Page 109 of Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies

But now, on the minibus back down the mountain, seated next to Oliver, I wish I had.

If Shek wants me dead, I’d like to know what I’m supposed to have done besides take his marketing budget. Because only a lunatic would kill someone over marketing dollars. And whoever planned all this is too methodical for that.

But Shek is methodical.

He’s a plotter.138

It says so right there on his website under “Writing Tips.”

“You all right?” Oliver asks as the bus drives too fast for my liking down the hill. I’m in the aisle seat this time, but I can still see disaster coming.

“In the circumstances.”

He smiles at me, then takes my right hand and holds it on his lap, our fingers intertwined. “I don’t know if we have enough to go to the police.”

“I know.”

“You’re thinking we should investigate.”

“That’s stupid, right?”

“It makes sense.”

“It’s how people get killed in my novels.”

He smiles. “Mine, too.”

“One question too many. One action. Confronting the killer. Bashing around like they’ve got an invisibility suit on.”

“All part of the genre.”

I watch our hands together. I don’t want to let his hand go, but we’re almost at the bottom and it’s going to end sometime. “But in real life… I don’t think I’m very good at it.”

“We’ve come this far. We have the timeline, the Instagram photos, the tweets.”

“I should screenshot all those.”

“Good idea.”

I make no move to do so.

“Not now?” Oliver asks.

“My hand is occupied.”

He looks down at our hands like he didn’t know he was doing it, and I curse myself. Why do I always have to state the obvious?

Why can’t I leave well enough alone?

“You can do it on the boat,” he says, and my body flushes.

He doesn’t want to let go either.

I’m taking that metaphor for the win.

“Shek will be on the boat,” I say.

“He will. It’s just hard to believe that he’s… I mean, he’s Shek.”

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