“He’s been here,” she heard her father say.

“That’s not possible,” said Vicente. “All the entrances were secured. Only the house staff had access to the top floors. I have men posted on all the staircases.”

“I’m telling you he’s been here. And he has a list. I don’t know how he got hold of it, but he has a list . . . Oh God.”

Mercedes swallowed hard.

“There must be a mistake, sir.”

“Have a look for yourself . . .”

A long silence followed. Mercedes held her breath.

“The numbers seem correct, sir. I don’t understand . . .”

“The time has come, Vicente. I can’t hide any longer. It’s now or never. Can I count on you?”

“Of course, sir. When?”

“At dawn.”

They fell silent, and shortly afterward Mercedes heard footsteps approaching the door. She ran down the stairs and didn’t stop until she reached her room. Once she got there, she leaned against the door and collapsed onto the floor. A curse was spreading through the air, she thought. That night would be the last of the turbid fairy tale they’d been acting out for too many years.

6

She would always remember that dawn for its cold grayness, as if winter had decided to tumble down without warning and sink Villa Mercedes in a lake of mist that emerged from the edge of the forest. She woke up when just a hint of metallic brightness grazed her bedroom windows. She had fallen asleep on her bed with her dress on, and when she opened the window, the cold, damp morning air licked her face. A carpet of thick fog was sliding over the garden, slithering through the remains of the previous night’s party. The black clouds covering the sky traveled slowly, heavy with an impending storm.

Mercedes stepped out into the passage, barefoot. The house was buried in deep silence. She walked along the shadowy corridor, circling the whole west wing until she reached her father’s bedroom. Neither Vicente nor any of his men were posted by the door, as had been routine for the past few years, since her father had begun to live in hiding, always protected by his trustworthy gunmen. It was as if he feared that something was going to jump out of the walls and plunge a dagger into his back. She had never dared ask him why he had adopted that habit. It was enough for her to catch him sometimes with an absent expression, his eyes poisoned with bitterness.

She opened the door to her father’s bedroom without knocking. The bed hadn’t been slept in. The cup of chamomile tea that the maid left on Don Mauricio’s bedside table every night hadn’t been touched. Mercedes sometimes wondered whether her father ever slept, or whether he spent most nights awake in his office at the top of the tower. The flutter of a flock of birds flying off from the garden alerted her. She went over to the window and saw two figures walking toward the garage. Mercedes pressed her face against the glass. One of the figures stopped and turned to look up in her direction, as if he’d felt her gaze on him. Mercedes smiled at her father, who stared back at her blankly, his face pale, looking older than she could ever remember.