Page 97 of Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies

“What does Oliver mean?” Emily asks. “Eleanor put someone in jail?”

“When in Rome,” Allison says. “The Mafia family that planned the robberies they solved, that was the Giuseppe family.”

Was it just me, or did Allison look at Connor when she said the word “planned”?

Oh, wait, you can’t actually see us. Not yet, anyway.112

“I do not understand,” Sylvie says. “You wrote a book about the Giuseppe family?”

“No, not really. I… We, Connor and I, helped to discover who was robbing the banks. For the insurance company. And then when the murder happened… Anyway, I wrote about it. Not them, exactly, but a fictionalized version. That was my first book.” Why am I so badly spoken today? I clear my throat and try to do better. “When in Rome. Like the BookFace Ladies had on their T-shirts at the Colosseum?”

“Ah, yes! Your novel famoso.”

“Haven’t read it?” Emily says under her breath.

“I do not read books,” Sylvie says. “I like watching books.”

“How can you…”

“Like The White Lotus. You have seen this show, yes?”

“That wasn’t a book.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Ah, well, I make a mistake.”

I can feel Harper shaking next to me as she raises her fist to stuff it into her mouth. One good thing about Sylvie: She’s bound to distract you from anything serious going on in your life.

“What happened to them?” Emily asks. “The robbers?”

“Murderers, you mean. Still in jail, last time I checked,” Connor says. “And rightly so.”

“Agreed,” I say, shuddering despite the sun. The principals are all still in jail. That’s them out, then. Which tracks. The first attempt on Connor’s life happened in California. It wouldn’t make sense for them to try to kill him there a few weeks before he was coming to Italy.

That’s a relief. I only met Gianni Giuseppe once before he was killed, and briefly, but there was no mistaking the menace he presented. It was the first time I was ever scared by a person, truly terrified, and all he did was say “hello” and kiss my hand.

“If you do the crime, you do the time—that is what you Americans like to say, yes?” Sylvie looks around us expectantly, but no one comes to her rescue. She doesn’t seem to mind. Instead, she smiles at us in that beatific way she has. “In America, there are so many prisons, I have read. So many people in jail.”

“Well,” Emily starts, “that’s because of systematic racism and—”

Allison puts up her hand. “Good Lord, not today. Let’s enjoy the view and save the lecture for later.”

“I would’ve thought that…”

Allison stares at Emily hard enough to make her thoughts run dry. “And I would’ve thought you’d be the last person to stereotype me.”

Shek takes his hat off and starts to fan his face, while Guy leans forward like he’ll miss part of the exchange.

I point to him and Guy. “If one of you says ‘catfight,’ I will throw you in the water myself.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Eleanor,” Shek says. “Repeating myself? Never.”

“So much for solidarity,” Emily says.

Allison gives her a big smile. “You’ll survive all right on your own.”

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