When we find Harper near Trajan’s Column, my heart feels like it might explode.
She’s hunched over on the ground, tangled up with another woman, and all I can think is that I can’t even breathe without her. My knees buckle and Oliver catches me before I fall.
“Harper!” I shout as I go down.
She turns and rights herself. “I’m okay. Just a bit scuffed.”
Oliver sets me back on my feet, then takes a step away from me. I feel like I’m going to start crying, and I’m not sure what’s making me so emotional. Harper’s okay, and the shock of seeing Oliver has worn off.
Those screams, though.
They’re going to be hard to forget.
“Why were you screaming?”
“I wasn’t, it was…” She motions to the ground, where the other woman rises slowly and starts to dust herself off. I realize she’s not a stranger. She’s—
“Allison,” Connor says, pulling up beside us, slightly out of breath. “I’d know that shriek anywhere.”
Allison Smith, née Rogers. Connor’s ex-wife.
Oh, did I not mention her?
Yeah, neither did Connor.
I found out about her right after we’d completed the negotiations—if you can call them that—over When in Rome’s publication and Connor’s take of my advance. We were meeting with our then publicist, Libby. She was confirming the details of his bio, and that’s when I learned he was married.
I should’ve seen that coming, right? A guy who’d extort his girlfriend isn’t someone to be trusted. But it was a shock anyway. And super embarrassing. Libby, who was all of twenty-two, kept asking me if I was okay. But she also hadn’t taken me aside to give me a heads-up.
I’m sure she dined out on that story for months.
Connor hadn’t bothered to deny it. If you can believe it—and why wouldn’t you, given everything I’ve told you about him?—he’d laughed when I confronted him. I “knew what he was,” apparently, which I’d demonstrated by capturing him so perfectly in When in Rome. A wife shouldn’t come as a surprise.
“What are you doing here, Alli?” Connor asks now, his hands on his hips.
“Getting accosted while minding my own business.”
She’s wearing a light caramel shift dress that’s too fancy for this bowl of relics. Petite, with wide-set brown eyes44—it was never hard for me to understand why Connor was drawn to her. Besides being beautiful, she’s smart and kind. We aren’t close, for obvious reasons, but every time I’ve been around her, she’s been nothing but nice, though she has every reason to hate me. They divorced after When in Rome came out. She’d ended up writing a tell-all about Connor—The Man Behind the Book—and we’d had to do more than one event together because Connor has created a constellation of authors in his wake.
The Vacation Mysteries Extended Universe, they call it. Like we’re superheroes getting spin-off movies after we’ve saved the world.
“Is this your thing?” I ask Connor.
He shakes his head in annoyance. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?” Oliver asks. “What’s ‘his thing’?”
Connor shakes his head again, a warning this time.
“He thinks someone’s trying to kill him,” Harper says.
“Wait, what?” Allison and Oliver say together.
“That’s what I said.”
“You promised not to tell.”
“No,” Harper says. “Eleanor did.”
“Just tell us what happened,” I say. “So we can figure out what’s going on.”
“We were walking back there,” Harper says, pointing over our shoulders. “And then, out of nowhere, this woman ran past us and knocked Connor over. Then she stole my purse.”
“And the screaming?”
“I’m getting there,” Harper says. There’s a small trickle of blood running down her forehead. “I ran after her. I came around the corner and I saw a woman holding my purse. I yelled at her to stop, and then I…”
“You tackled me,” Allison says matter-of-factly. “I thought I was being mugged. That’s why I screamed.”
Harper’s embarrassed. “You had my purse.”
“This?” she says, holding up a Birkin-style bag.
Or maybe it’s a real Birkin. I’ve never cared about handbags.
“It looks just like mine. I’m sorry.”
Allison pats her on the shoulder. “Sounds like an honest mistake.”
“Are you okay, Harper?” I ask.
She touches the blood with her finger. It’s already drying in the heat. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
I search in my purse for something to wipe it away, but Oliver gets there first with a handkerchief, like some guy from a ’50s movie. She uses it to wipe the blood off, then returns it to him. He tucks it into his pocket, folding the stain away.
“Are you okay, Alli?” Connor asks.
“I’m fine.”
“Did anyone get a look at the thief?”
“Italian?” Connor says.
“I don’t think she was Italian,” Harper says. “She had an American accent. North American, anyway.”
“What did she say?”
“I’d rather not say.”
She must’ve used the C-word. It’s the only one that makes Harper this uncomfortable.
“Was that it? Just a curse word?”
Harper and Connor nod.
“That’s kind of unusual, an American thief in Rome,” Oliver says.
“It’s not that unusual,” I say.
“Regardless, we should call the police, and file a report.”
“No,” Connor says. “I don’t want that.”
“It’s not just your decision,” I say. “And why not?”
“You know why not.”
“Is someone going to fill me in?” Oliver asks.
“He doesn’t want the police to know someone is trying to kill him,” I say.
“Why?”
Connor crosses his arms. “It’s none of their business.”
“So, you’ll just let them keep trying until they succeed?” I ask. “What could go wrong?”
“I thought you didn’t want to be involved?”
“Couldn’t it have been a mugging?” Allison says. “Rome is notorious for petty thefts.”
“I agree,” Oliver says. “That’s the most likely explanation.”
Connor looks around the half circle of us, then blows out a breath. “Forget it. All of you. Thanks so much for your concern.” He starts to leave, then stops next to Harper. “I’m sorry you got hurt, Harper. That was never my intention.”
She nods at him but says nothing as we watch him walk away.
“That’s probably my cue to leave also,” Allison says.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” I ask.
She gives me a bright smile. “I’ve come back from worse than this.”
She means me, right?
Me and Connor. All those headlines … Those stupid stories I’d told about falling head over heels with him before I knew about her. It was a story made for TMZ, like we were royals behaving badly, and not just an author, a private detective, and his long-suffering wife.
“I’ll walk you back, Allison,” Oliver says. “If you two are okay on your own?”
“Yes, of course,” I say. “Thanks for your help.”
“Not at all. I’ll see you at dinner.”
I close my eyes briefly. Dinner. Something else I should’ve seen coming. “Great.”
Oliver and Allison leave. I watch them for a moment, then turn my attention back to Harper. “Do you need to have that cut looked at?”
“I think it was just a nick.”
“What was in your purse?”
“My wallet and credit cards. The usual.”
“My cards?”
“Yes.”
“Shit.”
“It’s fine, I’ll call the office. They’ll take care of it.”
“We should call the police.”
“For a purse snatching? There’s no point.”
I sigh. “Let’s go back to the hotel.”
“What about Aperol spritz o’clock?”
“We’ll have them by the pool.”
“Okay, sounds good.”
I search around me for the path out of here, and then I find it—a small sign that says EXIT. “Say, did you know Allison was going to be here?”
“Of course. It was all—”
“In the itinerary. I get it.”
“Someday you’ll learn.”
“But not today.”
Back at the hotel, Harper and I go to our adjoining rooms to get cleaned up, then meet on the pool deck. It’s on the roof, closer to the sun, but big off-white umbrellas guard comfortable canvas deck chairs, and there’s a personable man behind the bar.
As I settle into a lounger with my drink, I finally peruse the itinerary on my phone.
Day 1 (July 1)— | Flight from Los Angeles to Rome |
Day 2 (July 2)— | Arrival in Rome; check-in at the hotel; visit the Vatican |
Day 3 (July 3)— | Free morning; afternoon, Colosseum/Forum tour; dinner at El Campinari (all parties) |
Day 4 (July 4)— | Bus to Sorrento; tour of Pompeii and lunch with BookFace Ladies; transport to hotel in Sorrento; group dinner at hotel in Sorrento |
Day 5 (July 5)— | Boat tour to Capri and surroundings; lunch in Anacapri; return to Sorrento; free evening |
Day 6 (July 6)— | Sorrento to Amalfi Coast, with stops in Amalfi, Positano, and Ravello |
Day 7 (July 7)— | Free day in Sorrento |
Day 8 (July 8)— | Private transfer to Maiori; book signing; group dinner |
Day 9 (July 9)— | Salerno Literary Festival |
Day 10 (July 10)— | Train to Rome; free night in Rome |
Day 11 (July 11)— | Private transfer to airport; flight to LA |
It’s July 3, so we’re already on Day 3, but what the hell does “all parties” mean?
I scroll down, and there it is, buried at the bottom.
ATTENDEES
Eleanor DashHarper DashConnor SmithOliver ForrestAllison SmithGuy CharlesAbishek BothaEmily Ma
Oy. That’s quite a list.
Oliver and Allison I know. And given that it’s a tenth-anniversary tour for When in Rome and the whole “extended universe” theme they’ve been pushing the last couple of years,45 it shouldn’t be any surprise that Guy Charles is here either. He was Connor’s business partner before I came along, but Connor’s notoriety after When in Rome was published killed their business. It’s hard to be a private detective when you’re famous.
“So what’s a Guy to do?” Guy had asked me more than once.
Well, this guy—he always tapped himself in the chest at this point—was going to write about it.
The Guy Behind the Man in Rome was about his years with Connor doing the “real” detective work while Connor took the bows. Mostly, I think he just bashed information out of people. In the superhero version of the Vacation Mysteries, Guy is the Hulk.46
Maybe he’s the one trying to kill Connor?
Hmmm. I’ll have to chew on that for a bit.
Next up is Abishek Botha. He goes by the name Shek (pronounced “Shake,” like the ice-cream-based drink, though he isn’t sweet). He’s another mystery author, but he doesn’t have anything to do with the Vacation Mysteries series. We have the same publisher, though, and he did get into some shady deal over a screenplay with Connor a few years back that I never got the details of. I thought I’d heard that he was retiring, but I don’t pay that much attention to the Publishers Lunch gossip mill.47
Me, Harper, Oliver, Allison, Guy, and Abishek. If I was making a suspect list for who might want to kill Connor, it would probably look something like this.
That leaves only the last name on the list. How does she fit in?
“Who’s Emily Ma?” I ask Harper as I motion to the waiter to bring me another spritz. The first one went down too easily.
Harper tips her sunglasses down. She’s wearing a white one-piece that has one strap on her left shoulder. As per usual, she turned multiple heads when we walked onto the pool deck. I, on the other hand, am doing a good impression of Jennifer Coolidge in The White Lotus with my large straw hat and shapeless beach coverup.
“Come on,” Harper says, “you’ve heard of her.”
“I have?”
“Remember when you were complaining about those TikTok books?”
“‘Complaining’ is a strong word.”
“Uh-huh.”
I make a hurry-up motion with my hand. “And?”
“That’s her.”
“She’s the one blowing up on TikTok?”
“One of them.”
“How did she get on this tour?”
Harper’s mouth turns down. “You’re not going to like it.”
“Tell me.”
“She’s here for juice.”
“For what?”
Harper pushes her glasses back up. “You know, hype. She’s big in Italy.”
I feel a pout forming. “I’m big in Italy.”
“Not like this. She’s already in her tenth printing.”
That’s a lot. “When did her book come out?”
“Two months ago.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, wow.”
The waiter brings my spritz, the large glass glistening in the sun as condensation beads on the side. I give it a twirl with my finger, then gulp half of it down. I know I should be careful, but it’s so hot, and too many things have happened today.
I deserve this. This, and one more maybe.
“I hear she’s super ambitious,” Harper says, reaching for her drink. It’s a vodka and soda, and she’s taking small sips, making it last. She even drinks better than I do, but this, for once, is something I can’t envy.
“Nothing wrong with that.”
“Yeah, but…”
“Just tell me.”
“I read her book on the plane. The plot is basically When in Rome. The man is different than Connor, and it’s set on the Amalfi Coast, but everything else is the same. Even the twist.”
“She stole my twist? And no one else has noticed this?”
Harper shrugs. “A few online reviewers, but your book came out ten years ago. It’s a different audience. People who don’t…”
“Read me.”
“Yeah.” She frowns. “There’s more.”
“Okay.”
“She has a second book coming out next year.”
“Let me guess, she stole the plot from Murder in Nice?”
“Close. Gibraltar Is for Dying.”
“Clever, skipping around like that.” I lean back in my chair and close my eyes against the sun.48, 49 “So she’s stealing my plots and she’s here because … what? They weren’t selling enough tickets for my events at the Salerno Literary Festival?”
“That’s my guess.”
“Fantastic.”
“Maybe you can call her on it? Head her off at the pass?”
I grab my glass. It feels good to wave it around dramatically. “It doesn’t matter. I’m out of the game anyway.”
“You are?”
“I’m going to be.”
“How?”
I drain the rest of my drink, then clunk the glass down on the table for emphasis. “If someone doesn’t do it for me, I’m going to kill Connor myself.”
AMALFI MADE ME DO IT—OUTLINE
Elevator Pitch: Charming, ne’er-do-well private detective Connor Smith has one last case to crack—his own. Will he solve his murder before it happens, or is he destined to become his first unsolved case?
WHO?
WHAT?
WHERE?
WHEN?
WHY?
HOW?