Page 146 of Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies

“Someone… shot you.”

“No, no, they didn’t. I’m okay. I’m right here.”

She pulls away, scanning my face. Her eyes are large and frightened. “I didn’t see. I couldn’t get the door open…”

“It’s okay, Harper. It’s okay. I’m here. No one’s hurt.”

The light snaps on. I look back over my shoulder. Oliver’s surveying the room in his boxers, his hands on his hips. I follow his gaze back to my bed. There are two bullet holes in the covers, and a gun wrapped in a cloth on the floor.

Oh my God.

Someone was shooting at me.

I feel bile rise up my throat and I choke it down.

“What happened?” Allison says from behind Oliver. She’s wearing the same green flowing robe she was wearing the other night, and I have a flash of that scene from Murder on the Orient Express—a bright robe with a dragon on it. But there’s nothing on the back of Allison’s robe and my mind is playing tricks on me.

“Someone tried to kill Eleanor,” Oliver says.

“What?”

She looks from me and Harper to the obvious holes in my bed to the gun that’s lying on the floor. She takes a step forward. “Is that—”

“Don’t touch that,” Oliver says. “It’s evidence.”

She takes a step closer anyway. “Is that Guy’s gun?”

“I don’t—”

“It must be,” Guy says, arriving fully dressed—black pants, black T-shirt, like a villain. “Mine’s missing.”

“Missing?” Oliver says. “Since when?”

“I had it when I went to sleep,” Guy says. “It was on the nightstand next to my bed.”

“Can you tell if that’s it?”

Guy walks into the room and stands over the gun. I turn my body away from Harper, still holding her close so I can watch him. My hands are shaking.

Guy crouches down, getting close to the gun. “It’s mine. But Oliver… It’s got your handkerchief around it.”

“What?”

Oliver walks to Guy with Allison right behind. They form a little triangle around the weapon, staring at it.

I haul Harper up to her feet. She’s steadier now, and we walk together toward them.

They widen the circle so we can see, too. Guy’s right. His gun is wrapped in a white handkerchief that has Oliver’s initials on it.

And also a drop of blood.

The next thirty minutes are a blur.

Hotel security arrives and secures the room.

They usher us out and tell us that the police will be arriving shortly. Without discussion, Harper, Oliver, Guy, Allison, and I go downstairs to the library and are soon joined by Emily, who says she didn’t hear the shots, but was awoken by the commotion.

It’s after six now, the sun rising across the water, and someone is nice enough to bring us tea and some Italian pastries, and it all feels so civilized except for the riot in my brain.

---