To the left, touristic and inviting, rose the massive walls of the Sforzesco castle, and Munroe went in the opposite direction, navigating through pedestrian traffic with the directions Bradford had given, for several minutes along a street lined with trees still bright green with young leaves. Munroe double-checked the address on her paper and stopped at a gelato store that stood contrastingly spare and modern against the grand colonial structure it inhabited. Inside, she found a seat for Neeva and, in an attempt at normalcy and in acknowledgment of the hunger that gnawed at her own insides, reached into her pocket for the last of the euros to buy Neeva something to eat. She caught the eye of the man behind the register. He was deceptively young-looking, though Munroe placed him in midthirties, tiny and wiry, and not at all what stereotype might suggest one of Bradford’s connections would look like. But in his focused interest, his unwillingness to drop his gaze, there was no mistaking that he’d recognized Munroe, if not Neeva, when she’d first walked through the door.
