Page 12 of Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies

“I’m telling the truth.”

“Fine. But if you want me to believe that, you’re going to have to give me more to go on.”

He works his jaw for a moment, then gives in. “I think I know who it is.”

I knew it.

“Who?”

He checks our surroundings. No one’s paying attention to us anymore. “Someone’s been blackmailing me.”

Oh, the irony.

“You’re joking. About what?”

He glances at Harper again and a nervous knot forms in my stomach. Connor has a million secrets, but I have just the one.21 If this has something to do with that, then I truly am going to end him.

“I got involved in something financial last year,” Connor says.

“Something shady,” I guess.

“It was a good opportunity. But then it went south, and, well, I…”

“You covered it up?” Harper says.

Connor cocks his head to the side. “In a manner of speaking.”

“But someone found out?” I say. “And that person started blackmailing you?”

“Yes.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

Connor’s eyes flash with annoyance. “People do get blackmailed, El.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

We stare at each other, a contest of wills, which I win for once because it’s Connor who speaks first. “Why did you say it doesn’t make sense, then?”

“You paid this money?”

“Yes.”

“How much?”

“I wouldn’t want to say.”

I grit my teeth, but I’ll circle back to that later. Who cares how much it is? Only there would be some poetic justice in him losing everything he took from me.

“Why would the blackmailer kill you, then?”

“He told them he wouldn’t pay anymore,” Harper guesses because she’s always been the smart one. “Right?”

“Yes,” Connor says.

“How did they react to that?” I ask.22

“They said something about making me pay for it.”

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