“Angelina?” I said, coming to a stop in front of her. She glanced up at me and her eyes widened. Then she rose from the bench and began walking away.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

She didn’t reply.

“Angelina!” I said, grabbing her elbow. “What’s the matter? Are you hurt?”

“Go away,” she said, in torment. She stumbled a bit on the cobblestones in her heels, righted herself, and kept going.

“Do you have Carlos with you?” I demanded. This seemed to get her attention, and she slowed just a bit.

“What do you mean?”

“Carlos is missing. He hasn’t been seen since this morning. Do you know where he is?”

She stopped walking and looked at me.

“No, I haven’t seen him since his mother and I watched him go to the bus.”

“He never got on the bus, Angelina. We think he may have skipped the bus and hidden in Judith’s car in order to spy on her and Alan.”

Surprise turned to anger as Angelina cursed in Italian, her eyes squeezing into two angry slits.

“Maybe you had better get in my car,” I said. “I’ll take you home.”

“No!” she said. “I can never go back there!”

“Because of Alan and Judith?”

“Because of myself. Because of what I have done.”

She burst into tears. I took her arm and led her back to the bench where she sobbed uncontrollably. The few tourists who had been wandering around nearby steered away from our general direction. As Angelina cried, I thought about my hunch, knowing it had been pretty much on track: Alan had arranged to meet both of his women at their “special place.” Then, while they waited, he had stolen the money and tried to make his getaway alone.

“Where I come from,” Angelina said finally, when she had gotten hold of herself, “we have a term for a man who can lead a woman on. We have a term for a man who tells pretty lies and turns a woman’s head and make her do things she would not ordinarily do. The term is truffatore. Con man.”

“Alan Bennet.”

She didn’t reply but merely nodded.

“I know the two of you were involved,” I said. “What has he done, Angelina? Did he hurt you?”

She shook her head and burst into new tears.

“He broke my heart,” she said. “He made me believe things that were not true.”

I thought of Judith cooling her heels in a rural coffee shop.

“He stood you up today, didn’t he?” I said gently. “He was supposed to meet up with you here, but he didn’t show.”

“He was going to pick me up this morning between nine and noon. We were going to run away together.”

“Where?”

“To city hall, to get married. Then we were going to drive to Florida for our honeymoon.”