Page 23 of For Better or for Ransom

The one person Luke had been hoping not to have to call. The one person Luke knew had a network that practically comprised the whole city.

“Miquel?” Divya asked, her detective nose always extra sharp when it had to do with Luke—and Luke’s annoyance.

“Ex-husband number one,” Sol deadpanned.

“Ah,” Divya seemed to understand.

“Ah, indeed. Detective Grumpy here was hoping he’d avoid meeting him again.”

“I wasn’t hoping to avoid him. I just don’t see the need to see him every time we come.” He heard the defensiveness in his words. Both women looked at him with contempt.

“I just introduced the two of you, Luca. It’s not like you’ve had to suffer him multiple times.” Sol was practically suppressing a chuckle.

Even if she was teasing him, Luke still loved making her laugh.

“I sent you his contact information,” Sol told Divya and she threw the mobile phone back inside the too-big handbag. “I think it would also help if we talked to The Single Dad Situation’s showrunner, Jasper Fairbanks,” she added, pride in her features.

Luke quirked his eyebrows: “We?”

Sol rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean…”

“I do.” He preferred to drop the subject of their working or not working together and continued with the impromptu meeting. “Are we missing anything?”

Sol

“Leonardo is seeing someone,” Sol paraphrased Penny’s words.

“Aside from the obvious, a partner is always a potential suspect, tell me why that’s so significant?” Luke asked.

“Well, I had no idea about it.”

He cast his eyes upward in silent doubt.

“I just wrote a profile on the man, yet I had no clue he was dating someone. I asked him about his love life⁠—”

“You did?” It was Divya giving Sol judgy eyes this time.

“I had to. My editor made me.”

“Don’t you write for a film and television magazine and website?” Divya asked, more trying to understand than to confront her.

“You’d be surprised at the level of personal stuff that passes as professional in this business. But anyway, what I was trying to tell you is that Leonardo has successfully managed to keep a partner away from the media—even with all the scrutiny he’s under. It’s not that I didn’t know about him dating someone—or that he blatantly told me he was alone and happy about it. The internet didn’t know about him dating someone either. Nobody did.” Sol showed the two detectives the search results on her cell phone after she typed Who is Leonardo Pascual dating?

Based on Luke and Divya’s blank expressions, they didn’t believe that was particularly relevant.

She breathed deeply, tried explaining herself as if she was talking to aliens who’d just landed on planet Earth and needed to understand how Hollywood worked.

“Leonardo Pascual can’t go for a jog or grab brunch without paparazzi or regular people taking and posting pictures about it. Yet he managed to hide a boyfriend or girlfriend from them? And notice I said boyfriend or girlfriend because I literally have no clue whether he likes men or women or everyone. He is that secretive.”

“I think it’s everyone, no?” Divya quipped.

“Yeah, probably. Still, the man is a complete mystery when it comes to matters of the heart.”

“Has the media attention on him mellowed since he’s been in Spain?” Luke asked her.

She considered his words. Had she seen fewer pictures of the actor grabbing coffee or going to parties since he’d been in Spain? “You mean could he have met someone here and fly under the radar? Maybe…”

“We need to find out who it was that he was seeing,” Divya said, as she added stuff to her ever-growing to-do list. “Does the family raise any red flags?”