Elaine did not sleep that night. Sleep would have required calm, and calm had abandoned her the moment she saw him standing in the square.Castelbianco usually settled into a quiet rhythm after sunset. The narrow streets emptied slowly as villagers retreated into their homes. Wooden shutters closed with soft thuds. Warm golden light glowed behind old stone windows, and the scent of cooking drifted lazily through the mountain air. Somewhere in the distance a radio hummed faintly from a kitchen, and occasionally the low buzz of a scooter cut through the silence before fading again into the hills.But tonight the village did not feel peaceful.Tonight it felt watchful. Every sound seemed louder than it should have been. The scrape of a chair in a neighboring house. The distant bark of a dog. The whisper of wind through the olive trees.Each noise pulled Elaine tighter, like a thread slowly strangling her nerves.She sat at the small kitchen table in the modest house she had rented six mo
Read more