Page 32 of Kranow (Brides of the Mylos #4)
“ And before we left Florida, we stopped by Eglin and used the reciprocal base shopping privileges. Kranow picked up a GoPro so we could catch footage of our snorkel with the seals and stuff. I gotta edit it first but after I do, I ’ ll share it with you guys, ” Marley gushed to her friends. She and Kranow had returned from their honeymoon the evening before and she was enjoying having a catch up with her three closest friends over lunch at Steven ’ s. The older children were eating at their own table while enjoying an animated adventure featuring a lonely kitten who saves the world by teaching a wannabe evil scientist about love and compassion.
“ Well, let me tell you, while you were gone, some stuff went down, ” Darla said. “ O ’ Hannigan really went off the rails when her PA died. Her production assistant quit and went home, but not until after telling Gundar that O ’ Hannigan had asked her to lie and say she saw you pull something out of your handbag and stick it under the top of an empty table near the bathrooms. ”
“ Say what? You have got to be kidding me! Of all the dirty, low down, bullshit! ” Marley fumed.
“ Yes, well, Gundar spoke to Sachuu about it and he went back down Earth side and spoke to a few people quietly, one on one, off the record-like. ” Steven, Marley, and Melissa all leaned in as Darla lowered her voice. “ It turns out that she has been known to engineer some of the more dramatic episodes of her show. In fact, the very day before her network got the offer to film your matching, they had informed her they were cancelling her show. ” She took a sip of her coffee. “ It seems that she paid someone at a DNA lab to falsify a report as to who a child ’ s father was. Or rather, wasn ’ t. The mother insisted to a court that the guy was the father, and they ordered a new test, this time through a state lab. And bingo, she hadn ’ t been lying. The man was beside himself, as he ’ d only taken the DNA test to start with as part of a show about how his home state made unmarried fathers do so before allowing them to be added to a birth certificate. He ’ d been wrecked emotionally as he ’ d trusted his girlfriend and thought he ’ d been played a fool. She cost him his relationship with the mom and five years of his kid ’ s life, plus now he owes back child support with five years ’ interest. The network settled with the couple, paid the man ’ s arrears, and was going to give her the sack quietly. ”
“ So, I saved her from losing it all and her disgrace maybe coming out. Then, she had the special she filmed right after about the brides on the Mylos home worlds, ” Marley said, putting it all together.
“ And after that, she had bupkis to keep them off her back, as more people like that dad started to come forward. So, she decided to do the Fleet special, ” Melissa added.
“ Yes, and the production assistant said that was when she and the PA overheard Gundar tell me that Florida had confirmed permission for the wedding and the B and B there for the honeymoon suite and that he ’ d passed the information on to Kranow for me, so he wouldn ’ t worry about having no place to go. She reckons they sussed out that you guys were tying the knot and she wasn ’ t going to get to film it or make a show about it, ” Darla said.
Steven curled his lip in disdain. “ So, she, what? Had this guy blow up Rosa ’ s so she could try to pin it on Marley and make a show about how she was hiding in plain sight? That she was organizing a terror cell right here and taking innocent Mylos, their mates, and kids out? ”
“ Yeah. He ’ s just waiting to get some hard proof that tie the explosives to her somehow, as well as the thing with the bathroom AI being blinded. ”
Marley lost her appetite. “ And if they can ’ t? ”
Darla looked at her sympathetically. “ If they can ’ t, then they will have to come up with some way to get her to admit it all. Either that, or let the dead PA take the entire fall for it. ”
Well, that would just suck. The bitch will have gotten away with murder.