorched like that of a medieval witch pulled from a bonfire. In contrast, her skin was white, clean, and icy, as if she’d just emerged from a glacier. She’d lost a boot and most of her clothing was gone. Even though she’d been wandering in the driving rain for hours, she was completely dry. The girl seemed to have arrived riding a lightning bolt like the Basque goddess Mari herself.
Julián yelled, not to alert the others, but because he’d been thunderstruck—figuratively, at least. He was afraid to touch her, because he’d heard that if you touch someone struck