Page 72 of Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies

No. Amendment.

It’s what I know.

“No one’s trying to kill you, Connor,” I say with a conviction I don’t feel.

He speaks against my neck again, and the hairs on my arms stand straight up.

“Just wait,” he says. “You’ll see.”

CHAPTER 13A Victimless Crime

Okay, confession time. Given that Connor basically spilled the beans back there, I might as well fill you in.89

I mean, you’ve probably already guessed it, right? The real reason Connor has such a hold over me? No? Well, that crime I helped him solve? The robberies that were shaking up Rome? The murder?

Connor planned it.

Hold up, hold up, hold up.

I thought he solved the robberies, you say?

Yeah, me too.

But after we’d gone to the police with our evidence and the remainder of the Giuseppe crew was arrested in the act, Connor and I had gone out to celebrate, and we’d gotten sloppy drunk. We went back to his room and you can imagine what happened next.90

It was wonderful. He was wonderful, we were wonderful together, and I was exhilarated, thrilled, on cloud nine. Every cliché you can think of, and probably some you can’t.

Then I woke up.

A couple of hours after we fell asleep, my eyes popped awake. I felt restless and undone. Unfinished. That must’ve been the reason I started searching through our stack of evidence in the living room of our suite while Connor slept in the bedroom. The surveillance photos and maps and things we’d accumulated over the previous weeks.

Something was bugging me.

Something wouldn’t leave me alone.

And then it hit me.

How did he know to stake out the building where they’d caught the robbers? And why was he so sure that particular bank was the next one on the list? There were dozens of banks in Rome. Probably hundreds. It’s a close-packed city. Every bank is surrounded by buildings that could be purchased and used to tunnel underground. But Connor had zeroed in on this one. He’d had some explanation about how it was the most likely target, that there was a pattern to the heists, and to be honest, I hadn’t asked too many questions.

But during that middle of the night, as I stood over a map with the robberies marked on it with little colored pushpins, I could see that there was no pattern at all.

What did that mean? If there wasn’t a pattern, how did Connor know where the next robbery was going to take place? There was only one explanation.

He had to have something to do with it.

But what?

I tried to puzzle that out for hours, thinking back through our conversations, what he’d told me about himself. He was a private detective, he’d said, for expats and people who got into trouble on vacation, but mostly he worked as a consultant.

I’d assumed for the police and insurance companies, but had he said that?

He was working with an insurance company on this case. I’d been in one of the meetings with men in tight, tailored suits and sophisticated accents in a glass-walled conference room. And when we’d gone to the carabinieri, he’d known the chief inspector, but their relationship hadn’t been warm. Instead, Inspector Tucci had been suspicious, it seemed, wary. It had taken some convincing for him to look at our evidence, and then, until the criminals were in custody and more evidence was found connecting them to the murder, he didn’t believe it was true.

Why?

Consultant of what?

Oh, shit. What if he was a consulting criminal?

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