Pasta Imperfect - By Maddy Hunter Page 0,22

whole flight. Snapped her neck in two. Probably died instantly."

I remembered the thump I'd heard after my shower and silently berated myself for dismissing it. If she'd died instantly, I probably wouldn't have been able to help, but that didn't make me feel any better. Looking toward the staircase, I eyed the tattered piece of rubber matting that served as a runner. "Are they sure it was an accident?"

"Looks that way. She was wearing three-inch stiletto heels, one of which was sheared off from her shoe and wedged in the floor like an ice pick."

"So no one actually saw her fall?"

Duncan shook his head. "The desk clerk should have, but he was napping in a room off the lobby."

"While he was on duty?"

"This is Italy, Emily. There are no established rules. Only suggestions." He covered his mouth to hide a yawn, tears welling in his eyes with the exertion. "Sorry." He shook his head and threaded long fingers through his sun-streaked hair. "I'm used to operating on more sleep than this."

Guilt nibbled at my conscience. Unh-oh. "Maybe I shouldn't have bothered you."

"No! You did the right thing. You did great!" He gave my shoulder an unself-conscious squeeze of gratitude. "It's been a long day though. I'm getting a little punchy." He gave the top of his foot a vigorous rub with his bare toes, then fanned out all ten, staring down at them distractedly. "I left my shoes in the bathroom while I was taking my shower. Bad move. I don't think they'll ever dry out." He regarded my face then, his expression pained, his eyes like dark bruises. "Damn. I've never lost a guest before."

My heart went out to him. I knew from experience that the first one was always the worst...until you hit the second, third, and fourth. "You want to come inside for a few minutes and talk?" I opened my door wider for him. With a grateful nod he walked past me and angled himself into my tatty armchair, his powerful frame making the furniture look small and stunted.

"Five years on the job without a single death." He sighed miserably. "I had the best record in the company."

"Five years?" I seated myself on the edge of my bed, my voice filled with awe. I'd hardly been on the job five hours before I'd suffered my first casualty. I wondered if this was an indication that I should be rethinking my career choice.

"It's not that long actually. The odds are obscenely favorable in the tour industry. The chances of someone dying on your watch are astronomically low. Something like a trillion to one. Most guides go through entire careers without losing a single guest."

"Entire careers. Imagine that." I scratched my throat self-consciously. Maybe it was time to reroute the conversation before he thought to ask me about my record. "Did Cassandra have a roommate?"

Duncan nodded. "I accompanied the police when they told her about the accident, but she didn't seem too broken up about it. Strange reaction, but I guess it makes sense if you consider the women had probably never spoken to each other until I threw them together tonight. To be honest with you, the roommate seemed a hell of a lot more interested in working on her contest entry than in hearing about the details of the accident. She could hardly wait for us to leave."

"I have it on good authority that contests are a really big deal among aspiring romance novelists."

He flashed me a crooked smile. "Romance novels. My kid sister devoured them when we were growing up. Two a day when she could get her hands on them, which wasn't easy considering the nearest bookstores didn't always carry English translations."

I eyed him curiously. "Where exactly did you grow up?"

"Everywhere. My dad was in the foreign service, so we moved around a lot. It was his goal to ensure that our roots never grew too deeply in any one spot, and he succeeded admirably." He threw me a long look. "That must sound pretty dysfunctional to someone who was born and bred in Iowa."

Only one way he could have known that. "You read my travel information sheet."

"One of the perks of the job. Actually, I'm required to read all of them. And you know what always strikes me? How you can rarely guess from the look of a person what line of work they're in. Take the girl with the spiked hair and the screwdriver in her nose. Amanda Morning. She looks like