The morning breaks with Harper’s familiar knock at the door, but this time, I don’t need her to wake me up. I started awake an hour ago, my head throbbing and my mouth dry. I should’ve done something about both—Tylenol, a large glass of water—but instead, I stared at the ceiling, waiting for the events of yesterday to make sense.
Waiting for the fear to dissipate.
Because that’s what I feel this morning. Behind the hangover and the exhaustion—I’m terrified.
Someone’s trying to kill me. Someone on this tour, someone I know. But who? Who’s been sitting across from me at the dinner table for the last two nights wishing I’d disappear?
Have I made Harper’s life so miserable?
Is it Allison—pretending to be my friend, but looking for an opening to get rid of me once and for all?
Shek, because I got his marketing budget?
Emily, because I’m the competition in her way, the one who might reveal where she’s getting her killer plots?
Guy, for some reason of his own, buried inside and chewing at him for years?
Is it Oliver?
I might’ve understood it of him if it had happened three years ago. I’ll never forget the look on his face when I told him I’d been unfaithful with Connor. It was like I was tearing his heart out with my bare hands, and all he kept saying was “Why did you tell me?”111
He’d wanted me to lie. He didn’t want me to put my burden on him. He wanted to live in a fantasy where I was a good person and he didn’t make a mistake loving me.
People have killed for less.
Harper, Allison, Shek, Emily, Guy, Oliver. Their faces circle through my brain and chew at my gut, like a roulette wheel where I’m waiting for the ball to drop and land on the lucky winner.
Or maybe all of them are in on it, like in Murder on the Orient Express and all its pale imitations, and I’ve missed the whispered conversations, the clues hidden in what I thought were meaningless words.
How do I get it to stop?
How do I reverse course?
Because I know one thing: My life isn’t perfect, but I don’t want to die.
“Hello, hello, my writing friends!” Sylvie chirps from the dock in Sorrento.
After a nearly silent breakfast, we walked down the steps that almost killed me last night separately, a single file with Harper as our camp leader bringing us to the edge of the glistening sea.
Most of us have backpacks on, packed with boat shoes and towels, and a change of clothes for after we dip in the sea, and the only people with smiles on their faces are Connor and Isabella.
Because nothing brings Connor down, apparently.
Not even the thought of my murder.
Though maybe that’s the source of his happiness? Were the attempts on his life a smokescreen for the attempts on mine?
What does it say about my life that the possibility of Connor wanting me dead is the last thing to occur to me? If I were writing this, he’d be the prime suspect.
Sylvie waves her hand toward the water behind us. She’s wearing a bright red linen tunic, and her hair is tossing in the breeze. “Today we are going to Capri, one of the most beautiful islands in the Mediterranean. Also, the one with the most famous people visiting every year. Recently, these visitors have included my girls Beyoncé, RiRi, and J.Lo—they all love themselves some Capri.”
“Did she just say, ‘my girl Beyoncé’?” I ask Harper.
Harper’s arms are crossed over a light blue T-shirt with a sailboat decal on it. “Nothing surprises me anymore with this woman.”
“We’re not paying her enough.”
“I thought you wanted to get her fired?”
“Nah, she’s growing on me.”
“Like a fungus.”
I touch the tip of my nose with my right index finger and point the other at Harper. “Ding, ding, ding.”
She laughs, and it feels like the ice is breaking between us.
“For the record,” she says, “I’m not trying to kill you.”
“I know, baby girl.”
“You haven’t called me that since we were kids.”
Since before our parents died, she means, and maybe she’s right. We tucked so many things about them away because it was easier, but maybe that was a mistake.
When your life is on the line, you start to question everything.
“Remember how you used to call me El-nor, like I was an elf in Lord of the Rings?”
“Your ears did stick out.”
“It is time to get on the boat! Andiamo!”
Harper rolls her eyes. “She wants us to get on the boat.”
“We better get on, then,” I say.
Her smile turns into a frown. “Do you think it’s safe?”
The sky above us is clear and cloudless. “The weather looks good.”
“No, I meant for you. What if … What if someone tries something on the boat?”
“In front of all these witnesses?”
“There were plenty of witnesses last night.”
“No,” I say, “there weren’t.”
She bites her lip. “Just be careful, okay?”
“I will.”
“And maybe…”
“Don’t drink?”
“I didn’t say it.”
“I can feel your thoughts.”
“Ooh, do they hurt?”
“They won’t kill me.”
Harper shakes her head slowly.
“Don’t worry. I’m taking this seriously.”
And I am. Deadly seriously.
“So you’ll do what I said?”
“I’ll be careful, I promise.” I lean in. “But just in case, keep an eye on me, okay?”
“Do I have to keep an eye on Connor?”
“Let’s not go too far.”
We get in the boat. It’s a twenty-five-footer, white, with a Mediterranean-blue tarp covering the captain’s seat. Our captain is a local in a black cap, with tanned arms and a weathered face, whom Sylvie introduces as Marco.
He starts the motor and sets the boat toward the Island of Capri. On the way out of the marina, we pass a large boat containing the BookFace Ladies. Their shirts are a bright lime green today, but I can’t tell what book they’ve got on them. They wave to us enthusiastically as we pass them, all except for Cathy, who’s got her arms crossed and seems to be wishing that our boat would sink.
Oh! Maybe she’s the one who pushed me last night?
But wait. No. The BookFace Ladies aren’t staying at our hotel. They get the three-star accommodation while we get luxury with a side of attempted murder.
“The ride to Capri is twenty minutes,” Sylvie says. “We are not going to land until lunchtime, though. Because we are going to be visiting many caves today, my friends.”
“The Blue Grotto, of course,” Shek says.
We’re sitting in a semicircle on the white PVC benches in the full sun. But out here on the water, with the breeze and the waves, it feels bearable. I’m sitting between Harper and Allison. Connor and Isabella are ensconced on the small aft seat, while Shek, Guy, Oliver, and Emily sit across from us. Sylvie’s standing in the middle with her back to Captain Marco, her hands flowing as she gets into her lecture.
“The Blue Grotto is very famous,” Sylvie says, “but we are not going there.”
“Why not?” Emily asks. She’s got a white beach cover-up on over a skimpy black bikini and is wearing a wide straw hat and oversized sunglasses that hide her eyes. Against the backdrop of the sea, she looks like she’s posing for her next book cover.
Or plotting her next murder?
“The Mafia,” Sylvie says.
“Huh?”
“Italian organized crime,” Connor says. His long legs are extended out, and he looks totally relaxed, almost bored.
I’ve learned from experience that this is when he’s at his most dangerous, like a wild cat yawning right before it strikes.
“I understand the word,” Emily says tartly, “just not the connection.”
“They run the Blue Grotto. It has been a big problem for the last twenty years … They came to Napoli first, to control the garbage trucks. But now they are in Capri also, and any money you spend at the Grotto, it goes to them, the Giuseppe family, so we stay away from them, yes?”
“The Giuseppe family?” Connor says, less casually now. He exchanges a look with Guy, and then me. “The same one as from Rome?”
“A branch of the tree,” Sylvie says. “When the capo went to jail, there was a … guerra per il territorio—a war over the territory? Some things were divided up, and the losers came to Napoli. You have heard of them?”
“I thought they all went to jail?” I say.
Shit. Is that the answer to this mystery? It’s not someone on this tour, but someone else in Italy who has a reason to want me and Connor dead?
“The capo, yes,” Sylvie says, “but the Mafia, they are like rabbits. They breed quickly, and suddenly they are everywhere.”
“Weren’t you the one who sent him to jail?” Shek says, pointing to me.
“Oh? Come?”
“Pretty sure that was the police,” Oliver says, and I’m grateful. He’s still willing to defend me, despite everything. Maybe there’s hope for us yet.
He won’t make eye contact with me, though.
That’s probably too much to ask after last night.
“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.”
Guy looks back and forth between them. “That’s it? How disappointing.”
“Honestly, Guy?”
“I’m sorry, Sylvie,” Oliver says. “You didn’t sign on to manage a kindergarten.”
Emily’s mouth purses, and my own neck starts to burn. Oliver’s right. We’re a bunch of bickering idiots. No wonder all we’re good for is writing made-up stories.
“Which cave are we going to, Sylvie,” Isabella asks, clearly trying to change the subject, “if not the Blue Grotto?”
“It is right around this cove,” Sylvie says, pointing ahead. “We will be there in a moment.”
The boat leaps through the surf as we approach the shoreline, then throttles down. Captain Marco turns and starts to follow the coast. As we come around a corner, three massive superyachts come into view. They’re anchored near an opening in the rocks, and the water is dotted with people swimming and holding on to pool noodles. One of the yachts is called Sorry and is flying a Canadian flag.113
“We will anchor here for one hour,” Sylvie says as Marco cuts the engine. “You can swim, enjoy the view, or take some sun. There is also a cooler with some drinks.”
She busies herself by opening the door to the hold down below and pulling out the pool noodles and a cooler.
“Are you going in the water?” Harper asks me.
“God, yes. I’ve been wanting to get in the sea since we got here.” I swim in the ocean all the time at home, even in the winter. Harper thinks I’m nuts, but it helps keep me sane-ish.
“Do you think it’s safe?”
“I keep telling you I’m a good swimmer.”
“But away from the boat…”
I stand and take off my shorts and T-shirt. I’m wearing a tankini underneath. My body’s a bit softer than the last time Oliver saw it without clothes on, and I like how this suit holds in my middle and pushes up my boobs.
Not that I spent ten minutes in the mirror thinking about it after I dragged my ass out of bed or anything.114
“What are you worried about?”
“Well, duh, you dying?”
I bend down and kiss her on the forehead. “I’ll be fine! Even better if you come, too. Be my bodyguard.”
“What’s all this?” Allison asks. She’s stripped off her sundress, and her perfect body is encased in a red bikini that leaves just enough to the imagination. I wish I had her confidence and her abs.
“Harper’s worried about my safety.”
“As she should be. And you too, Eleanor.”
Is that a warning tone in her voice?
I wish I didn’t feel like I had to parse everything everyone says to me for clues.115
“I’ll be careful.”
“You’re not worried?”
I stretch my hands above my head. “I am, but I don’t want to be. You can’t live your life like that. Wondering if someone’s trying to kill you all the time? Look at where we are right now. Look at how beautiful it is.”
I twirl around, taking in the 360-degree view. I flash past the others’ faces—Connor, Isabella, Oliver, Guy, Emily, Shek, Harper, and Allison on a carousel like they were in my mind this morning—and try to ignore the quizzical looks they’re giving me.
“You understand, don’t you, Allison?”
“I do.”
“Swim?”
“Absolutely.”
“You can swim right to the cave and even inside,” Sylvie says. “The noodles are helpful for that.”
“We’re noodle-free, right, Eleanor?” Allison says, taking my hand.
I take hers and squeeze it. “Yes.”
“Ready?”
She doesn’t wait for me to agree; instead, she runs toward the back of the boat with my hand in hers, tugging me along, then lets go as she gets to the seat where Connor and Isabella are sitting. She climbs onto the back of the boat in two graceful leaps, then dives into the ocean. I follow after her without thinking and almost slip on the seat as I climb past Connor.
“Hey! Watch where you step!”
I banish the thought of what I might’ve just stepped on and launch myself into the water. I hit it with a smack, but it feels glorious anyway. I surface to the sound of Allison laughing.
“I think you stepped on Connor’s balls.”
“I’ve been wanting to do that.”
“Dreams do come true, then. Let’s go.” She starts to swim toward the mouth of the cave with easy strokes, and I follow after her. She’s fast and strong and reaches it before me, but she stops and waits, treading water until I catch up.
It isn’t wide enough for a boat, and the water inside is that pure, crystalline blue that never comes out right in photographs unless you have a specialized camera. There are stalactites hanging down from the ceiling.
“Wow,” I say as I hear splashing behind me.
I turn. It’s Shek.
“You swim fast.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” He motions toward the cave. “Are you going in?”
I look back at the boat. The rest of our crew is getting out of the boat slowly, climbing down the ladder, holding on to pool noodles. Oliver’s already in the water, but he’s the only one.
“Should we wait for the others?”
“You’re not afraid, are you?”
Allison splashes at the water. “Of course she isn’t.”
I look into Allison’s open, sunny face and feel a chill go through me. She dared me to come here with her, and now we’re separated from the group.
I get a weird flash of her holding my head underwater, my legs kicking in struggle. It doesn’t take that long for someone to drown if they’re not used to holding their breath. In under a minute, it could all be over.
“I…”
“You are scared. Wow.”
“It’s not that, I just—”
“Eleanor, if I wanted to kill you, I would’ve done it a long time ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugs. “Your loss.”
She turns and does a little dive into the water, her body folding into itself, and then her feet come up straight behind her and she disappears.
I watch the rippling water, feeling mean. Allison’s right; it doesn’t make any sense for her to want to kill me, and wasn’t I just saying this would be a stupid place to do it? I need to be on my toes, but I don’t need to be making accusations I can’t support—
Wait. Where’s Allison?
She’s been under too long.
Oh, shit. Oh, no.
I never should have let my guard down.