Page 96 of Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies

“So you’ll do what I said?”

“I’ll be careful, I promise.” I lean in. “But just in case, keep an eye on me, okay?”

“Do I have to keep an eye on Connor?”

“Let’s not go too far.”

We get in the boat. It’s a twenty-five-footer, white, with a Mediterranean-blue tarp covering the captain’s seat. Our captain is a local in a black cap, with tanned arms and a weathered face, whom Sylvie introduces as Marco.

He starts the motor and sets the boat toward the Island of Capri. On the way out of the marina, we pass a large boat containing the BookFace Ladies. Their shirts are a bright lime green today, but I can’t tell what book they’ve got on them. They wave to us enthusiastically as we pass them, all except for Cathy, who’s got her arms crossed and seems to be wishing that our boat would sink.

Oh! Maybe she’s the one who pushed me last night?

But wait. No. The BookFace Ladies aren’t staying at our hotel. They get the three-star accommodation while we get luxury with a side of attempted murder.

“The ride to Capri is twenty minutes,” Sylvie says. “We are not going to land until lunchtime, though. Because we are going to be visiting many caves today, my friends.”

“The Blue Grotto, of course,” Shek says.

We’re sitting in a semicircle on the white PVC benches in the full sun. But out here on the water, with the breeze and the waves, it feels bearable. I’m sitting between Harper and Allison. Connor and Isabella are ensconced on the small aft seat, while Shek, Guy, Oliver, and Emily sit across from us. Sylvie’s standing in the middle with her back to Captain Marco, her hands flowing as she gets into her lecture.

“The Blue Grotto is very famous,” Sylvie says, “but we are not going there.”

“Why not?” Emily asks. She’s got a white beach cover-up on over a skimpy black bikini and is wearing a wide straw hat and oversized sunglasses that hide her eyes. Against the backdrop of the sea, she looks like she’s posing for her next book cover.

Or plotting her next murder?

“The Mafia,” Sylvie says.

“Huh?”

“Italian organized crime,” Connor says. His long legs are extended out, and he looks totally relaxed, almost bored.

I’ve learned from experience that this is when he’s at his most dangerous, like a wild cat yawning right before it strikes.

“I understand the word,” Emily says tartly, “just not the connection.”

“They run the Blue Grotto. It has been a big problem for the last twenty years… They came to Napoli first, to control the garbage trucks. But now they are in Capri also, and any money you spend at the Grotto, it goes to them, the Giuseppe family, so we stay away from them, yes?”

“The Giuseppe family?” Connor says, less casually now. He exchanges a look with Guy, and then me. “The same one as from Rome?”

“A branch of the tree,” Sylvie says. “When the capo went to jail, there was a… guerra per il territorio—a war over the territory? Some things were divided up, and the losers came to Napoli. You have heard of them?”

“I thought they all went to jail?” I say.

Shit. Is that the answer to this mystery? It’s not someone on this tour, but someone else in Italy who has a reason to want me and Connor dead?

“The capo, yes,” Sylvie says, “but the Mafia, they are like rabbits. They breed quickly, and suddenly they are everywhere.”

“Weren’t you the one who sent him to jail?” Shek says, pointing to me.

“Oh? Come?”

“Pretty sure that was the police,” Oliver says, and I’m grateful. He’s still willing to defend me, despite everything. Maybe there’s hope for us yet.

He won’t make eye contact with me, though.

That’s probably too much to ask after last night.