There’s this scene in The Princess Bride—maybe the movie, maybe the book, maybe both216—where it comes to a climactic moment in the action, and the scene cuts (I’m almost sure it’s in the movie), and we’re back with the narrator (Peter Falk) telling a young Fred Savage (long before he was canceled) that the protagonist does not die in this moment.
Fred’s taken aback and wants to know why his grandfather’s told him that.
Because you looked worried, he says, and I didn’t want you to be worried.217 He wanted his grandson to know that as bad as it was looking for Princess Buttercup and the Man in Black, they were going to survive.
It’s a funny, sweet moment that I’ve always loved, and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
So: I do not die in this chapter.
You were looking a little worried, and I wanted you to know that I’m going to be okay.
I mean, you knew that already since you’re reading this.
But I wanted to remind you because I care about you and I didn’t want you to worry.
That doesn’t mean some bad things aren’t about to happen. There’s one more death in this book and it’s dramatic, if I do say so myself. And I know you’re looking at the amount of pages you have left to read or the percentage on your Kindle and I told you before that I’d solved the crime.
Only I was wrong.
But enough about me, for now.
Let’s return to the scene of the reveal, shall we?
Just to catch you up, I’ve overheard a conversation between Isabella and Allison that has led me to make the connection to the Giuseppe family and realize from my Google search that the capo, Anthony Giuseppe, had daughters named Isabella and Marta, and a wife whose real name is something else but who’s definitely Sylvie. I’m holding my phone in my hand with the web page up, and Sylvie has just come up behind me and cornered me on the top of a medieval turret in the Italian town of Ravello. That turret is surrounded by plexiglass walls that will make it impossible for anyone to hear me scream.
We are alone.
Dramatic much?
So back to me.
Because oh, no. Oh, shit.
Sylvie.
It’s Sylvie and Isabella.
This whole time.
They were here the whole time, right next to us, on the scene. They’re the people we never looked at because why would they have a motive to kill us? To kill me?
Isabella even joked about it in the library when she was holding the marker at the easel while we tried to puzzle out the subjects.
She agreed she should be a suspect.
She laughed about it, and I missed it.
I really am bad at this.
But right at this moment, I need to keep my wits about me. I need to maintain a poker face, only my poker face is terrible. Everyone always knows exactly what I’m thinking. But Sylvie and I are all alone up here, high up, with nowhere to go but the steep spiral staircase behind her.218
“Ms. Eleanor,” Sylvie says. “Are you all right?”
“Oh, I…” I flex the hand that was holding my phone but realize I’ve dropped it. “You startled me, is all. And I’m a bit out of breath from that climb up the stairs…”
“It is worth it, though, no?”
“Oh, yes. Yes, the view is fantastic. Just like you said.”
I bend down and pick up my phone, my heart hammering in my chest. The screen is still open, the results of my Google search visible, face up and pointing toward Sylvie. The name “Giuseppe” seems abnormally large and obvious to my very nervous eye.
I can’t let Sylvie see it. I click quickly on the button on the side to shut the screen off, then tuck my phone into my pocket.
Damn it. I shouldn’t have put it away. I need to call for help.
Call if you need me, Oliver had said not twenty minutes ago, and then he put that text in my phone so I’d have his number.
I can do this.
“Have you checked out the view?” I say to Sylvie in a voice that sounds unnatural.
“I have seen the view, of course. Many times.”
“Oh, right, great.” I use my finger in my pocket to unlock my screen, doing the pattern that is my password, a gesture I repeat dozens of time a day. My finger slides to my texts, and I hope I’m clicking on the right part of the screen to call Oliver. Miraculously, I hear that faraway sound of an international call and hit the volume button, then cough to cover it. I don’t know if Oliver will be able to hear me, but maybe the call is enough.
“You are acting strangely,” Sylvie says. Her eyes are staring straight at me, unblinking. And did she always look this menacing, or is that just a product of my imagination?
“Am I? I’m just … a bit out of sorts today. You understand.”
“Because of the shooting.”
“Well, yes.” I look around me as if there might miraculously be someone up here besides us two. But no.
There’s no magic here.
Only malice.
“It’s high up here in the tower,” I say, and try to make my voice sound normal. “Did you find it hard to climb the stairs, Sylvie?”
She cocks her head to the side. “It was nothing.”
“I think I’m going to go back down.”
“No, come, look at the view with me.”
She’s blocking the door, and how can I get by her without looking like a complete lunatic?
Without giving what I know away?
And oh, shit, shit, shit. Did she come up here to kill me?
“I don’t feel well.”
“Ah, yes, you are afraid of heights, no?”
“How did you know that?”
She smiles the same smile she’s been giving me this whole time, only this time, as the kids say, it hits different. There’s a glint in her eye that I don’t like.
“I know lots of things about you, Ms. Eleanor.”
“Oh, ha…” I try to laugh it off. “The price of fame, I guess.”
“The price … Yes. There are prices to pay for things in life.”
“I mean, sometimes?”
“Only sometimes?”
“Sometimes people get away with things. And I’m okay with that.”
She looks at me, but through me like I’m transparent. Like she’s seeing a ghost. “What does that mean?”
“I’m not looking to get anyone into trouble.”
She nods slowly. “But you already did this.”
“Did what?”
“Got people into trouble. You and Mr. Smith. You ruined a family.”
So here we are. She’s not hiding anymore, and there’s no reason for me to do it either.
She saw my phone. She knows I know who she is.
“I didn’t make anyone rob those banks or murder anyone.”
“No?”
“They were criminals before I came on the scene.”
“You do not understand.”
“So, tell me.”
She tips her head back and laughs. “No, Miss Eleanor. No. I do not owe you that.”
“What are we talking about?”
“I think you know.”
“You’re a Giuseppe.”
She tilts her head down.
“You planned this whole thing. You and Isabella and Marta.”
She opens her hands. There’s something on her ring finger, inside the palm. It looks like the device that was used on Shek.
I gulp down my fear. “I could scream.”
“Ah, but no one would hear you, would they?”
“They might. Oliver knows I am up here.”
“And yet he let you come up here alone?”
“I asked him to.”
“I do not believe you.”
And why should she? It sounds like the kind of lie people tell in movies to escape someone who wants to kill them.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“You are wrong about that. You took everything from me.”
“I’m not the reason your husband went to jail.”
“You are.”
“I didn’t make him commit crimes. I only discovered it after the fact.”
“You do not understand. He was a good man. He was providing for his family. But you and Mr. Smith, you wanted the money for yourselves. You went to the police without a thought for who it would hurt. And my Gianni … my beautiful boy.”
“Connor didn’t kill him.”
“He would be alive today if they’d never met.”
“I’m sorry, but…”
But she isn’t listening. “And he just gets away with all of it? And you? You become famous because of it? Everything you have, I gave it to you.”
“If it’s money you want…”
“No. I am not some … No. Money isn’t enough. It will not bring back my husband. It will not bring back my son.”
“But he was going to the police, wasn’t he? Gianni? That’s why he was killed.”
“Do not speak of him.”
“I…”
She takes a step forward. What’s taking Oliver so long? Did I even call him? Maybe someone else is listening to this sparkling conversation. Or maybe no one’s listening at all.
I’m such an idiot for coming up here.
“Let me go, Sylvie. If you do this … you’re going to get caught. Inspector Tucci … He’ll figure out who you are. Who Isabella is … He’ll put it together.”
“That man? Please.”
“It’s basic police work…”
“No one will even be looking at me.”
“They will. Oliver will. Harper. They won’t just sit still and—”
“You are so certain these people you treat as disposable will come to your rescue? Will care that you are gone? Isabella has told me how they are suspects even in your head. Please. Your sister will take the money and your lover will move on, and all that anyone will remember you for are some books that aren’t very good.”
I mean … ouch.
“Why take the risk, Sylvie? What if you’re wrong?”
She hesitates for a moment, and this is my chance. I think about pushing past her, but how am I going to avoid that needle in her hand? It would be so easy for her to prick me.
So, instead, I bend low and barrel my elbow into her stomach, pushing her out of the way.
It’s amazing the strength that adrenaline gives you.
She lets out a strangled cry as she falls to the floor, and I see the device slip off her finger. I kick it away with my foot, watching it tumble down the stairs.
But I’ve miscalculated because now she has her hand around my ankle. I kick at her again and she releases me. I get to the top of the stairs and grip the railing.
If I’m not careful, I’m going to fall down these very steep stairs. I grip the railing tighter.
And now I can sense Sylvie right behind me, so I turn and duck, and the force that she’s using to come after me makes it impossible for her to stop.
She screams as she stumbles past the top step, trying to grab onto the railing, and I watch in sickened horror as she flies into the air, then hits the stairs and tumbles down, down, down until she lands with a terrible thump at the bottom.
I fall to my knees as Harper comes into view below me, holding her phone in her hand.
She stares up from Sylvie to me and back again. She takes the stairs two at a time and catches me before I fall.
But the world is going black, the edges creeping in as she wraps her arms around me.
“I’ve got you,” she says.
And then I am gone.