Page 111 of Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies

Shek, who downed Connor’s glass, and then his own for good measure before I’d finished my first mouthful, is foaming at the mouth and clutching at his neck.

He falls to the boat deck making a strangling sound, and it’s all over before anyone can do anything but stare.

Shek is dead.

Actually, totally dead.

And this time it’s for real.145

CHAPTER 20I’m a Pantser, Not a Plotter

Sorrento

We don’t take the slow way back to watch the sunset.

Instead, after checking for a pulse to ensure that Shek had shuffled off this mortal coil, even though he’s pale and has a dead-eyed stare fixed at the sky, Captain Marco and Oliver carry Shek’s body below deck, while Sylvie calls the local police to tell them what happened, and the rest of us sit frozen, our Champagne flutes discarded at our feet, the remnants of our drinks mixed in with the salt water we tracked in earlier when we went swimming.

If I were writing this scene, I’d say that a deathly silence enveloped us, but I’m not sure that’s quite right. I think there are at least two of us who are contemplating life instead. Our lives, and how we’re still here despite numerous attempts to push us out of frame.

Or maybe that’s all of us, because it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Shek drank Connor’s Champagne, and caught the sentence someone tried to mete out to him. It could’ve been any of us who took that glass and swallowed that poison and spent their last moments on earth suffocating and in pain while a bunch of people stood around and did nothing.

But it’s hard not to be grateful for the little things when you watch someone die in front of you.

So we’re silent as the boat beats against the waves, and when we pull into the dock, there are blue cars with white stripes and police lights, and a black van without windows to greet us. The local police take our names and the basic information about the tour from Sylvie, and then two officers from the polizia provinciale escort us off the boat. The young capitano, who looks like he’s about Emily’s age and has a rash of acne along his chin, tells us we’ll be escorted back to our hotel for questioning, but we’ll have to wait until the senior officer—the ispettore capo—arrives from Naples.

At least I think that’s what he says. As I mentioned, I never completed the Duolingo course I meant to do before this trip.

And yes, in case you were wondering, I can make jokes at a time like this.

I keep these thoughts inside, though, as we climb into the white van that will take us up the hill to our hotel.

Harper sits next to me. She hasn’t said a word since Shek hit the deck, just hugged herself like she used to do when she was a kid and something was frightening her. I put my arm around her shoulder, and she rests her head on mine.

It’ll be okay, I want to say, but how can I?

Because now there’s no doubt at all: The murderer is one of us.

When we get back to the hotel, the officer escorts us to the library.146

I’m not sure why, but we end up in the same chairs and positions we were yesterday.

I’m on the couch to the right of the roaring fire, still perversely necessary because they’ve got the air on high, and Harper’s sitting next to me. Oliver is seated across from us with Allison and Emily, and Connor is standing behind a wing chair with Isabella sitting in front of him. The other wing chair is empty because that was Shek’s chair, and when Guy went to sit in it, everyone glared at him. Instead, he’s standing by the fireplace, holding his hands out to it like they need to be warmed from a blizzard.

A police officer is stationed outside the door, and we’ve been told not to dispose of anything on our person. He hasn’t told us not to talk to one another, though, which seems like a mistake.147

“Well,” Allison says after we’ve been staring at one another for several minutes, “don’t everyone all talk at once.”

Nervous laughter spreads through the room; then Guy speaks. “You really did it, didn’t you, Connor?”

“Did what?”

“Pissed someone off enough that they wanted you dead.”

Connor speaks through clenched teeth. “I thought we’d established that days ago.”

“You expect me to believe everything you say?”

“Is this helpful?” Oliver asks. “Someone is trying to kill both Eleanor and Connor, and now Shek is dead.”

---