Short Story

On The Rocks – Part 4: A Table In The Corner

Nancy's Notes 🖊️🎶

Written for The Unicorn Challenge where we are
asked to get creative in 250 words or less using
the photo below as inspiration. This is my story.

© Ayr/Gray

Nigel was exhausted. Peaceful sleep eluded him; disturbing images of Camilla’s body crashing against the side of the cliff were unrelenting. He needed to leave Sicily.

Checking out of the hotel was child’s play; if anyone noticed Camilla’s absence, nothing was said. While Nigel waited for his car, he lit a cigarette and scanned the newspapers in the hotel lobby. An article about Padua caught his attention and, on a whim, he decided that would be his next destination.

A couple of phone calls later and Nigel had booked a flight to Padua. The woman he spoke to was quite taken by his charming English accent and she happily provided Nigel with the name and phone number of a pensione in the outskirts of town.

Now seated in the small but comfortable plane, Nigel glanced around at his fellow travelers; a few rows ahead of him was a very stylish woman with gorgeous red hair. Nigel was mesmerized. Abruptly, the woman turned and looked directly at Nigel; after a lingering stare, she returned to reading her book. Upon disembarking, the woman vanished in the crowded airport.

Collecting his rental, Nigel drove to the pensione … an unassuming building with a black wrought iron gate covered in a wild profusion of ivy. Later that evening in the hotel’s dining room, Nigel was stunned to see the woman from the plane alone at a corner table. Just then her dinner companion arrived; when he saw who it was, Nigel’s blood ran cold.

NAR©2024
250 Words

To be continued. If you’d like to refresh your memory, HERE is where we left off.

This is “When The Blood Runs Cold” by Lords Of The New Church

The Unicorn Challenge-29/11/24

All text, graphics and videos are copyright for Nancy (The Sicilian Storyteller), The Sicilian Storyteller, The Elephant’s Trunk, and The Rhythm Section and are not to be used without permission. NAR©2017-present.

32 thoughts on “On The Rocks – Part 4: A Table In The Corner”

  1. Pingback: On The Rocks – Part 5: The Euganean Hills – The Elephant's Trunk

  9. I’d happily provide Nigel with something too – but I haven’t quite decided what.
    I’ll maybe just leave it to the ‘dinner companion’ – it looks like they have a handle on just what will get to Nigel.
    Great tension, Nancy, and a nice cliff-hanger.

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