Carter did not turn around, but simply waved over his shoulder as he hurried back to the house. When he threw open the door, Antonella was no longer at the window, but pacing about in the kitchen.

“What is it?” she said anxiously at seeing the look in his eyes. “Did you hear something about Giorgio?”

“I think we had better turn on the television,” he said.

CHAPTER 45

CHAPTER 45

Time, reflected Carter as he stood with Antonella watching the television, was a very changeable thing. Just a short while earlier, when they had been waiting for Giorgio to return, the minutes had crawled by at a ponderously slow pace. Now, however, as they watched the news coverage of the tremor and the resultant landslide, and it was all but certain that Giorgio was in some kind of trouble, he felt time suddenly accelerate. Carter had hiked enough in his scouting years to know that there were a thousand ways a man on his own could go wrong in the mountains and suffer a serious mishap, never mind wandering into the path of a landslide. Finding Giorgio as soon as possible was critical. From now on, until they did, there would not be a single moment to waste. Each precious second would pass much too quickly.

Antonella gasped when the television flashed the images of the landslide. There was of course no footage of the actual event, but before-and-after photographs of the mountainside showed just how dramatic it must have been.

“O, Dio,” Antonella murmured. “Giorgio cannot be there. Please tell me he cannot be there.” Unable, it seemed, to turn her gaze from the television, she stood there beside Carter, wringing her hands. “Che faccio io?” she said. “What do I do now?”

“We must report him missing at once,” Carter told her. “Subito.”

Her hand trembling as she put the phone to her ear, Antonella dialed the number for the provisional police and informed them that her husband had gone off on a hike, possibly in the area of the landslide, and was long overdue in returning. She remained on the phone for some time, speaking so quickly and with such urgency that Carter could not quite understand what she was saying.When at last the call ended, Antonella stood there with a hand to her forehead, as if she were feeling faint.

“What did they tell you?” asked Carter, taking her by the elbow to steady her.

“Someone will be here shortly,” she said. “They said they will need to know as much as we can tell them about Giorgio and where we think he might have gone.”

“Do you have any idea at all?” Carter asked.

“No,” she said. “I’ve wracked my brain trying to think if he said something else to me before he left, but I can remember nothing.”

“In that case, we will have to ask everyone in town,” he told her. “Maybe someone saw him when he left this morning.”