


Or, if "lit up" might be construed as an overenthusiastic approach to greeting a new junior employee, there should at least have been some sign of life. According to the emails Stella had received, it should be lit up in welcome for her. La Casa Oscura-" he gestured into the pitch-blackness beyond the car windows "-it is well-known in this city." "It can't be." Although the driver had spoken in Spanish, she responded in English and he made a helpless, uncomprehending gesture. Whatever his emotions might be, he was clearly fearful of not getting his cash and impatient at being kept waiting now that he had delivered her to her destination. He might even have been cursing the fact that, from the long line of eager tourists and experienced businessmen waiting for taxis at the airport that night, he was the one who ended up with this quirky-looking girl. Possibly he could sense her rising panic. While his tone was patient, his eyes were wary as they met hers in the rearview mirror. For sure." The driver repeated the statement he had made a few minutes earlier.

If the house was empty-and it certainly looked that way-she was officially homeless, jobless and, once she had paid the taxi fare, had exactly one hundred euros to her name. As she stared up at the vast crumbling mansion, these extenuating circumstances did not provide Stella with one single morsel of comfort. And the savings had just about covered her plane ticket. Stella Fallon was in the process of discovering that there is nothing so hysteria inducing as the realization that you have given up your job and traveled to a new country, spending every penny of your savings in the process, in pursuit of a dream that doesn't exist.
