Amaia Salazar—Aloisius Dupree

Amaia Salazar—Aloisius Dupree is a police partnership grounded in analytic trust and personal candor: Amaia turns to Dupree when a case exceeds her current understanding, and she regards him as an exceptionally capable, principled colleague who will answer her call. Their conversations are more than exchanges of investigative advice. They give Amaia room to admit confusion, while Dupree’s measured questions help her find a starting point. That reliance becomes especially significant when his disappearance turns a familiar channel of counsel into a source of uncertainty.

A trusted investigative partnership

Their relationship is established through the way Amaia seeks Dupree out. One morning in Baztán, after returning to a quiet house and mechanically lighting the fire in the salon, she checks the time in Louisiana and calls him in New Orleans. The contrast between the fire’s familiar comfort and her physical apprehension marks the call as emotionally important: she feels an impulse not to make it, but proceeds because she needs to speak honestly.

Dupree meets her disclosure with warmth and understanding. Amaia says that she is confused by too many things at once, then explains that an investigation she had treated as an obligation imposed by her superiors may connect with another case rooted in the valley. She suspects the killer is trying, subtly, to establish a link with her. The pattern reminds her of the police-contacting offenders she studied at Quantico, though she wonders whether this case involves a more complicated personality.

Amaia lays out what she knows without pretending the connection is established. The people carrying out the murders are minor offenders—associated with petty theft, robbery, and fraud—and share a history of violence against women. Their victims were women within their own circles; so far, Amaia knows that one lived in Baztán and the others were born there. She admits that the apparent connection might sound far-fetched, but her instinct tells her there is more to the case than she can yet explain. Dupree’s value to her lies partly in receiving that uncertainty without dismissing it.

Counsel through the principle of origins

Instead of supplying a ready theory, Dupree directs Amaia toward the beginning. She completes his prompt with weary recognition: she already knows that the investigation must start at its origin. His brief intervention helps her articulate a method when the mass of apparent connections has left her unsure where to proceed.

The origin she recalls is an unsettling account associated with the cave of Mari: a woman saw a man enter one of the caves carrying a package he did not have when he came out. Asked whether she had seen his face, she answered that she had seen only one eye. Amaia remembers the account in vivid, uncomfortable terms, including the narrow path and the woman’s gold bracelets and long hair. Dupree recognizes that Amaia has already identified the clue that matters and tells her to return to Baztán. Her surprise—she has been there for only two days—underscores how quickly he reads her account as an investigative direction rather than an incidental memory.

Respect that withstands doubt

Amaia’s confidence in Dupree is tested in conversation with her aunt, who asks her to promise that she will not interfere in his investigation. The concern is tied to what has happened to him and to whether he remains on Amaia’s side. She rejects the implication that the Dupree she knew can simply be separated from the person he is now. Her defense is specific: he is the best analyst she has known, an upright and balanced police officer, and a better adviser than she could ask for. She says he has supported her throughout and does not judge her; she will not presume to assess conduct she cannot understand.

Her trust is not presented as proof that she knows what has happened to him. Rather, she distinguishes her judgment of his character from circumstances she cannot explain. The assurance she relies on is practical and relational: when she calls, he answers. That pattern makes his counsel dependable to her, even as her aunt urges distance. Amaia’s loyalty is therefore neither a claim to control his choices nor a resolution of every question about them; it is a refusal to discard a colleague whose past support has mattered to her.

A familiar voice amid disappearance

Later, Amaia again reaches for Dupree when she is distressed and unable to interpret a dream involving children with amputated arms. At 00:03 in Baztán, she calls at what she recognizes as evening in Louisiana. The line initially seems silent; then, after a small click, Dupree’s voice asks whether night has fallen in Baztán. The exchange echoes their earlier calls across different local times and renews the intimacy of a routine in which he addresses her as Inspector Salazar and asks her to answer him directly.

Amaia explains that she has followed the procedure and searched for the origin but remains confused. Dupree tells her that she has not asked the right question. When she finally voices the fear that her sister might be alive, he answers that the sister is dead and turns the question back on Amaia: she knows because she dreams of her and because the sister has already told her. When Amaia asks how he can know this, Dupree says she already knows why. The exchange gives his voice its familiar clarity while leaving the basis of his knowledge unexplained.

The call’s aftermath makes the uncertainty concrete. Amaia finds that her phone is powered off and contains no record of the conversation; its last outgoing call was to Iriarte. As she reassembles the phone after dropping it, an incoming call arrives from an unfamiliar number. It is Agent Johnson of the FBI, who says Amaia had called him and reports that he has results for an image she sent. Johnson explains that Dupree has disappeared. The initial procedures for a missing agent have given way to silence, and Johnson says that insinuation can turn a hero into a villain. He calls himself Dupree’s friend, describes him as one of the best agents he has known, and offers to help Amaia directly while the situation remains unresolved.

The relationship’s lasting significance

Johnson’s account complicates, rather than cancels, Amaia’s reliance on Dupree. His disappearance leaves her without the certainty that their established pattern of communication once provided, but another colleague’s testimony supports her judgment of Dupree’s integrity. The unexplained call, with no trace in Amaia’s phone, places their bond at the boundary between professional trust and something the narrative does not fully account for. What remains clear is the relationship’s function in Amaia’s work: Dupree listens when she is confused, redirects her toward the origins of a case, and answers with a familiarity that she continues to recognize even as his absence makes that familiarity difficult to verify.