“They said my name,” she says dully. “They said ‘Dolores Booker?’” Suddenly her eyes go wide. “They’ve found me. After all these years . . . oh, dear God. I should have never—oh, Lord. What do I do? Call the police?”

My heart is pounding, but my brain is working fine. “I’d rather call the FBI. They have a field office in New Orleans, and I know a guy who can get a team here fast.”

“‘Fast’ is a relative term,” Serenity says. “Their field office is out by Lake Pontchartrain, isn’t it? That’s what I remember from Katrina. We need help now.”

Serenity is assuming that Snake or the VK have already got people coming to this house. Is she right? We can’t afford to hope otherwise. “Then let’s help ourselves. What’s the address of this house again?”

Dolores is too frightened to answer, but Serenity says, “2304 Dufossat.”

I pick up the phone and hit 911.

“Nine-one-one emergency,” says the dispatcher.

“There’s a home invasion in progress at 2305 Dufossat! I heard shots, right across the street! And there’s a man carrying a TV out of the house. Two more are carrying a generator. Hurry, please!”

I slam down the phone. “It’s going to ring again, but we’re not going to answer. Dolores, this is a big house. Is there any way out that nobody would know about? Or think of?”

“I can’t think!” she cries, holding her hands to her cheeks.

“Breathe, Dolores. Think about how you leave the house.”

You never know how someone will hold up under stress. Dolores St. Denis looks like she’s on a one-way trip to infantile helplessness. But just when I think I’m going to have to heave her over my shoulder and carry her out, she says, “I can’t let them take me.”

“They’re not going to,” I assure her. “But we need a way out. A way nobody would expect.”

She nods jerkily, like someone trying to convince themselves they’re still alive and capable of movement.

“We’re with you,” Serenity tells her. “Think, Dolores. How do we get out?”

“There’s a side door,” she whispers. “Right up against the hedge.”

“Show us.”

Chapter 21

We exit Dolores’s house into near darkness from a side door that opens onto a shrub-lined fence. With less than eighteen inches of clearance between the wall and the hedge, I pray that if anyone has already come for Dolores St. Denis, they’ll be unlikely to try this side of the mansion first.

Without any discussion Serenity rushes past me and takes point, leading us toward the backyard, away from our rental car, which has probably already attracted attention out front. Tee has a pistol in her hand, a black semiauto that looks like a .40 caliber. Dolores is hyperventilating, but something keeps her moving—probably her memory of what she experienced in the Lusahatcha Swamp back in 1966.