Page 112 of Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies

“I agree,” Emily says. “We need to do something.”

“What?” I ask.

She waves at me and Oliver. “Solve it. Haven’t you written, like, a million mysteries between the two of you?”

“It’s not the same in real life.”

“It can’t be that different. And Connor and Guy are private detectives. Or is everything in When in Rome fake?”

“They’re more like… consultants,” I say.

Connor raises a finger to his lip, then quickly lowers it. But he doesn’t have to worry. I’m not about to spill my secrets or his.148, 149

“But yes, they solved some crimes.”

“Including a murder.”

“Yes,” I say, “but…”

Allison shifts in her seat. “I agree with Emily. It’s obviously one of us, and I, for one, am not looking forward to leaving my fate in the hands of the local police.”

“Why not?”

“Look at what happened to that girl. The one they thought was involved in the sex-crime killing of her roommate? Only it turned out she barely even knew her.”

“Amanda Knox?”

“Yes. Her. She spent years in jail before she was exonerated. And did you see that documentary about it? That policeman thought he was Inspector Clouseau. It was ridiculous.”

“She has a point,” Oliver says. “They’re already violating basic police procedure by leaving us all here together to get our stories straight.”150

“You think we can figure it out before the inspector gets here?”

“It doesn’t hurt to try. We know each other better than the police ever will. We were witnesses to what happened. And we do have some skills in this department.”

“Yes,” Allison agrees. “You can plot it all out just like in one of your books.”

“I’m a pantser, not a plotter,” I say.

“What does that mean?” Guy says.

“She writes by the seat of her pants and makes it up as she goes along,” Harper says, finally coming out of her shock long enough to speak.

“I mean, I have a general idea of where it’s going when I start writing. I know the killer, for instance, and the main twists, but yeah.”

“Why is this relevant?” Connor asks.

“I’m just explaining my process…” I stop myself. Who cares how I write a book? It’s not relevant to solving Shek’s murder. “We need to make a timeline. If we write down who was where when, we might be able to figure out who did it.”

“That’s a good idea.”

I take out my notebook, the one I used this afternoon with Oliver when we made our timeline for Shek. Oliver catches my eye, and we both realize at the same time that if Shek’s dead, then he probably wasn’t the one who tried to kill Connor or me.

But what about the evidence we’d uncovered? Was it just a coincidence that he’d been on the scene when the other attempts had taken place? Hadn’t I just established that the law of coincidences was that there were more than you thought, but not as many as this?

So, no, it wasn’t a coincidence that Shek was around when the attempts took place, but that doesn’t mean that he was behind them.

“We can use this,” I say, waving the notebook.