She suddenly sat up and went to the bathroom. She opened the small cabinet behind the mirror and found the phials Leandro had left for her, perfectly lined up. Her prize. She grabbed them with both hands and threw them forcefully into the sink. The clear liquid drained through the broken glass and disappeared.

“Fucking bastard,” she murmured.

Shortly afterward the phone rang in the bedroom. For a few seconds, Alicia stared at her reflection in the mirror and let the phone ring. She was expecting the call. She went back to the room and picked up the receiver. She listened without saying anything.

“They’ve found Valls’s car,” said Leandro at the other end.

She kept silent. “In Barcelona,” she said at last.

“Yes,” Leandro confirmed.

“And not a sign of Valls.”

“Or of his bodyguard.”

Alicia sat on the bed, her eyes lost in the lights that bled on the window.

“Alicia? Are you there?”

“I’ll take the first train tomorrow morning. I believe it leaves Atocha at seven.”

She heard Leandro sigh and imagined him lying on his bed in the suite of the Gran Hotel Palace.

“I don’t know whether that’s a good idea, Alicia.”

“Would you rather leave it in the hands of the police?”

“You know that I worry about you being alone in Barcelona. It’s not good for you.”

“Nothing’s going to happen.”

“Where will you stay?”

“Where do you think?”

“The apartment on Calle Aviñón . . .” Leandro sighed. “Why not in a good hotel?”

“Because that’s my home.”

“Your home is here.”

Alicia looked around the room, her prison for the last few years. Only Leandro could think this coffin could be a home. “Does Vargas know?”

“The news came from headquarters. If he doesn’t know, he’ll know early tomorrow morning.”

“Anything else?”

She heard Leandro breathing deeply.

“I want you to call me every day without fail.”

“All right.”

“Without fail.”

“I said I would. Good night.”

She was about to put the phone down when Leandro’s voice reached her through the receiver. She put it back to her ear.

“Alicia?”

“Yes.”

“Be careful.”

18

She had always known that one day she would return to Barcelona. The fact that she was going to do this during her last job for Leandro added a layer of irony that could not have escaped her mentor. She imagined him pacing around his suite, pensive, his eyes on the telephone, tempted to pick up the receiver and call her again, order her to stay in Madrid. Leandro didn’t like it when his puppets tried to cut their strings. More than one of them had attempted it, only to discover that this was not a profession for lovers of happy endings. But Alicia had been different. She was his favorite. She was his masterpiece.

She poured herself another glass of white wine and lay down to wait for the call. The temptation to disconnect the phone crossed her mind. The last time she’d done that, two of his stooges had turned up at her doorstep to escort her as far as the hallway, where Leandro was waiting for her—a Leandro she had never seen before, devoid of his calm expression, consumed by anxiety. On that occasion he had looked at her with a mixture of suspicion and eagerness, as if he couldn’t quite decide whether to hug her or order his men to beat her to a pulp with their rifle butts then and there. “Don’t ever do anything like that to me again,” he’d said. It was two years since that night.