Chapter 40
Piazza RossettiNicki and Paolo were prowling the streets listening to the scattered conversations. They knew only a few people in Alba – not like Rita and Stefano – so it was harder to approach just anyone to ask difficult questions about the truffle harvest. Nicki's confidence and resolve made her the obvious leader, and strangers more easily stopped to listen to this diminutive, though attractive, young woman, so Paolo remained at her shoulder and seldom spoke.
“I'm still confused,” Paolo admitted. “If last year was so good, and the years before that were good, what has changed? Is there a virus, a thief, or what?”
Nicki considered the question, but had no answers. Thieves can't steal the truffles, because no thief would know how to find them. “That's the point of harvestin
