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PROLOGUE

If a Body Drops in a Broom Closet,

Does It Make a Sound?

My name is Eleanor Dash, and I’m the bestselling author of the Vacation Mysteries series.

That’s notimmediatelyrelevant to my current situation, but it feels like something you should know about me from the jump.

I write murder mysteries for a living. I think up ways to kill people and then I do it. On the page, that is. I haven’tactuallykilled anyone.

Not yet.

Oh, wait, that’s not true. Nottechnically.

But that was a story for another book. So.

Moving on.

Despite the fact that I wing most things, you should also know that I always figure out the who, what, when, where, and why of the murder(s) before I start writing. Ienjoydoing this. It’s a fun puzzle to me. To figure people out—their motivations, hurts, and resentments. Why are they striking out? What was the last straw? How are they going to do it?

It’s fascinating.

I mean, haveyouever thought about it? What might push youto the brink so you’d see the most terrible act as a solution to your problems?

You don’t have to answer that, but it’s not a rhetorical question.

Not entirely, anyway.

So, why am I telling you all of this before we even get to the first chapter?

There’s a method to my confession, I assure you.

Let me, as they say, set the scene.

I’m at Emma Wood’s wedding to Fred Winter, her co-star in a movie calledWhen in Rome. Emma’s been my best friend since childhood, and this movie is based on a book I wrote ten years ago that’s been (finally, and oh my God, I can hardly believe it!) adapted into a film. They wrapped filming two days ago in Santa Monica, and then the entire cast and crew came to Catalina Island for the wedding.

Because Hollywood.

It’s been a balmy October day on this lush island one nautical hour off the coast of Los Angeles in the Channel Islands. But though you can’t tell from the lingering sunset bathing the Descanso Beach Club in a warm orange glow, there’s a hurricane heading our way, because of course there is.

You didn’t think we were going to be at a wedding on an islandwithouta storm, did you?

Okay, good. Because this is thatkind of book.

Everything that can go wrong will.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Anyway, a lot of shit has happened since we got here yesterday, but the most important thing is that, just now, when I was trying to find the bathroom during the wedding reception, I ended up finding a dead body in the broom closet instead.

I know, right?

No one’s supposed todieat a wedding.

But the person lying next to a stack of boxed toilet paper with a cake-cutting knife sticking out of their back isdead.

I’ve had some drinks, but not so many that this fact escapes me.