Page 7 of Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies

“So why do you think someone’s trying to kill you, then?”

“It started a couple of weeks ago. At first, I thought it was an isolated incident, but now…”

“What isolated incident?”

“The brakes on my car gave out when I was driving in the Hills.”

He means the Hollywood Hills. He has a house up there paid for by yours truly.11 It’s nicer than my house, even though I’d never want to live that far away from the beach. He claims it was mostly paid for with his finder’s fee money,12 but he blew most of that at the baccarat tables in Monaco soon after he got it, so…

“The Citroën?”

And yes, he drives a baby blue Citroën from the 1960s because of course he does.

“Yes.” He takes off his fedora and runs his hand through his hair. Usually, he does that to draw attention to its thickness (his hair is pretty awesome), but today it comes across as a genuine nervous tic. “Thankfully, I realized the brakes were out when I was going uphill, so nothing bad happened. I was able to turn into a driveway and call Triple-A. The car’s old; I chalked it up to bad maintenance.”

“That sounds scary,” Harper says.

“It was.”

His voice is steady, but I recognize the tone—genuine fear.

Goddamn it.

“What did the garage say?” I ask.

“The brake-fluid hose clamp failed, which they said was likely due to the age of the car.”

I sigh slowly. “Is that it?”

“No. Yesterday, after the tour of the Vatican, someone pushed me into traffic. If it hadn’t been for a passerby who yanked me back at the last moment, I would’ve ended up under the wheels of one of those hop-on, hop-off buses full of bleeding tourists.”

I know it’s wrong, but I can’t help but smother a laugh. The image of impeccably dressed Connor being flattened under the wheels of a bus full of sightseers in fanny packs using selfie sticks, well… it’s not quite a cartoon, but it is cartoon adjacent.

“Where did this happen?”

“That main road into Vatican City.”

Harper and I had been on that road yesterday, too. The Via della Conciliazione is a beautiful cobblestoned boulevard lined with sandstone buildings that connects Vatican City with Rome. But it was also so thick with tourists that it was hard to breathe. I’d been jostled more times than I could count.

“Hmmm.” I click my tongue against the roof of my mouth. “Harper, let’s go.”

“Wait, I—”

But I don’t wait for him to say anything more. Instead, I grab Harper and haul her outside. Connor has some good qualities—even I can admit that—but his tendency to think everything is about him isn’t one of them.

I mean, who thinks being elbowed in a crowd equates to attempted murder? Connor Smith, that’s who.

And yes, I agree with Harper that if he were murdered, there’d be a long list of suspects. But just because someone’s a master at creating antipathy doesn’t mean that every almost-accident is a cover for something nefarious.

All this to say, I doubt very highly anyone’s trying to assassinate him.

Except for me, that is.

And that’s our little secret.

We step out of the church, and I immediately feel like I’m drowning in heat. Whoever thought it was a good idea to book a tour in Italy in July is a lunatic.13 But I’d said yes to it, hadn’t I? So maybe I’m the lunatic.

I mean, obviously.

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