Page 5 of Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies

“You’re tracking me through your phone? Did I authorize this?”

“I run all of your passwords, social media, banking…”

“So, you could defraud me in a hot minute.”

“If you didn’t pay me amazingly.”

“Which I do.”

“Which you do.”

“Harper…”

She turns away. “Not now, okay? After.”

“After what?”

“When we get home. Then we’ll talk.”

Shit, shit, shit. I was right. She’s leaving me.

“Why wait?”

“Let’s enjoy the trip.”

“Connor and all?”

She bursts out laughing, then stops herself so quickly I can almost hear the record scratch. “About that…”

“What’s he done now?”

She meets my eyes, and there’s a terrible mix of heartbreak and resignation in hers that hurts my heart.

“Harper?”

Her eyes fill. She wipes a tear away with the back of her hand, and my own throat tightens in response. A wave of violence floods through me. And even though I’m in church, even though I was just seeking forgiveness, I have only one thought now.

I’m going to fucking kill him.

“Eleanor?” Connor’s voice shatters my murderous thoughts about, well, him. “Ah, there you are.”

I turn around slowly. Connor’s standing with his hands on his hips, devastatingly handsome in a seersucker suit and a matching fedora. His face is tanned, and his dark blond hair is short on the sides and brushed back from his forehead. His eyes are the most striking thing about him—a deep sea blue, like the Mediterranean on a calm day.9

“Where the hell have you been?” I say with an edge to my voice I can’t seem to bury.

“Oh, ho, ho, she’s angry.” His accent is half British and half the flat accent of a Canadian. He’s never given me a clear answer about where he grew up.

Juvenile detention, I suggested once, and he hadn’t denied it.

“I’ve told you not to talk about me in the third person.”

He leans forward like he’s bowing to the Queen.

Oh, wait. She died, right?

The King, then. Hmmm, that sounds weird.

“Whatever my lady wishes.”

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