After our stop at the pasticceria, where I ate a sinful cannoli with a cream filling that was so rich it could produce an instant heart attack, the coach pulls into an overlook at the Bay of Naples. We file out for ten minutes of photographs, and it’s breathtaking. The red-roofed houses climbing the cliffside, and the water a deep blue that almost matches the sky. In the distance, the Island of Capri is shrouded in a set of misty clouds that makes it look blurry.
The BookFace Ladies ooh and aah, we all take photographs on our phones, and then we are back in the coach. As much as I don’t want to talk to him, I have some questions for Connor, so I ask Isabella if she minds giving us a minute. She exchanges a glance with Connor, then shrugs and takes my seat next to Harper.
“What do you want?” Connor says.
“We need to talk. Tell me more about this pedestrian.”
“Which one?”
“The one you claim pulled you out of traffic and is now dead. Davide something. What happened exactly?”
“I already told you. I was pushed into traffic, and he grabbed me at the last minute and pulled me away from an oncoming bus.”
“Did you talk to him afterward?”
“Briefly. To thank him.”
“Did you ask him if saw anything?”
“He said he didn’t, he just saw me flailing.”
“But the killer wouldn’t know that necessarily, not if he saw you talking.” I think it through. “Did you get his number?”
“Yes, he gave it to me. He said to call him if I ended up going to the police.”
“Which you didn’t do.”
He shakes his head.
“It could be a coincidence that he got killed the next day.”
“Come on, Eleanor, you don’t believe that.”
“Okay, you’re right, I don’t. He must’ve seen who pushed you.”
“It’s the only explanation.”
I shudder. “This is scary, Connor. Killing a bystander like that—that’s hard-core.”
“Oh, now she cares.”
I cross my arms. “You want my help or not?”
“Yes.”
“Then stop being an asshole.”
He smirks. “You did say it was my default setting.”
I grit my teeth. “Is that all? Everything you know?”
“Yes.”
I don’t believe him, but I’ve had enough of Connor for a while, so I take a seat by myself and decide to try and work for the rest of the journey.
I have a murder to plot, after all.
I’ve got to get on that.
Our lunch is at a tourist trap in Pompeii with fake frescoes on the wall and a view of Mount Vesuvius in the distance. The pizza is mediocre, which seems like a crime given where we are, and the restaurant isn’t air-conditioned. I’m too scared to look up the exact temperature, but I don’t need to see the number on the dial to know it’s hot.
Climate-change hot.
Old-people-die-in-this-weather hot.
I can’t believe we’re about to tour a massive archeological site in the full midday sun. It sounds like a recipe for disaster. But that’s what this whole trip is, isn’t it?
Six more days after this and it will all be over. Maybe before then. One can hope.
One can pray.
In the meantime, I wish I had a hat. I’m sure I do—I was wearing it yesterday, wasn’t I?—but I’m guessing it’s in Harper’s bag and I can’t bring myself to ask her for it.
She’s eating lunch with Oliver and Guy, while I’m stuck with Shek and Allison, with the rest of our group spread out in the open-air restaurant full of faux Corinthian columns and sweating BookFace Ladies.
Connor and Isabelle are at a table by themselves on the edge of the room. He’s sitting with his back to the wall, and every time I look over, he’s scanning the other tables like he’s waiting for someone to knife him.
It must be hard to relax while you’re waiting for death.
Even if you’re Connor Smith.
I’m having trouble relaxing myself. The conversation with Harper on the bus didn’t help. Because even though the rational part of me knows Harper doesn’t think I’m trying to off Connor, the fact that she’d even ask is emblematic of the problem between us.
I’m the bad thing that happened in Harper’s life.
“After all these years,” Shek says, penetrating my thoughts. “After all these books, they’re going to drop me? It’s outrageous. It’s age discrimination. I should sue.”
“That must be so hard for you, Shek,” Allison says with a compassion I can only admire. If I’d been through what she has, I’d be a rageaholic.
I have to ask her what her secret is.
Edibles, maybe?
“I’m sorry, Shek—” I say.
“No.” He pauses to drink down some of the massive beer he ordered, which he had to pay extra for because this lunch didn’t come with alcohol, despite Harper’s assurances. “This is as much your fault as theirs.”
“What?”
“They took my marketing budget for The Empty Post and gave it to you.”79
“I don’t think it’s quite that linear…”
He puts his empty mug down with a thunk. “It’s exactly what I was told. Apparently, the book before didn’t sell as much as planned so they ‘shifted resources’ to make it a success. Passed Out in Paris, or whatever.”
“Passed Away in Paris.”80
“No wonder it didn’t sell, with that title.”
I stare down at my plate. He’s right. Passed Away in Paris wasn’t my best work, and the title didn’t help. I’d written it right after I saw Oliver at the Salon du Livre, so I wasn’t in a great state of mind, and the lackluster reviews had translated into lackluster sales. There had been an all-hands meeting in New York when the marketing ramped up for Drowned in Porto, and they told me they were putting a major push behind it.
And yep, they did say they were “diverting resources” to help do that, and you know what? I didn’t think about who it would impact. I was just happy they were doing it.
“Still probably not Eleanor’s fault,” Allison says. “She doesn’t make these decisions.”
Shek grunts, then raises his hand to the waiter to bring another beer.
“No,” I say. “I … I’m sorry, Shek. They did tell me they were doing that. Not whose budget they were using, but I did know. I should’ve asked.”
“Typical.”
“What did you expect her to do?” Allison says. “Turn it down? Would you have done that? And what about all your fat advances over the years? Wasn’t that money ‘taken away’ from someone else? Or a lot of someone elses?”
Shek splutters as the waiter brings him his beer. Then he stands and takes it with him to another table without saying a word.
“You told him,” I say to Allison.
“Men never like to hear the truth.”
“Amen.”
She smiles, then looks away.
Does she hate me? I feel like she hates me.
“Anyway,” I say, clearing my throat to try to break the tension. “I am sorry about what’s happening to him.”
“You’re only as good as your last book.” She sounds like she’s speaking from experience.
I’m not sure how many copies Allison’s book sold. It’s not polite to ask.81 Besides, this is the first real conversation we’ve ever had.82 And here she is, defending me to Shek, despite everything I’ve done to her.
“Did you want to publish another book?”
“It’s the only reason I wrote that tell-all in the first place. It was a two-book deal—they were supposed to publish my novel afterward, but because the memoir didn’t sell well,83 they canceled it.”
“Ah, hell, I’m sorry.”
“Thanks.”
“You seem so calm about it.”
“I don’t find anger productive.”
“I think it’s fueled half my life. According to my therapist, anyway.”
It’s true. That’s what she’d said the one time I went to therapy.
Dr. McGill had come highly recommended, but all she’d done was listen to me vent about Connor for fifty minutes, and then she’d told me that I seemed like a “very angry person” and that I should work on “forgiving and forgetting” if I wanted any chance at happiness.
Honestly? That was the advice I paid $250 for?
I mean, would you forgive someone who’d tricked you into a relationship while he was a married man, and then blackmailed you for ten years?
Is forgiveness even possible?
Ugh, maybe Harper’s right.
I do have the best motive for killing Connor.
“Time for the tour of Pompeii, yes?” Sylvie says, clapping her hands to get our attention. “I hope you enjoyed this delicious pizza.” She rubs her stomach like she’s just had the best meal of her life. “It will be hot, so please take one of the water bottles with you that we will be giving out at the entrance. We don’t want anyone dying on us, no?”84
Once we’ve collected our waters, Sylvie takes us into Pompeii proper, tossing about historical tidbits that are her signature mix of truth and invention.
There are too many names for me to retain—the Villa of Mysteries, the Villa of Diomedes, the Vesuvius Gate, the House of the Faun—and maybe she’s making these names up, or maybe they’re real. I don’t care at this point. I only want to get to the après tour, where I can drown my anxiety in alcohol and try to solve the mystery of my own life.
“This heat is going to kill me,”85 Allison says as we huff our way up a set of stone stairs to get to the city itself. The sun’s high in the clear blue sky, and the air is thick with pine and dust. The mountains in the distance are hazy. The stark pyramid of Mount Vesuvius sticks out, though, and I shiver thinking about what it must’ve been like to live here, so close to its angry plume of ash.
“It’s a killer,”86 I say.
“Death on the mind, is it?”
“Hard not to with what happened this morning.”
“That was a stunt.” She laughs. “Connor just loves attention.”
He’s walking ahead of us, hand in hand with Isabella. Unlike the rest of us, he seems unaffected by the heat. His thick hair is still perfect, and there aren’t any sweat stains on the back of his shirt.
I almost tell her that Connor’s not making it up, then stop myself. She’s a suspect, after all. The less I tell her, the better to ferret out the killer among us.87
“You don’t want him gone?” I ask. “After everything he did to you?”
She stops. “Everything you both did to me, you mean?”
“I deserve that.”
“You do.”
“Do you want me dead?”
“I don’t want anyone dead. Well, maybe a politician or two. But not Connor. That would be bad for me.”
“How so?”
“He’s got five more years of alimony payments.” She laughs again. “Is that crass?”
“I’m sure it’s less than you deserve.”
“Nope, I got everything I wanted. I have a very good lawyer.”
“Good for you.”
I hadn’t paid too much attention to the details of their divorce. Not her side of it, anyway. I was living on my side of it, which helped, I’ll be honest, sell a lot of copies of When in Rome.88
That was one of the nice headlines.
I was called a whore, a home-wrecker, and many words I won’t repeat here.
Of course Connor was simply a charming rogue, a cad, a heartbreaker.
To the day I die, I’ll never understand why we let men control the way women get spoken about.
“What if I kill him off in the books?” I ask.
“So long as he can keep making his payments, I don’t care.”
That makes sense. But wait.
Connor still hasn’t told me who invested in whatever it was, but maybe he was being deliberately misleading. Maybe it isn’t about someone who lost money because of him, but someone who might suffer if he doesn’t have resources anymore?
But if that is the case, why would he go on a tour with Allison? Though it wasn’t until he was already on the tour that he realized his brakes failing might not have been due to bad maintenance. Because of what happened at the Vatican.
“Did you go on the Vatican tour?” I ask Allison.
“That’s a random switch of topics.”
“My brain works that way sometimes.”
“I skipped it, why?”
“Connor thinks someone tried to push him into traffic there. I wondered if you might’ve seen anything.”
Allison looks at me like she doesn’t believe what I’m saying.
I pull out the water bottle Sylvie handed to me to break eye contact.
I should stop trying to play detective. Because—and I can’t believe I’m saying this—I think I’m bad at it. I’m certainly not as subtle as I should be.
And that person who crashes around in books, asking everyone all the questions?
That’s the person who ends up as the second victim.
“Welcome to Pompeii,” Sylvie says, holding her arms out wide. “We will be seeing many wonders today, many streets, and many graves. Because this is the final resting place of thousands of Pompeiians, my friends. Twelve thousand people were living here when Mount Vesuvius exploded.” She points to the rectangular mountain behind her.
“I thought only two thousand people were still in town?” Harper says. She’s standing next to Emily and the two of them look thick as thieves.
“Where did you hear this?”
“It’s called Google?” Emily says, waving her phone. “Maybe you’ve heard of it?”
“Now, Emily, no need to be like that,” Connor says.
Emily clamps her jaw shut.
“Please go ahead,” Connor says to Sylvie. “This is all fascinating.”
“Thank you, Mr. Smith. I am a fan. A very big fan.”
He smiles and moves his hand in a circular motion, inviting her to continue.
“The city of Pompeii was buried under the ash from the volcano. The excavations started in modern times and many wonders were uncovered. It was like a photograph of life. The bread was in the oven, the tables were set, the paintings were on the walls. It is from here that we know the most about the Roman way of life. Now, let us explore and you can see why over two million people come here every year.”
She leads us through the gates, and the BookFace Ladies fan out and start snapping photos on their phones.
It is impressive. A large town laid out with cobbled streets on a grid. You can even see the grooves from the chariots carved into the stone. The house walls are mostly intact, though most of the roofs are gone.
I don’t need to use my imagination to see what life must’ve been like here.
Right up until it stopped.
“In here, my friends!”
Sylvie leads us into a house—a mansion, even by today’s standards. Emily’s in front of me with Harper. Her face is still set in a sour expression.
“Do you know anything about that?” I say to Allison. “Emily and Connor?”
“Connor has a way of zeroing in on the next best thing.”
“I’ve noticed that.”
Allison raises a shoulder. “I heard he met her at Books by the Banks in Cincinnati.”
“She slept with him?”
“I assume.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Lots of people have made that mistake.”
“Right…” I stop. Despite the undercurrent of tension, it’s been nice talking to Allison today.
And okay, yes, maybe I’m also considering her as a suspect, but I do feel sorry for what I did to her, even though she seems fine with it.
I mean, not fine with it, fine with it, but what that therapist said. She’s let go and moved on, and she certainly seems happier than me.
I should acknowledge that. I should try to be a better person and take responsibility for some of the mistakes I’ve made.
For once in my life.
“I’ve never apologized to you, Allison. I wanted to say I’m sorry. For Connor. For all of it.”
“You didn’t know about me,” she says in a way that might be a question or a statement.
“I didn’t. There’s no way I would’ve done anything with Connor if I knew he was married. I’m not a cheater.”
“Are you sure?”
Oh God. Does she know about that?
“You never checked him out,” Allison continues. “If you’d googled him, you would’ve known he was married.”
“I was young and caught up. The minute I found out about you, I ended things.”
That plus the blackmail were enough to put an end to me and Connor.
Then again, I’ve never really asked myself if the wife alone would’ve been enough.
I mean, probably. Otherwise, I’d be a total monster.
“The sexual relationship, maybe,” Allison says, “but you’ve kept him in your life. You keep writing about him.”
I look down at the mosaic floor below us. It’s an intricate key pattern that must’ve taken hours and hours to lay. “That’s a long story.”
One that she might know … I’ve never asked, and I don’t want to now.
“I’m sure.”
“I am sorry, Allison. And I’m not asking you to forgive me. I just wanted you to know that I wish it hadn’t happened.”
“Okay,” she says, and for the first time, I see through her bubble of happiness to something else underneath.
Something dark.
See, Dr. McGill? It doesn’t work. Forgiveness is a myth.
Besides, what am I doing trying to convince a woman whose husband I slept with and who might be trying to kill him that I’m a good person?
Because I’m not. Obviously.
“Come this way, my friends! We are about to see some erotic art.”
Allison bursts out laughing, and it’s like the sky has cleared, even though it’s been sunny this whole time. “Did she just say ‘erotic art,’ or am I hearing things?”
“I heard it, too,” I say.
“Dear God.”
“Can we escape, you think?”
“Doubtful.”
“After you, then.”
We follow Sylvie into a building that she tells us was a house of prostitution. And sure enough, there are erotic frescoes on the walls, lifelike and not leaving much to the imagination.
“We are lucky we can still see this,” Sylvie says. “The early explorers, they were, how do you say, prudes? One of the best frescoes of the god Priapus; his penis was too big, so they covered it in plaster.”
A woman next to us slaps her hands over her six-year-old’s ears. “There are children present!”
“You are in Italy, signora. We treat everyone like grown-ups.”
The woman huffs and hauls her kid away. Allison’s shoulders are shaking from laughter as she follows Sylvie and the others through the door while I stand in front of the fresco, trying to settle my thoughts.
“It’s hot, isn’t it?” Connor hisses on my neck.
He doesn’t mean the temperature.
And I know it’s a cliche, but sometimes those are based on reality, because my skin starts to crawl like there are ants on it.
“Just go away,” I say with as much force as I can.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Then you’d be free of what we did. That’s what you think, isn’t it?”
It’s exactly what I think.
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.”