“Mom, I didn’t . . .” she stuttered. “I didn’t . . .”
“Don’t say another word,” Rosalía commanded. “Go inside. We’ll talk later. You’re a disgrace to the family.”
“Mom ...” Helena groaned as the tears welled up in her eyes. She looked from Roberto to her mother with the desperation of a caged animal.
“I said go inside!” roared her mother. “Now!”
With a sob, Helena ran inside, her shoulders slumped and her heart broken. Roberto remained rooted to the spot.
“I trusted you,” Rosalía spat. “I let you into my home, offered you my hospitality, welcomed you into my family, and this is how you repay us.”
“There’s been a mistake,” Roberto stammered. “You’ve got it wrong.”
“I got it wrong when I offered you our friendship,” she interrupted. “It won’t happen again.”
Roberto’s mind was buzzing. If he told her the truth, she’d refuse to believe him, refuse to accept that her daughter was in love with the sonof her worst enemies, the ones who were about to mount a murderous attack on them. And in the unlikely event that she did believe him, it would only make things worse because it would be obvious that he had covered up for them. It was a hellish situation.
“Don’t ever darken the doors of El Cucorno again,” she said. “Don’t even think of trying to talk to any of my family—not Antía, not Diego, and certainly not Helena. For the Freires, you’re a dead man. Is that clear?”
“Please let me explain,” he begged.
“The time for explanations is over.” She spat at his feet. “We’re done here.”
Rosalía turned and went back into the house. A key turned in the lock, and Roberto was left staring impotently at the front of the building, trying to understand what had just happened. Then he heard a sound, and he looked up. A ball of ice the size of a cannonball formed in his stomach.
From one of the windows above, Antía was looking down. Roberto had no idea how long she had been there, what she had seen or heard, but the expression on her face left little doubt.
Her eyes were full of confusion, anger, and disappointment—but above all, pain.
“Antía, wait!” he shouted but too late.
Antía slammed the window shut, and Roberto Lobeira—bestselling author, intrepid reporter, man of the world—was left standing all on his own in front of El Cucorno, feeling like the unluckiest man in the world.
It had started to rain again, and it felt like another downpour was on the way. Roberto stood like a half-wit for a couple of minutes, his brain short-circuited, trying to understand how everything could have gone to pot in such short order.
He’d lost Antía’s trust in the stupidest way imaginable, and the thought of it broke his heart. But that wasn’t the worst of it.
The last chance of preventing what was about to happen had vanished. The Freires had rejected him, their honor offended. He had become just one more of their enemies.
For their part, as soon as the Docampos discovered that the money was no longer in the church and that the hammer had disappeared, they would be after him.
And as if that weren’t enough, Ibaibarriaga and the other lighthouse keepers were on his trail.
Finally, to complicate the situation even further, the mysterious murderer was still out there somewhere, searching for his next victim.
Roberto realized that he didn’t have a single ally, and that he was alone on an island that was both completely cut off from the world and about to explode.
29
Water on All Sides
By the time Roberto arrived back at the cottage, Storm Armand was raging with renewed strength. The rain was coming down in sheets, and visibility was almost zero. It was not until he stood in the front yard that he could see the full extent of the damage.
The lighthouse keepers had done a thorough job. The door had been battered open and hung loosely on its hinges, the lock had been smashed, and the doorframe was splintered. The windows were broken, and the shutters were banging against the wall.
He entered cautiously, a carpet of broken glass crunching beneath his feet. The interior had been completely destroyed.
The mattress had been slashed open, revealing the springs inside it; the same treatment had been meted out to the couch, a sea of yellow foam spilling from its wounds. His visitors had stripped the place from top to bottom; every inch of the cottage had been ransacked. Here and there, scattered over the floor, were his possessions, some stained with muddy boot prints. There were also holes in the wall, in places where they presumably thought he might have hidden the money.
