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.
Benjamín left the house at dawn. He didn’t call the police. He didn’t tell Irene. He went home, relocked drawer seven, and poured the rest of the Malbec down the sink.
Benjamín’s blood turned to ice. “Home?”
Benjamín Esposito was seventy-three years old when he finally opened the drawer.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Benjamín asked.
A long silence. Then: “He found Gómez first. Before you did in Chubut. He found him in 1976, at a military base where Romano had hidden him. Ricardo didn’t kill him. He brought him home.”