I pressed the phone into her hand.

Her fingers were freezing.

“Tell them you are with me,” I said. “Or don’t. It won’t change what you have already done.”

Lucía looked at the screen, her thumb hovering over the red button.

She declined the call.

The silence that followed was thick and suffocating.

She set the phone down on the glass coffee table between us.

“They were going to arrest me, Inés,” she said, her voice cracking.

She walked over to the window, looking out at the gray wetness of the city.

“They came to my office three days ago,” she continued.

“Who did?” I asked.

“Two investigators from the Madrid provincial prosecutor’s office,” she said.

She rubbed her arms as if she were cold, though the underfloor heating was on.

“They had copies of my bank statements from Switzerland,” she said.

“And the purchase records for this apartment.”

I sat down on the edge of the sofa.

The leather squeaked under my weight.

“Alvaro told you the apartment was bought through a private holding company,” I said.

“He told me it was clean,” she said, turning to face me.