Page 69 of Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies

“Nope, I got everything I wanted. I have a very good lawyer.”

“Good for you.”

I hadn’t paid too much attention to the details of their divorce. Not her side of it, anyway. I was living on my side of it, which helped, I’ll be honest, sell a lot of copies of When in Rome.88

THE SCANDALOUS DIVORCE BEHIND THE BESTSELLER.

That was one of the nice headlines.

I was called a whore, a home-wrecker, and many words I won’t repeat here.

Of course Connor was simply a charming rogue, a cad, a heartbreaker.

To the day I die, I’ll never understand why we let men control the way women get spoken about.

“What if I kill him off in the books?” I ask.

“So long as he can keep making his payments, I don’t care.”

That makes sense. But wait.

Connor still hasn’t told me who invested in whatever it was, but maybe he was being deliberately misleading. Maybe it isn’t about someone who lost money because of him, but someone who might suffer if he doesn’t have resources anymore?

But if that is the case, why would he go on a tour with Allison? Though it wasn’t until he was already on the tour that he realized his brakes failing might not have been due to bad maintenance. Because of what happened at the Vatican.

“Did you go on the Vatican tour?” I ask Allison.

“That’s a random switch of topics.”

“My brain works that way sometimes.”

“I skipped it, why?”

“Connor thinks someone tried to push him into traffic there. I wondered if you might’ve seen anything.”

Allison looks at me like she doesn’t believe what I’m saying.

I pull out the water bottle Sylvie handed to me to break eye contact.

I should stop trying to play detective. Because—and I can’t believe I’m saying this—I think I’m bad at it. I’m certainly not as subtle as I should be.

And that person who crashes around in books, asking everyone all the questions?

That’s the person who ends up as the second victim.

“Welcome to Pompeii,” Sylvie says, holding her arms out wide. “We will be seeing many wonders today, many streets, and many graves. Because this is the final resting place of thousands of Pompeiians, my friends. Twelve thousand people were living here when Mount Vesuvius exploded.” She points to the rectangular mountain behind her.

“I thought only two thousand people were still in town?” Harper says. She’s standing next to Emily and the two of them look thick as thieves.

“Where did you hear this?”

“It’s called Google?” Emily says, waving her phone. “Maybe you’ve heard of it?”

“Now, Emily, no need to be like that,” Connor says.

Emily clamps her jaw shut.

“Please go ahead,” Connor says to Sylvie. “This is all fascinating.”