Amaia turned to Joseph. “You’re not allowed to die. You’re going to help us track down your family’s murderer.”
Joseph inhaled sharply. The limp doll before them was suddenly infused with life. He nodded slowly, almost as if bowing.
“I won’t die,” he told her.
“Give me a number where I can reach you,” Johnson said, “and then get out of town.”
Johnson tried Dupree’s number again. It kept ringing. He glanced at Salazar, who seemed not the least affected by their disagreement, unlike him. Her face was relaxed; the shadow of a smile played across her lips as she gazed out at the passing scenery. Sitting like that, she seemed younger, practically a teenager. She blinked several times, and he realized she had been dozing off. It occurred to him that she’d gotten very little sleep over the past couple of days.
He shook his head. This woman was getting on his nerves, but he had to get over it. Johnson was used to taking orders; he was an experienced field operative. But she had an unusually arrogant self-assurance that exasperated him.
“Salazar, encouraging that boy was a mistake. I was moved by his despair too, and that’s why I encouraged him to leave the city, but you . . .” His grimace pulled down his mustache. “You lied to the kid. You can’t say things like that. We’re not sure the Composer was behind his family’s death, and you saw how he reacted. He’ll cling to anything to keep from accepting the truth. That boy’s a potential suicide risk.”
She straightened up, turned toward him, and said, “Agent Johnson, the only effective way to escape death is to try not to die today. And that’s not always possible.”
“Oh, really? And what’ll happen tomorrow if you have to tell him you were wrong? That it wasn’t a serial killer who did away with the family, but his own father?”
“In that case, he’ll have lived one more day. Another day of opportunities, of meeting people along the way, of learning, of surviving. A person learns to survive by living. She won’t have another chance after she’s dead.”
Johnson fell silent. He’d heard that pronoun: “she” wouldn’t have another chance. He was certain it wasn’t a slip of the tongue. She wasn’t talking about the boy.
17
BEFORE DYING
Elizondo
Amaia warded off the threat by going to bed immediately. She wanted to sleep, because she was safe then; if she was sleeping when the menace arrived, she wouldn’t be terrified by it. She wouldn’t know, and if she didn’t know, she wouldn’t suffer. One evening she’d fallen asleep without trying, it had just happened. She couldn’t believe her good fortune when she awoke the next morning. She’d slept and hadn’t been afraid!
She hadn’t managed that feat since, but she’d tried her best. She was always the first to go to bed; she brushed her teeth to make sure forgetting her end-of-day health ritual couldn’t be used as a reason to drag her out of bed, and she peed so she wouldn’t be awakened during the night by the need to go. She put her school things in order, selected her clothes and laid them out, got into bed, and closed her eyes, doing her best to conjure slumber, longing for its silence and amnesia.
Go to sleep! she commanded herself.
She turned toward the wall and tried to ignore the whispered confidences exchanged by her sisters in their adjacent beds.
Go to sleep!
She heard her father come into the room and kiss her sisters goodnight. She sensed him come to her bed, lean over, and hesitate. Sometimes he caressed the hair at the nape of her neck; usually, though, he refrained because he didn’t want to wake her. He tucked her in to make sure she’d be warm.
Go to sleep!
The greatest sacrifice was her father’s warm kiss. Amaia gave it up because she wanted to avoid delaying sleep’s arrival.
Go to sleep. This is your last chance!
The room was cloaked in a silence interrupted only by an occasional swish as Flora turned a page, until twenty minutes later, their mother called from the hall that it was time to turn out the light.
If she hadn’t gotten to sleep by then, any chance of escape was lost.
You didn’t go to sleep, and now she’s going to come get you.
From that moment on, the minutes and hours dragged by.
Never sleep on your back!
If she waited in that position, she’d be aware not only of the hot breath, but also the closeness of those lips, the hanging hair that brushed her cheek, microscopic drops of warm saliva exhaled across her face . . . and she couldn’t stand that.
Never on your back!
She didn’t look at the door either, because if she did, she’d have to open her eyes to keep watch.
No, don’t look at the door!
For a long time, she’d made sure to turn her back and face the wall. When she heard the creak of the hall floorboard, she closed her eyes, huddled motionless, and prayed silently. Our Father, our Father, ourFather ourFather ourFather ourFather . . .
Never on her back, never facing the door. Turned toward the wall, she was less vulnerable, but that position displayed an impudence that offended her mother. Rosario found it both upsetting and provocative. She was confident in her power and enjoyed inflicting terror, but she saw that something had changed the first time Amaia dared to lie there turned to the wall.
Amaia heard her come into the room and approach the bed, and felt that malevolent, calculating gaze on her back. She pretended to sleep, but her eyes were so tightly shut that any fool could see she was acting.
The girl heard the watery smack of saliva, the bony click of teeth. She sensed the tensed muscles of that neck and leering face, and she was out of her mind with terror.
Amaia felt hot breath in her ear and on her cheek; she sensed the approach of those feverish lips. Rosario opened her mouth—close, closer—and exhaled so profoundly that her breath stirred the girl’s soft locks. Her lips clamped shut upon them. She snorted and trembled in frustration as if tempted to say something. She straightened up abruptly, the girl’s hair slipping wetly from her mouth. The malevolence fed on the child’s terror as it whispered, “Sleep tight, little vixen. Ama isn’t going to eat you up tonight.” She backed slowly toward the bedroom door and stood observing the child for a long, long time. Amaia prayed, her eyes now wide open in the darkness.
Our Father, our Father, our Father . . .
18
ARCHWAY
New Orleans, Louisiana
Nightfall, Saturday, August 27, 2005
Amaia opened her eyes. Had she been asleep?
“Salazar,” Johnson murmured. “Dupree is calling.”
Dupree’s voice was deafening inside their vehicle. She was feeling dizzy. She focused, trying to follow him.
“An entire family was found dead in their house in Miami. Emerson and Tucker are on the scene now. We’ve conferenced them in. Agent Tucker, go ahead, we’re listening.”
Tucker’s voice was almost unrecognizable over the static. Amaia fought to clear her head. She had difficulty understanding Tucker’s accent through the poor connection.
Tucker was ticking off points that matched the profile. “The family’s name is Samuels, and I swear it’s like being right back in Texas. There’s practically no deviation from any of the previous murders. Father, mother, three children, two boys and a girl, and a grandmother. Same cord marks on the wrists, twenty-two-caliber shots to the head from the father’s gun, bodies laid out south-to-north. All the ages match as well.”