Page 104 of A Very Happy Easter

“Edie…”

“Don’t jinx things. If we ever broke up, division of assets would be the least of my worries.”

“We’re not going to break up.”

“So stop talking about paperwork. Does this count as our first fight?”

“Not even close.” Heath propped his head up on an elbow. “When do I get my hands on the joint platinum card?”

“I’ll call my bank in the morning.”

“I was kidding.”

“I wasn’t. Anyhow, I hope Marc somehow finds his girl again. What kind of woman ignores a letter from a bona fide Hollywood heartthrob? I wonder where he sent it? Do you think it got lost in the post?”

“No. No, I don’t.”

Something about the way he said that…

“What do you know? And why did you squeeze my thigh downstairs when Marc showed us the photo?”

“I thought…I thought that perhaps I recognised her. I’m not certain.”

“Wait, you know her? You know Phae? How? Through work?”

“I don’t know her, but we might have crossed paths once.”

“At Blackwood?”

“No, through old work.”

“And you can’t talk about it?”

Heath heaved out a long sigh that rivalled Marc’s and kissed my forehead. “No specifics. No names, dates, or locations.”

“Okay.” I held my breath.

“My job was mostly recon. The SAS got the glory, but my regiment were the ones who went in first. We watched, analysed, and fed back information. One time when I was overseas, a couple of foreigners were abducted, snatched off the street when they strayed into the wrong territory. We received word on a possible location, and my team was sent to do the usual. Play voyeur.”

“And she was one of the hostages?”

“No, those were NGO workers. We sat there for three damn days watching for any sign of them. Studying the compound, noting who came and went. Best we could work out, there were twelve men living there, plus three women to cook and clean. Never saw the hostages. Not until day four, anyway.”

“Is this a horrible story? Do I even want to hear it?”

“It’s a weird story. Day four in the early hours, we heard noises. Pop-pop, pop-pop, pop-pop. Then out walked the three women in… Well, they were wearing abayas. The long black gowns. One of them disappeared to the east, and we were lying there in ghillie suits, wondering what the everlovin’ fuck, when we realised the other two were heading straight towards us with the missing pair.”

“What? How did they know you were there?”

“That’s a question I still don’t know the answer to. The shorter of the two women shoved the male hostage at me and said something along the lines of, ‘Think this one is yours, or do you want us to extract him for you as well?’”

“She just gave you a hostage? What did you do, thank her?”

“Pretty sure I looked like a goldfish at that point. Her friend in the niqab started laughing about us sitting around on our asses while other people did the work. So of course I said we’d take the guy, and then we got the hell out of there.” Heath paused. “I think the woman who gave me the hostage was Phaedra. The size and build match, and so does the accent. Her hijab was torn. I’m good with faces, and if I’m right, then the last place she’ll want to be is in the limelight with a world-famous actor.”

“That’s the craziest story I ever heard.”

“Tell me about it.”