Page 58 of For Better or for Ransom

“Only Meshflixx won’t approve the expense so that we go and see if he’s actually there.”

“Where did Leonardo run away to? St. Barts? Seychelles? Uh, no, no, no… What’s the name of that private island in the Caribbean…Mustique?”

“I’m afraid it's all much closer—and less ultra-luxurious and exclusive than that. We believe he’s in Mallorca.”

Luke

“Mallorca?” Fairbanks sounded as incredulous as Luke had been last night while first hearing Sol’s theory about Leonardo’s hiding place. “Cheap Meshflixx bastards! Aren’t you in Barcelona? It’s a very short flight from there.”

“We are.”

“And how sure are you Leonardo is there?”

Luke wasn’t going to tell Jasper Fairbanks, someone who still was a person of interest in that investigation. But Sol had found a pretty solid digital trail linking the actor to the island.

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.”

“Look, pal. We’re both on the same side here. We all want Leonardo found and shipped back to London ASAP.”

Probably true but Jasper Fairbanks wasn’t Luke’s client. Mesflixx was, as much as that annoyed him. But another one of Sol’s notes caught his attention.

“How come you’re not in London yet, actually?”

“Flying there tomorrow. Between you and me, I hate flying.” Jasper sighed. “Even private.” Sol rolled her eyes with contempt and Luke almost couldn’t repress the chuckle. “So when Leonardo got himself lost I cancelled my flight. But I need to deal with the production in London, I cannot keep postponing it.”

“You know we talked to Bobby Lancaster yesterday. Nice chap,” Luke said, and that was an overreach. He still didn’t know what to make of Lancaster. Either he was a charming grandfather with memory problems, or he was pretending to be one to hide the fact that his client wanted to get rid of him.

“Nicety has never been one of Bobby’s problems. In fact, the guy is too nice. This is Hollywood. You need to be cutthroat in this town if you want to survive.”

“Hasn’t he survived?”

Fairbanks chuckled. “Barely. But why are you asking?”

“The Lancasters seemed to have a different version of what happened between Leonardo and Supreme Video.” Something about that whole story didn't sit well with Luke. Could it be that Jasper Fairbanks had tried to make them suspect Bobby because he was hiding something himself?

“I’m sure they do.” Nothing seemed to flap Fairbanks. “Don’t believe everything people tell you in Hollywood.”

“I suppose that could also be applied to the things you’ve told us?”

“Look, I’ll go ahead and confess it, I’m a total gossip. Sometimes I talk too much. Did I have three different sources that corroborated the tale I was told about Bobby? Of course not! Not even journalists do that anymore,” Fairbanks admitted. Sol rolled her eyes even more. “But if you’re implying that I had anything to do with Leonardo’s disappearance…that’s ridiculous. One, I’m still in Los Angeles as we speak. You can talk to my assistant if you don’t believe it. He’ll confirm it.” Luke tightened his jaw. If he’d learned anything in the last few days, it was that the assistant in question could be Fairbanks’s nephew—or his cousin. Luke was getting tired of the unreliable storytellers.

Fairbanks continued making his case: “Two, if I wanted to sabotage my own show it would have been easier to tell Leonardo to do Theo Summer’s boring drama than to orchestrate a full disappearance. I’m no magician here. Where exactly did I put my leading man? And three, why would I offer to pay for your trip to Mallorca to look for Leonardo—as I’m going to do—if I had anything to hide?”

Luke and Sol stared at each other. He cocked his head. Did he hear that right?

“I’m afraid I already have a client,” Luke reasoned.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, Meshflixx hired you and you have an ethical responsibility to them. Don’t worry about that. Technically I’m also a Meshflixx employee right now because of the show. So it’s as if they asked you to follow up on that lead and go to Mallorca, see if you can find our guy and bring him home.” Fairbanks’s words sounded weirdly coherent.

The showrunner must have sensed that Luke was tempted to say yes, because he simply sealed the deal with what he said then: “Listen, I’m loaded with all my trust fund money and the royalty checks from the first show I made—even if it was only a season. It was a network show after all, none of this nonsense short and cheap streaming orders. What I’m saying is, even if Meshflixx won’t approve the expense, I’ll cover the cost of the trip. But don’t worry, they’ll approve the expense, once you find Leonardo, of course.”

Of course, all Luke, Divya, and Sol needed to do was to find that very elusive actor once and for all.

32

Sol

Are we going to take Fairbanks’s offer?” Divya asked Luke and Sol.