Page 12 of For Better or for Ransom

“They were too far. But I could tell Leonardo wasn’t pleased.”

“How?” Divya asked the question he was burning to make.

Sol laughed. “You’re going to think I’m silly but for half of my interview with him, I kept thinking that Leonardo found me the most fascinating woman on earth.”

“You didn’t tell me that!” Luke blurted.

Divya arched both eyebrows and glared at him. She clearly thought that wasn’t the time for a relationship squabble.

“Because of course it wasn’t real,” Sol dismissed him. “It’s something that only tends to happen with movie stars—or the ones who are movie-star material. You sit to chat with them, and they are such good actors that they seduce you the same way they seduce the camera.”

“So he seduced you?” Luke needed to double-check. How had they got there again?

“Luke, mate. It’s a figure of speech,” Divya said. “Sol is trying to tell us that Leonardo is a good actor who could fool even an experienced journalist like her into believing anything, right?”

“Exactly. Thank you Divya. That was all to say that Leonardo can be a charming man—” Sol went on.

“We gathered,” Luke interrupted her, undeniably jealous.

“You know I don’t do jealousy, Luca,” Sol warned. “What I’ve been trying to explain is that Leonardo wasn’t trying to turn any charm on with this mystery person. Which makes me think: they probably weren’t a fan or some other regular person. Because everyone on the internet knows: Leonardo is great with his fans and is a very nice guy.”

Luke thought he understood the logic behind Sol’s words and explanation at last. He still didn’t like the idea of the actor turning on all the charm with his lover. Ever since that first Meshflixx case in which the actor had been one of the suspects and Sol another one, Luke hadn’t particularly liked Leonardo.

The detective couldn’t quite explain why he was feeling insecure at present. It wasn’t as if he had any reason to worry about Leonardo. Sol was constantly showing how much she loved Luke. Plus, it wasn’t like Leonardo Pascual was available for sweeping in and stealing her at the moment.

But there was something about Luke and Sol's relationship. He couldn’t quite put it in words. He wasn’t sure what it was. It’d been so perfect for all those months. Yet, it was as if he wanted something different. Something…more.

9

Luke

Ithink we need to talk to Moon,” Luke told Divya over lunch that afternoon.

“You gotta love this city. It’s four in the afternoon and we still haven’t had dessert,” Divya said. She was browsing the dessert menu at Maleducat, the restaurant Sol had ordered them to go to after their interview with Sandro Palau had been indefinitely postponed.

“It gets old.” Luke said. It wasn’t that he wasn’t fond of the Barcelona culinary scene or that he was tired of eating invariably late—but he missed London. Trying to get a decent cup of tea in Barcelona was an absolute impossibility. Plus, sometimes he just felt like grabbing a bacon sandwich on sourdough for lunch and eating it on a bench in the park. He didn’t need to make an experience out of every single meal.

“You sound like a proper grump.” Divya was smiling.

He sighed. “You know I get grumpy after three days outside of London.”

“You need to get back to the motherboard.”

“I do,” he admitted. “But don’t ignore me. We need to talk to Moon.”

“Why do you want to talk to them? Or do you fancy getting even? I get to witness a weird phone interaction with your partner and now you get to witness one with mine?”

“It’s not that.” Perhaps it was a bit of that. “But you know we need more information about Leonardo, the new show, the role he’d be playing, and how that correlates to his disappearance.”

“What if there’s no correlation?”

He gave her a stern look from across the table. “Are you hearing yourself?”

She let out a breath and nodded. “I’ll text Moon. Tell them we need to talk.”

“Thanks. What do we do about this Sandro Palau business? It looks as if the chap had a lot to win from Leonardo’s sudden disappearance,” Luke said. “Yesterday night the theater was packed with journalists and critics because it was supposed to be Leonardo’s last night on the stage for a long time. Instead of that, they were forced to watch Palau.”

“Convenient for him, definitely. But apparently they liked what they saw, if we’re to believe what we’re being told.”