never goes out. It probably wasn’t the first time somebody scolded the child. Juan, tell me you didn’t know about this!”
Her father’s first words were inaudible, then, “I was leaving the kitchens, and I heard Rosario saying something like that to the customers.”
“When was that?”
“It’s been a while. Maybe a few months ago—”
Engrasi shrieked in anger. “And you dare claim that you’re suffering! How can you let your wife go around telling people the child is evil?” She lowered her voice and her tone became gentle. “Do you know what she asked me yesterday? ‘Auntie, if I’m a very good girl, do you think they’ll let me go back home?’”
Her father was sobbing.
“The poor child has blocked off her pain, walled it off with a barrier so tall and strong that she can’t remember what you two did to her. All she wants is to be a normal child. To be loved.” Engrasi didn’t bother to hide her contempt. “And this extraordinary little girl has to deal with the shame of being pointed out in the street! Amnesia spares her from her painful memories. But it’s an abyss, an open hole beneath her feet that one day will gobble her up.”
“Don’t say that, Engrasi! You know what it’s like in a small town: nobody says a word, but they all know everything. I did scold Rosario when I heard her say those things, I really did. What more can I do? She’s very sick, Engrasi. She’s a model mother to Flora and Rosaura. The doctor says she’s not aware of how she’s hurting Amaia.”
“But you are. You have to put a stop to it.”
“But how?” he cried in desperation.
“By telling her it’s not true! Forbidding her to say such things!” Engrasi was disgusted. “How could you permit it?”
Juan got up. “And what do you want me to tell them?” He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “That I had to get my daughter out of the house because otherwise she’d be dead by now?”
Sitting in the phone booth at Quantico, Amaia realized she’d been distractedly tracing that heart in the wooden shelf. Her index finger stopped again at the point of that heart, so similar to the one that an eleven-year-old was able to imagine in the grain of a wooden banister.
Her aunt’s voice came to her from very far away. “Amaia . . .”
“I’m not leaving here, Auntie.”
10
THERMAL CONDITIONS
New Orleans, Louisiana
Early morning, Saturday, August 27, 2005
The FBI regional office in New Orleans was located at the edge of Pontchartrain Park, adjacent to the New Orleans Lakefront Airport. Their initial plan had been to land at the small airport, but that proved impossible because it was being evacuated. They’d been put in a holding pattern over Lake Pontchartrain and later directed to Louis Armstrong International Airport in Kenner, exactly what they’d been trying to avoid. As their jet was on approach, they got a radio message that two FBI agents were standing by with vehicles to take them to the regional office.
Their first impression as they deplaned in New Orleans was one of stifling heat. The sun wasn’t up yet, though the silvery-gray light of the coming dawn was visible above the horizon. Warm humidity settled on Amaia’s skin as soon as she descended the ramp. A thin film of sweat covered her. Two agents in what she had come to see as standard-issue FBI suits—dark jackets and spotless white shirts—awaited them on the tarmac. Resisting the impulse to use the folder in her hand as a fan, she wondered how they could bear to be dressed so formally in the heat.
The agents stepped forward to brief Dupree and the team. “Sir, as you requested, we collected and reviewed all the lists of people arriving in the city, both here at Armstrong and in nearby fields, paying special attention to individuals who rented cars on arrival. We have rental car information from across the state, just in case the suspect arrived elsewhere.”
“Do you have census information, voter rolls, any kind of accounting for the citizenry?” Dupree asked.
The agent grimaced and gestured ambiguously. “The city offices have been as helpful as possible, considering the circumstances. We have a team collating information according to your instructions. That will take a few hours more, and I should warn you, it won’t be definitive.”
They crossed a crowded terminal full of families waiting to evacuate the city. They carried their own bags and sometimes stepped carefully over children who’d stretched out on the