Beautiful Ruins (39 page)
They finish their breakfast in Portovenere, go back to the hotel, and put on hiking boots. Dee assures Pasquale that she’s up for this, and they take a taxi to the end of the road, crowded now with cars and walkers and the bicycles of tourists. At a turnaround, he helps her out of the cab, pays the driver, and they set off once more on a trail along a vineyard leading into the park, up into the striated foothills that serve as backdrop to the sea-scraped cliffs. They have no idea if the paintings have faded away, or have been spray-painted with graffiti, or if the bunker still exists—or, for that matter, if it ever existed at all—but they are young and the trail is wide and easily traveled. And even if they don’t find what they’re looking for, isn’t it enough to be out walking together in the sunlight?
M
y deepest thanks: to Natasha De Bernardi
and Olga Gardner Galvin for help with my brutto Italiano; to Sam Ligon, Jim Lynch, Mary Windishar, Anne Walter, and Dan Butterworth for giving the book reads at various stages; to Anne and Dan for enduring hikes in the Cinque Terre; to Jonathan Burnham, Michael Morrison, and everyone at HarperCollins; and most of all, to my editor, Cal Morgan, and my agent, Warren Frazier, for their generous work, support, and guidance.
Jess Walter is the author of the national bestseller
The Financial Lives of the Poets
, the National Book Award finalist
The Zero
, the Edgar Award–winning
Citizen Vince
,
Land of the Blind
, and the
New York Times
Notable Book
Over Tumbled Graves
. He lives in Spokane, Washington, with his family.
Visit
www.AuthorTracker.com
for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
F
ICTION
The Financial Lives of the Poets
The Zero
Citizen Vince
Land of the Blind
Over Tumbled Graves
N
ONFICTION
Ruby Ridge
Cover photograph © Blonde Marson/Alamy
Cover design by Jarrod Taylor
Map illustrated by Shawn E. Davis
Beautiful Ruins
is a work of fiction. Characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination, and any real names or locales used in the book are used fictitiously.
Se non è vero, è ben trovato. . . .
BEAUTIFUL RUINS
. Copyright © 2012 by Jess Walter. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Epub Edition © June 2012 ISBN: 9780062098085
Version 07132012
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
ISBN: 978-0-06-192812-3
12 13 14 15 16
OV
/
RRD
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
http://www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
