Page 16 of For Better or for Ransom

“The Single Dad Situation.” He shrugged his shoulders as if not getting it.

“It’s perfect. They’ll have lots of success.”

Luke gave her one of his skeptical eyebrow arches. “Will they?”

“I mean, with that title and Leonardo Pascual. Unless the show is awfully written, it should be a hit.”

“That’s if we find him.” Luke’s voice dropped, even though they were alone. He was about to tell her something relevant. “But if we don’t, there’s no show.”

“But of course you’ll find him!” She was almost way too flippant but she still couldn’t allow herself to believe something bad had happened to Leonardo. Not when she’d been chatting with him about nighttime skincare routines and the ridiculousness of method acting mere hours before he’d disappeared.

“Even if we do, there are some messy conditions in the show’s financing,” Luke said. That was probably what had made Moon extra careful when disclosing details about The Single Dad Situation. “According to Moon, it was hard to get it done. The show only got the green light after Leonardo signed on as the titular single dad and after the showrunner agreed to an extremely tight writing and shooting schedules.”

If Leonardo didn’t appear in time, The Single Dad Situation risked never getting made.

“Is the showrunner Jasper Fairbanks?” Sol asked, her eyes closed while she tried to recall everything she’d read about Pascual’s upcoming show.

“I think that’s the name Moon mentioned, yes. Why do you ask?”

“He’s a bit of a wild card. His first show was very criticized when it first was announced. He’s your typical Angeleno nepo baby. His parents are both prominent figures in the industry. But then the first season of the show was an absolute smashing success, and the criticism quieted. That’s until he proved he couldn’t actually produce any other season of that show. The second show he did years later flopped. Nobody watched it and the critics hated it. They had a blast writing about all the reasons why Jasper Fairbanks is an inept showrunner.”

Luke checked his notes. “Moon told us he’d developed—whatever that means—this show himself. Written all of the season alone. Is that unusual?”

“A bit. Not unheard of by any means.”

“Apparently this is a very personal project for him. Not quite sure why. Is he a single dad?”

“Not really. But he’s single in the sense that he’s been divorced at least three times and not currently married,” Sol attested. “Not that I’m being judgy or anything.” She shot her hands in the air.

“In this house we don’t judge divorcées, cara.” His coarse voice was enveloped in sweetness.

“You don’t. But sometimes I feel like I do.” There, she said it.

“Well, you shouldn’t.”

He caressed her face and she decided he was right.

“I told you this morning we’d have to discuss that extremely appalling double standard of yours.” He leaned toward her, his lips at her nape as his arms caged her. “You were practically naked.”

“I was.” Sol shuddered. She was so glad the day was finally over.

11

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Luke

The next morning, while they were still waiting for the elusive Sandro Palau to grant them an interview, the detectives decided they needed to talk to El baño de Edipo’s director, Isabel Teixidor. And since Sol seemed to be particularly interested in that case—and Luke suspected she was considering ideas for a second book—the journalist was joining the two detectives in their journey to Isabel’s flat.

The theater director lived in an art nouveau building from 1904, located in one of Sol’s favorite old-school neighborhoods in the city.

“We’re in for a real treat!” Sol said when they went inside the historically preserved, wrought-iron cage lift.

The thing was so noisy that, for a moment, Luke thought they would get trapped inside.

A couple of minutes later, they were seated on a scratchy, too small sofa in Isabel’s cramped living room. It boasted high ceilings with intricate plaster detailing, stained-glass windows, and the original hydraulic floor tiles. It could still have benefited from some renovating, but Luke imagined preserving the historical accuracy of that architecture wasn’t cheap—or easy.

Divya, Sol, and Luke sipped espresso the director had offered them. Luke wasn’t a coffee drinker but that was the only hot beverage offered to him in that particular city—and people still wondered why he was so eager to leave.