The documentary proved to be a huge hit, so Pepper pitched The Travel Channel an ongoing series titled Mexico’s Scariest Places. They liked the idea, and Pepper’s next project took him to La Zona del Silencio, or The Dead Zone, a patch of desert in Durango that got its moniker after a test missile launched from a US military base in Utah malfunctioned and crashed in Mexico’s Mapimi Desert region. The missile was carrying two containers of a radioactive element. A big US Air Force recovery operation lasted weeks—and made the region a pseudo Area 51 ripe with myths and urban legends regarding mutations of flora and fauna, lights in the sky at night, aliens, magnetic anomalies that prevented radio transmissions, the whole works.

Pepper has since done several other episodes in the series—most of which focused on haunted mansions and shuttered asylums and the like—but the Island of the Dolls had always been his golden egg so to speak. Problem was, the island was private property. The owner had recently died, and his nephew was now in charge—and he repeatedly refused to allow Pepper and his film crew access to the island. The Travel Channel, for their part, gave Pepper the unofficial go-ahead for the documentary, telling him if he got footage, great; if he got busted doing so, they didn’t know anything about it.

That was where Pita and I came in. Pepper didn’t want to go to the island alone, and we didn’t have any affiliation with the television network. I had been looking forward to the trip until Jesus got wind of it a few days ago and, in his blusterous fashion, insisted he and Elizaveta come as well.

Pita was rinsing her hair now. Milky white soap streamed down her back. I asked her, “We still leaving at ten?”

“Yes,” she said without looking at me.

“What time is it now?”

“You have half an hour to get ready.”

I groaned, wondering if I could pull myself together in time.

“You don’t have to come,” she told me, turning enough I could see the side of her left breast.

“I already told Pepper I would.”

“I’m sure he would understand—your head and everything.”

“Would you mind?” I asked cautiously, wondering whether I was walking into one of her traps. I would agree with her, only for her to pounce, accuse me of never wanting to do anything with her, of disliking her brother, something along those lines. Her machinations would have been amusing had they not always been directed at me.

“I think you should rest, Jack,” she said. “That’s what I think. But it’s up to you.”

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