Chapter 25
IF SOMEBODY forced me to do so, I might have guessed Eric had some Italian or Greek in his background, enough to give his skin a healthy tint. His cramped cottage even seemed like an old European house, with too much mismatched furniture packed tightly in the tiny space and the musty smell of a home that had stood against the damp for centuries. As my eyes acclimated to the gloomy interior, I made out more detail: the framed, exquisitely detailed oil painting on the wall over the couch, one fry pan and a single soup pot on the kitchenette counter next to the miniature microwave, cheap canned spaghetti on a shelf, the faint gleam of a stainless steel fixture over a single-bowl sink.
Nothing moved: not me, not Cuddles the Rottweiler, not Eric.
Eric himself stood tall and straig
