Page 164 of Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies

That’s death, nowadays. It doesn’t happen until there’s a breaking news alert.

“A yacht?” Connor says from the back. “It was basically a fishing boat.”

“Is that really what’s important?” I say.

“I need to check TikTok,” Emily says. “Does anyone have reception? I can’t get it to load.”

“I can’t imagine anyone on TikTok cares about Shek dying,” Allison says.

“I could totally make one of his books blow up right now, though,” Emily says. “Oh, that’s better.” She raises her phone above her face and puts on a fake smile. “POV, I’m here in a minibus in Italy and I just got the news about…”

Oliver knocks the phone out of her hand.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Emily says as she retrieves it from the floor.

“We don’t need to commodify Shek’s death.”

“I was helping him!”

“There’s no him to help anymore.”

She scowls as she brushes her phone off. “His estate, whatever.”

“Just delete it, Emily,” Harper says.

“Fine.” She presses a button and puts her phone away. “But what are you saying? No socials?”

“I think that’s a good idea for the moment,” I say. “We don’t want to give Inspector Tucci any reason to take our phones away again.”

Emily looks horrified. “I missed two book clubs’ Zooms last night, you know.”

“You were zooming into book clubs on this tour?”

“What of it?”

I roll my eyes. Not that I thought she was a suspect, but this kind of puts paid to that. Who has the presence of mind to book club and murder at the same time?

Not me, that’s for sure.

“Is everyone agreed?” I say, turning in my seat to make eye contact with Connor, Isabella, Guy, and Allison. They nod one by one. “No point in feeding the frenzy. Hopefully, no one knows we were traveling with him yet.”

“Easy enough to find out,” Isabella says.

“I know, but let’s get through the tour today, and then we can decide how to handle it.”

“What about the BookFace Ladies?” Harper says. “They’re going to know.”

“Can you round them up when we get to Ravello and let them know not to say anything? That we won’t be taking questions about it? Make sure to tell Cathy specifically. She’s always narrating everything on social.”

“Okay, good idea.”

I scrunch up my face. “Sorry to send you on that kind of errand.”

“She’s used to it.”

“Shut up, Connor!” we both say together.

“And now, here we are in Ravello,” Sylvie says as the bus stops on the side of the road. There’s half a parking lot and a set of stone steps carved into the rock. The sun is high in the sky and the air is thick with heat like a blanket you can’t shrug off. I’m already dreaming of an Aperol spritz or at the very least a Coke Zero.201

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