“I was seventeen when I joined. And it wasn’t out of choice.”

Leandro smiled like a proud teacher confronting his most brilliant student. “Your soul is an old soul, Alicia. You’ve never been seventeen.”

“We decided that I was leaving. That was the deal. Two weeks don’t change anything.”

Leandro’s smile was getting cold, like his coffee. “Grant me this last favor, and then you’ll be free to do whatever you want.”

“No.”

“I need you in this, Alicia. Don’t make me beg. Or force you.”

“Hand it to Lomana. I’m sure he’s dying to collect some points.”

“I was wondering when you’d bring up the subject. I’ve never quite understood what the problem was between you and Ricardo.”

“Incompatible personalities,” suggested Alicia.

“In fact, Ricardo Lomana is the agent I loaned to the police a few weeks ago, and he hasn’t been returned. Now they tell me he’s disappeared.”

“Fat chance. Where the hell is he?”

“Part of the disappearing act consists in not revealing that detail.”

“Lomana isn’t the sort to disappear. There must be a reason why he’s not giving any signs of life. He’s found something.”

“That’s what I think, too, but insofar as we don’t have any news from him, we can only speculate. And that’s not what they pay us to do.”

“What do they pay us to do?”

“To solve their problems. And this is a very serious problem.”

“And couldn’t I also disappear?”

Leandro shook his head. He looked at her for a long time, a pained expression on his face.

“Why do you hate me, Alicia? Haven’t I been like a father to you? A good friend?”

Alicia stared at her mentor. She had a knot in her stomach, and words didn’t come to her mouth. She’d spent two weeks trying to get Leandro out of her mind, and now that she was facing him again, she realized that sitting there, beneath the grand dome of the Hotel Palace, she was once again that miserable teenager who would probably never have reached her twentieth birthday, had Leandro not gotten her out of that hole.

“I don’t hate you,” she said at last.

Leandro smiled again, that warm smile that forgave everything, that understood everything. “Perhaps you hate yourself, what you do, who you serve, all that crap that surrounds us and rots us inside a little bit more each day. I understand you. I’ve also been through that.” He rested his hand on Alicia’s and squeezed it hard. “Help me solve this last matter, and I promise you’ll be able to leave afterward. Disappear forever.”

“That simple?”

“That simple. You have my word.”

“Where’s the catch?”

“There’s no catch.”

“There’s always a catch.”

“Not this time. I can’t keep you beside me forever if you don’t want that. However much it may hurt.” Leandro held out his hand. “Friends?”

Alicia hesitated, but finally she held hers out too. He took it to his lips and kissed it. “I’m going to miss you when all this is over. And you’ll miss me too, even if you don’t see it that way now. You and I make a good team.”