1

  Behind the desk, Commander Brito contemplated a vague point in the office's dimness, a glass full of twelve-year-old Macallan whisky in his hand.

  The house's owner had probably saved the bottle for a special occasion. An achievement, a promotion, the acquisition of a yacht or something like that. Brito found it unlikely the professor would get any of those things now.

  His eyes were set on the couple's photograph on the desk. Valério Galvani and his wife, this Greta. The man was older than her. His face had the typical expression of someone who doesn't know what it's like to count money at the end of the month, much less knows the price of a gas cylinder. The woman was beautiful, but harder to read.

  She had a distant air, her mind wandering somewhere else. Her posture was rigid, as if her husband's presence bothered her. Brito saw things like this happen every day. Sooner or later, most couples reach the point of not being able to stand looking at each other's faces anymore. He could bet the woman had tired of the professor first.

  Brito didn't usually participate in missions like that one. He'd even step out of line to earn extra, but he avoided working with people like Pablo. There are two types of corrupt people: those who need money and those who'll go along with anything sordid because evil is part of their nature, simple as that. Pablo was the second type.

  The mission was simple. It seemed harmless. A blackmailing professor overdid it and irritated a bigwig. To avoid fulfilling his part of the deal, the blackmailer took off. Since the dean's men couldn't find the guy, they decided to hunt his wife.

  At first, it seemed she was going to meet her husband somewhere. The marks on her face made it clear they'd argued about it, and she'd gotten the worst of it. They believed she'd been convinced the worst way to help her husband hide. So they just had to follow her to get to him.

  Then that other guy appeared, out of nowhere. The subject looked more like a ghost, made of mist and impossible to touch. No identity, no name, nothing. Isaías had confirmed by message that the two were lovers. What the fuck was that?

  He'd already woven many theories about it, but didn't need to keep racking his brains over it. The lover was dead, and the woman captured. When she arrived there, they'd have the perfect bait to lure the professor back. And they'd offer good news and bad news. The bad news was that his wife was jumping the fence. The good news was he'd have to find a new pasture. Well, that was Pablo's plan.

  Brito wondered if he was the only one who thought that plan was shit. Why the hell would a cheated-on guy play hero to save his adulterous wife? A wife who stole her husband's blackmail evidence just to screw the guy?

  No, this wasn't going to work. And even Pablo must know that. Maybe Pablo was just fed up. Maybe he just wanted to beat the woman to a pulp to get revenge for the trouble she'd caused. And for nothing, in the end. Okay, they had the material, but with no guarantees there weren't copies. If they didn't catch the professor, all this had been a big waste of time.

  He wished he could leave before she arrived. But it was too late. Isaías and the kid who was driving were on their way with the merchandise.

  The thing to do was stay there. In the dark. When the woman came in, the beating he didn't want to witness would happen right before his eyes.

  2

  Isaías hated talkative people. He made a point of paying more for Uber just to have the option of activating silent mode. People had this irritating habit of talking and continuing to talk even without having anything useful or interesting to say. The guy at the wheel had tried to start a conversation several times during the trip. He'd talked about the weather, about soccer, about highway traffic. Isaías was never in the mood for small talk, but at the moment the reason was different.

  There was something wrong, something very wrong. At first, he'd believed the man in the cap was a hired killer or something like that. The criminal underworld is full of types like that. In fact, everyone had thought the same thing about the guy, including Pablo and the commander. Apparently, however, everyone was wrong.

  The certainty of being wrong began to grow as soon as he left the cabin taking the woman. He noticed sirens, many of them, going in the direction of the crime scene they were leaving behind. But how? The guy was dead, there wasn't even a nose left on his face, and the woman didn't have time for anything. He saw. He was there. She didn't even have a phone. Who could have given the alert about the attack?

  Things got even more bizarre after almost an hour of travel. Squad cars began multiplying in the direction of Imbituba, at least two coming even from Rio Grande do Sul. The presence of official vehicles pointed in a much more dangerous direction: the woman's lover was police. As much as the deceased had skills that far exceeded police training, only this could justify another state's involvement in the operation.

  Through the rearview mirror, he looked at the tied-up woman. She stared back, but her expression was airy, as if she didn't really see him. He wished he had time to extract some answers from her, but time was a luxury item in those circumstances. The only option remained escorting the noble passenger to her fugitive husband's house. There, as far as he knew, the most interesting part of the thing would begin.

  The thought was so exciting that he decided they deserved to make a stop.

  3

  Lurdes had called Inácio a little earlier to confirm the warrants were her priority. She also informed what he already knew: one of the bigwigs had warm backs. She'd need to call in many favors from many people in the system if she wanted to obtain the order in the next forty-eight hours.

  It was predictable, but Inácio was frustrated anyway. That was one of the reasons he didn't miss being a civil police officer at all. Most of the time, the system itself fought the system.

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  Excessive bureaucracy wasn't a problem exclusive to the police, of course, but it was a thorn in the shoe anyway. And a big one. Allied with the overcrowding of prisons and police stations, it was what undermined most of the class's faith, condemning agents to be modern Sisyphuses, always hunting the same convicts. Convicts who would be released by judges later to commit the same crime, of course.

  That's why there was an abundance of videos of convicts laughing on the internet: because even they knew nothing would happen. It never did.

  A rest stop stood out on the horizon on the way to Porto Alegre: a poorly lit gas station, with half a dozen vehicles in the parking lot. He recognized the place because of the news about the robbery-murderer killed there. The missing letter in "24-HO R AUTO ST TION" was a redundant confirmation.

  It was a good choice for the last stop. Lenin could take a pee before they got to Porto Alegre. There was little movement, but the best part was it had been visited by Daros. This was a good chance to reconnect with his friend, try to see what he'd seen that not-so-distant night. He'd never been at one of the other's crime scenes. It would be quite a farewell rite.

  He opened the driver's door and Lenin jumped over the seat, eager to smell everything he could find ahead. Inácio wondered how long a person's smell stays in the air. That, of course, by the standards of a dog's sense of smell. It would be nice if Lenin found a bit of Daros around there.

  "Hey, boy. Mind your manners." He didn't know why he still insisted on saying that. The dog never listened.

  Inácio got out of the car and stretched. He stretched his legs and flexed one arm, then the other, while assessing the rest stop. He straightened his clothes too. In the opposite direction from the two pumps, there was a black sedan parked with closed windows. He couldn't see if there were people inside from that distance.

  In the opposite direction, two trucks were stopped with their headlights off. The drivers had probably decided to spend the night there. It was a reasonable choice. A decadent place like that would hardly attract noisy tourists.

  The large plastic container, dirty and abandoned, caught his attention. Inácio walked to the spot Daros had chosen to dump the thug's body. That wasn't typical of the boy. He usually got rid of bodies in closed forest areas or zones abandoned long ago. Something must have gone off the rails that night to justify such an impulsive action.

  Next, he looked for cameras and lights around. The camera remained broken, and that didn't surprise him. If someone really cared for that establishment, the burned-out sign would have been replaced already. The light on a distant pole was broken the same way. Was that the boy's work too?

  Beyond the commercial area stretched a dark, low-lying forest. You could understand why the criminal decided to break the pattern. From robbing small residences and roadside businesses, he saw the chance to take a bigger leap. And profit more in sequence.

  Suddenly, Inácio remembered the dog. He just hoped he hadn't run toward the woods. He could bet it was full of snakes.

  4

  When the bastard who killed Daros got out of the car, the air seemed to get lighter. Greta looked at the driver's nape and ran her tongue over her dry lips.

  "Hi." Her voice was a murmur.

  She wasn't surprised the man didn't hear. So she tried again:

  "Hi. Can you give me... some water?"

  The man didn't turn around. He also didn't make eye contact through the rearview mirror when answering:

  "Ma'am... I think it's better you don't talk to me. I don't want trouble."

  Greta squirmed in the trunk looking for a more comfortable position. Having her feet and hands tied, however, didn't make the task any easier.

  She felt a shiver on her arm, the sensation of having been in that place before, at some point. She almost remembered a smell, a smell she no longer felt, an itch in her memory.

  That's when she heard it. It sounded like fingers brushing against the bodywork, but it wasn't quite that. She propped herself up on her elbows, hitting her head on the metal right above. The driver shuddered and looked back, throwing a mute warning.

  Greta shrank her body and brought her face as close as she could to the lid's gap. Now she was sure: she'd heard a dog sniffing the car. When the animal heard her head hitting the lid, it started barking.

  5

  Isaías came out of the convenience store with his cup of hot coffee half full. It was a little gift for the driver.

  The woman seemed asleep when he left the vehicle. Isaías had calculated the risks. She could try to convince the driver to release her. As inexperienced as that military cop was, he wasn't an idiot. So the woman could scream. But no scream would help her in any of the situations. That's why he thought it would be safe to stop for coffee.

  He interrupted his walk when he saw a weird dog smelling the back of the Civic. It looked like a skinny bear with shaggy fur at first glance. Paying more attention, however, he had an even more absurd impression. The animal was a giant dark poodle. He knew nothing about dogs, and even less if that could be a new and ugly breed.

  He discreetly placed his hand under his jacket to have the weapon within reach. He couldn't shoot the animal to avoid drawing attention, but he could take it down with precise pistol-whips. He was about to put the plan into action when the animal noticed his presence and showed its teeth in a low growl.

  6

  Where the devil had that dog gotten into? In recent days, Lenin had been rebellious. He didn't pay taxes to run off for no reason. The escape episode on the beach was proof of that.

  Inácio had looked from one side to the other of the convenience store. He'd also made a quick excursion to the parked trucks. There was no sign of the furball anywhere.

  He passed by the car to grab a flashlight from the glove compartment and look for the dog in the woods. That's all he needed. He'd just finished testing the beam when he saw the doodle sniffing the trunk of the stopped sedan, the one parked near the pole with the broken light.

  7

  When the dog started growling, Greta considered her options. If the dog had an owner, and the owner was nearby, she could scream to attract attention. There was only one man in the car now, but the other must be nearby.

  If it was an abandoned animal, on the other hand, she'd only be condemning the dog to a beating or something even worse. It was at that moment she heard a strangely familiar call.

  Her heart leaped in her chest, recognizing that voice before her mind did.

  8

  "Lenin!"

  The man's voice broke the killer's hesitation. Isaías had concluded that beating the animal might not be as simple and quick as he'd initially imagined. It was a fierce dog.

  So the best way out was simply to get in the car, wait for the driver to start it up, and get out of there. Only he didn't feel safe looking away from the dog. He'd heard that breaking eye contact with a beast precipitates the attack.

  "Lenin, come here!" The owner's tone was irritated now.

  The metallic sound of the dog's collar indicated the animal had already made a decision. It was moving away from the car and from Isaías, though not totally convinced. It cast a sideways glance at the shooter, the canine way of saying this wasn't over yet.

  "You shouldn't let that animal walk around loose. There are laws about that," Isaías spoke with more irritation than he calculated.

  "Yeah, I know, but he's gentle. I don't know what got into him. Sorry."

  "The pit bulls that tear chunks off their owners are gentle too. Until the moment they stop being."

  Isaías finally felt confident enough to relax his muscles and assess the approaching man. He was tall and would be gray-haired, if he weren't almost bald. His head had the common friar effect in middle-aged men.

  What most caught his attention, however, were the guy's eyes. They were sharp and attentive like a cop's. He could smell one from a distance. His hand returned to the point under his jacket where it had been a short time before.

  Feeling contact with the grip, he waited.

  If the man was the meddlesome type he looked like, the game was about to change.