Gómez was a drifter, handsome and hollow. He had no alibi. He had her blood under his nails. But before Benjamín could arrest him, a corrupt judge named Romano intervened. Romano was a rotund man with soft hands and a harder heart. “Gómez is an informant,” he said, filing his nails. “The case is closed.”

Then, the disappearance. Gómez vanished. And three months later, Benjamín’s closest friend—and secret love—Irene Menéndez Hastings, a brilliant, icy judge’s daughter, found a note on her desk: You see too much. Next time, I’ll leave the eyes open.

Now, alone in his cramped apartment, Benjamín pulled out the drawer’s final item: a train ticket from Chubut to Buenos Aires, dated the very week after that failed confrontation. And a photograph—a blurred snapshot of Ricardo Morales, digging a hole in a remote field outside the city.

Ricardo finally looked at him. His eyes were dry. “Because you would have freed him. You believe in law. I believe in this.” He tapped the floor with his cane. A soft, hollow sound echoed back—the sound of a secret drum.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Benjamín asked.