Page 154 of Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies

He’d warned us and what happened? Exactly what he said would happen.

I’m lucky to be alive.

Oliver points out that he was coming here to arrest me, and Inspector Tucci gets a sour look on his face and divides us up into individual interviews with the flotilla of police officers who’ve arrived with him.

Mine takes place in the same room as yesterday, with the lawyer Oliver arranged for me. I was allowed to get dressed before the questioning, under police escort with my lawyer in the room. Lorenzo Scaperelli is in his mid-thirties and is wearing a light linen suit. He has a firm handshake, dark hair and eyes, and an assured manner about him.

I can talk to the police or not, as is my wish, he says, but there isn’t going to be any arrest warrant issued. Scaperelli has already spoken to the magistrate, an “old friend,” and explained the issues to him. Inspector Tucci is on thin ice—he should’ve recused himself, just like Connor suggested—and no one is going to take just his word for it that a world-famous author is gadding about Italy killing people.

I tell Inspector Tucci about last night, that I was with Oliver when the shots rang out. I describe my room to him when I made it there: Harper on the floor in the doorway to her adjoining room, the bullet holes in the bed, the handkerchief wrapped around the gun.

“Did you notice anything else out of place?” Inspector Tucci asks, scratching notes in his notebook. He’s dressed like he was yesterday, in a rumpled suit that’s seen better days, his hair needing one more turn with the brush.

“No, I… I was upset, obviously.”

He puts his pencil down and scans my face. “Had you planned to go to Mr. Forrest’s room?”

“It was a spontaneous decision.”

“Did you tell your sister beforehand?”

“No, like I said. It was the middle of the night. I couldn’t sleep because…”

“Yes?”

I can feel myself blushing. “I could hear Connor above me with Isabella… They were…”

“Having relations?”

“Yes.”

“What time was this?”

“Around midnight? It, um, went on for a while.”

“So you went to Mr. Forrest’s room at midnight?”

I glance at Lorenzo, who’s sitting next to me. He told me I had two choices: I could refuse to talk at all, or answer everything that was asked of me truthfully. There was no in-between. Since I didn’t try to shoot myself, it was probably easiest to speak to Tucci and get it over with, as a refusal could raise suspicions. He’d be minimal in his interference, he told me, and only interject to clarify questions that were unclear or invasive for no reason.

This question is kosher. He nods to me to answer.

“Something like that,” I say. “Maybe a bit later. I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to the time.”

“And then you were with Mr. Forrest the whole time?”

I look at my hands as flashes of last night come back to me. “Yes, um, yes.”

“Neither of you left the room at any point?”

“No, I… I fell asleep for a bit, and then we, uh, were intimate again.”

“Could Mr. Forrest have left while you were sleeping?”

“I don’t think so. I’m a light sleeper.”

He purses his lips and makes a note. “Did you hear anything before the shots? Anyone walking around?”

“No.”