Page 174 of Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies

The hallway outside my room that morning.

Allison’s room is on my floor. It stands to reason that the shots would’ve woken her. Of course they did. And maybe she didn’t hesitate to open her door. Maybe she got there fast enough to see a figure running toward the stairwell.

That was the door I heard opening.

Not the door to my room, but the one right next door.

Allison’s.

She heard the shot, rushed to the door, and saw Isabella.

Isabella, the woman who met Connor five days ago and decided to ditch her plans to follow him around Italy. Isabella, who could easily have slipped out of her and Connor’s room if Connor had taken a sleeping pill. Isabella, who was sitting at Guy’s table and could’ve drugged him in a moment.

And wait, wait, wait!

Isabella was the one who distributed the wine on the boat. She was near Shek right before he tumbled over, dead. She could’ve been wearing that device, and tapped him without anyone noticing.

But why?

Why would she want to kill Shek?214

Who is Isabella, anyway?

Who would want me and Connor dead? What connection do we have?

Then it hits me. Finally. Something that crossed my mind days ago on the boat to Capri that I dismissed.

I’ve been looking in the present when I should’ve been looking in the past.

The robberies. The Giuseppe family. He had a daughter, didn’t he? The capo—Antonio Giuseppe.

I take out my phone and google it. The signal is weak, and it takes a moment for the results to load. I click a recent article.

Oh! He died in jail. Survived by his five children—Gianni, Marco, Rosa, Marta, and Isabella.

Oh my God. Oh my God.

Really? The Canadian did it? 215

With Marta the publicist?

What. The. Fuck.

But wait, there’s more! There’s a family photo in one of the articles from some gathering fifteen years ago. The capo and his wife surrounded by their children. And I know this woman, despite the years. She has that same blowsy casualness about her, though the photo says her name is Sophia.

“Enjoying the view?” Sylvie says behind me.

Ah, shit.

I knew I shouldn’t have come up here.

CHAPTER 28Whoops-A-Daisy

There’s this scene in The Princess Bride—maybe the movie, maybe the book, maybe both216—where it comes to a climactic moment in the action, and the scene cuts (I’m almost sure it’s in the movie), and we’re back with the narrator (Peter Falk) telling a young Fred Savage (long before he was canceled) that the protagonist does not die in this moment.

Fred’s taken aback and wants to know why his grandfather’s told him that.

Because you looked worried, he says, and I didn’t want you to be worried.217 He wanted his grandson to know that as bad as it was looking for Princess Buttercup and the Man in Black, they were going to survive.

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