Page 130 of Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies

“I’m on the last book of my contract.”

“Ah, yes. Amalfi Made Me Do It.” Something flashes in his hand. It’s my notebook. My notebook, where I’ve been outlining Amalfi Made Me Do It. The book where I kill Connor off.

Shit.

“I was thinking of ending the series, yes.”

“By killing Mr. Smith?”

“Yes.”

He flips open the notebook. “And you contemplated many ways for him to die? You enjoyed this, perhaps.”

“It’s an outline. For the book. It’s how I figure out the plot. I write down questions and suggestions, and eventually the story comes together.”

“And one of the things you contemplated was poison.”

“I thought of a lot of things. But those are just ideas. Not anything I did.”

“No?”

“No.” I pause, trying to remember what I wrote in there. This is why I hate outlining. I never remember what I write and end up taking the story in an entirely different direction anyway.166 “Didn’t Allison tell you that someone is trying to kill me and Connor?”

“She did say that, yes.”

“So, then you know that I’m not the one who tried to kill Connor.”

“I do not know that at all. What Ms. Smith told me was conjecture. Suggestions that could have been planted by you.”

“What do you mean?”

He opens up his hands and lays them palms up on the table. Nothing to see here. “What is the evidence that someone is trying to kill you?”

“Someone pushed me down the stairs last night.”

“You could have, how you say, staged that.”

“Ask Oliver. Mr. Forrest. He saw me… He saved me…”

Inspector Tucci watches me as my words die in my mouth. “Ms. Dash, I will speak with Mr. Forrest, but in the meantime, what I have to deal with are facts.”

“What are the facts, according to you?”

He holds up his index finger. “Fact one: You have a tumultuous relationship with Mr. Smith. Fact two: You are outlining how to make him disappear from your life. Fact three: Mr. Smith knows about this and is unhappy. Fact four: Someone has been trying to kill Mr. Smith and may have gone so far as to kill another person to cover up that crime. Fact five: A master room key was stolen from your sister’s purse, a master room key which we found in your room.”

“I don’t know how that got there. I just found it yesterday.”

“That is a convenient excuse.”

“It’s the truth.”

“I deal in facts, as I said, not what you decide the truth is.”

“What about the fact that I didn’t try to kill Connor?”

He ignores me and moves on to the fingers on his second hand. “Fact six: One of the methods you contemplated using on Mr. Smith was poison. Fact seven: Mr. Botha died of poisoning after consuming a glass of Champagne that was meant for Mr. Smith—”

“It was Prosecco.”

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