Page 36 of Scripted for Love and Poison (Sol and Luke Mystery #2)

“ C an somebody please explain the need to go bloody sock-less in January! It’s rainy.

It’s not even that hot today!” Luke grumbled as he saw a man dressed in a paradoxical mixture of a woolen hat, down jacket, shorts, and clog Birkenstocks with no socks.

He was walking an enthusiastic, tail-wagging golden retriever.

“I reckon you should eat,” Divya said.

They sat side by side inside their rental car, parked a few houses down from Lola’s home and hoping for a sighting of Mystery Delivery Person.

“Here y’are, mate—take some of these,” Divya said, handing Luke the half-full packet of milk-chocolate Cadbury Fingers she’d been eating. “If you are feeling summat healthier, there are pistachios and chia seed crackers in my backpack.”

“Chia seed crackers?” Luke argued in disbelief. “California’s a bad influence on you.”

“I can’t wait to be back in London!” Divya grumbled.

“Me neither.” Luke sighed in agreement while eating a biscuit and keeping his eyes trained on Lola’s house across the street.

“Oh, I know, believe me,” Divya said. “But the reason I can’t wait to be there is so you stop being a pain in my arse!”

“Alright, fair enough,” Luke admitted.

“Looks like we’re gonna be stuck here for a while, so how’d that chat go with Sol, then? Did you tell her you’re an idiot?”

“I did,” Luke said. Why did he have the feeling that his colleague and friend was enjoying herself at his need to admit his shortcomings?

“Good on ya! And I take it she forgave you?”

“I’m very persuasive.” Luke flashed a smile at her.

“Don’t get cocky. You’ve forgotten all about how to be persuasive since you landed in Los Angeles,” Divya admonished him. “I think both me and Sol are losing our patience with you.”

“Sol doesn’t have any patience,” Luke said. “Never has.”

“You made my point. Tread carefully with that newfound grumpiness of yours.”

“Told you I saw her talking with the second ex-husband yesterday?”

“You didn’t,” Divya said, and as she did, she turned to face him. Her interest was piqued.

“Not sure what they talked about. One thing got to another yesterday, and then she told me about that bloody riddle. And here we are,” Luke said. He felt relieved just by having shared his worries with Divya. “Never asked her about the ex. Not sure if it’s a good idea to do it ...”

“Considering what she’s told me about him, she’s as interested in him as she is in having someone sneak into her place and steal all her clothes. And we both know how attached she is to all the contents in her closet. ”

“You’re telling me not to worry,” Luke said.

“Aye, that, and stop being so grouchy and go back to your usual charming self. You’re prettier when you smile.”

They went back to a reflective silence while they both munched on biscuits and chia seed crackers, which Luke had to admit were actually not bad and—according to the nutritional label—packed five grams of protein per serving.

“Does that look like Mystery Delivery Person to you?” Luke said after a few minutes pondering the surprising nutritiousness and taste of Californian snacks. He pointed to a pedestrian advancing in the direction of Lola’s house.

“Same height, same build. Wearing black trousers, black sweater, black cap, and the most hideous sunglasses. It could be them,” Divya said, her eyes traveling repeatedly from the street to the picture on her cell phone in front of her.

“Unless you’re a celebrity, no one wears ultra-skinny early-2000s-style sunglasses anymore. And they hardly look like an It Girl.”

“Same glasses they were wearing yesterday and the day before,” Luke said. He was also checking the pictures Alex had sent.

“Should we have a chat with our Mystery Delivery Person, then?”

Divya and Luke got out of the car and crossed the residential street, heading in Mystery Delivery Person’s direction.

“Hey, mate, can we have a chat?” Luke asked when the cap-wearing, letter-delivery person was a mere couple of meters away. But that was exactly when they started running.

“Not bloody again,” Luke muttered under his breath as he bolted after Mystery Delivery Person. Divya was already ahead of him, always the most explosive runner of the two of them.

Fortunately, Mystery Delivery Person didn’t seem to be in as good shape as surfer chap Vinny Green had been.

The letter writer started showing signs of tiredness two houses down the street.

Divya and Luke crashed into him at the edge of Lola’s neighbor’s front yard, the three of them tumbling into a hedge.

As Divya pinned Mystery Delivery Person down, Luke yanked off his cap—and exchanged a glance with Divya. They knew that face.

“We’ve been looking for you all over town.” Luke gave the sweaty runner a smug, knowing look. The detectives weren’t even panting. It had been a short, easy run, and Luke suddenly felt happy and decided he was in good shape after all.

···

“So, guess who’s not only not dead , but he didn’t even really disappear?” Luke told Sol. She was his first call after the conversation with Mystery Delivery Person and a brief pit stop at Lola’s house. Luke wanted to let Sol know there was nothing to worry about.

“Let me guess. Simon Smith?”

“Same. Divya and I just talked to him. He assured us he never meant any harm to you or Lola’s family.

I already talked to them to let them know all is good and no more mysterious people would be delivering strange messages to their home.

Alex sounded a bit disappointed, to be honest. I think he liked playing assistant to the investigation. ”

“I’m sure he’ll find something else to do! And I’m so glad everyone is okay,” Sol said, and she sounded relieved. “What are you doing with that information now? Are you going to tell Officer Hunky Dory?”

“We’re going to talk to Marquee Media first, which basically means calling Claudia, as she is our intermediate.

We’ll let her know that at least part of the case has been solved.

And we’ll go from there. I’m glad she’s no longer a suspect now that we figured out she had nothing to do with Simon’s disappearance.

Because it was weird to be feeding her updates while fishing for possible clues,” admitted Luke.

“She’s going to want to publish something juicy about this,” Sol said, and did she sound excited about the idea?

“What? No! That would be crazy. And why do you sound so thrilled about it?” Luke asked.

“It would be great publicity for the agency, obviously.”

“Your mind works in very bizarre ways when you’re in your journalist mode.” Luke chuckled. “But, sadly, I need to let you go. I just wanted you to know you’re safe.”

“I already knew that,” Sol said.

“Well, I didn’t. Or at least I wasn’t sure, and I’m so relieved to finally have that sorted out. Let me ask you something. What would you have felt if I was the one getting mystery messages from a possible murderer?”

“I’d be terrified,” Sol said, and Luke could almost hear her thinking on the other side of the phone. “And I may have asked you to ditch whatever case you were investigating—Shit!”

“I’m not sounding like such a total arse all of a sudden, eh?” Luke said.

“Shush! You’re still not off the hook and have plenty of sweet-talking to do,” Sol protested.

“And I’ll gladly do it. Sweet-talking you is one of my favorite pastimes.” His tone was honeyed. “But I guess I managed to make myself look a little bit more charming now that you understand better the reason behind my misguided actions?”

“You’ve always been charming,” she said. “Now go and call Claudia. And Luca?—”

“Yes?”

“Don’t be late tonight. We have a lot of catching up to do.”

And with that promise, he hung up and couldn’t suppress a smile.

Was it possible that, for the first time since landing in that car-centric, hostile-to-pedestrians, obsessed-with-seasonal-vegetables, Hollywood-fascinated, beauty-venerating metropolis, he was happy?

Why shouldn’t he be? They’d just cracked part of the case, the client should be satisfied, they would get paid, and—most importantly—he and Sol were flirting on the phone again.

He went back to the car, still smiling. He found Divya already inside. She was most definitely turning into a total Californian and doing some frantic typing on her phone while drinking a giant iced coffee with a straw.

They called Claudia from the car, but Luke took care of the conversation since he’d been the one to talk to her from the beginning—and Divya had expressed her desire not to have to deal with the snappy editor.

“Luke, I’m terribly busy,” the editor answered her phone with a too-important-to-deal-with-you-right-now tone, and Luke finally understood why Sol was so adamant about not wanting to work with her as a manager again.

She wasn’t exactly the nicest person, even if she pretended otherwise.

He also understood why Divya was happy letting him take care of that conversation.

“You requested results, and we are ready to deliver,” he said.

“Finally! Hold on a second,” she told him and then proceeded talking to someone else.

“ No, not there! Over there! Careful. Careful! Those are some Heath Ceramics vases, and I don’t want them smashed!

Sorry about that, a package is being delivered, and of course I need to take care of everything.

Tell me about the case. My bosses will be thrilled. ”

“We know what happened to Simon Smith,” Luke said, feeling bad for whoever had delivered that package and had just been yelled at.

“An overzealous fan of Haughty Horizons and Victor Lago’s filmography kidnapped Simon and is asking for a retraction of his review or they’ll start cutting his fingers off one by one so that he’s never able to write again,” Claudia said.

Luke wasn’t sure if the editor was joking or if that had been her hypothesis all along.

“I’m afraid it wasn’t that,” Luke said.

“Don’t tell me he did something foolish!” said Claudia.

“Depends on what you mean by foolish ,” Luke said. “My colleague and I just talked to him twenty minutes ago. He’s perfectly fine. No one kidnapped him. All his fingers seemed intact—not that missing a few would stop him from writing. He basically faked his own disappearance?—”

“Oh my god! This is genius!” Claudia interrupted him, laughing.

“Do you want to know why he did it?” Luke asked while he and Divya exchanged a look of incredulity.

“Oh, but I know why he did it!” Claudia said, and the laughing evolved into some sort of cackling. “Fame, of course!”

“He told us he faked the whole thing with the hopes of getting some articles written about his, and I quote, mystifying enfant terrible persona and that it would result in the publication of his book. ”

“Genius!” Claudia continued, and she was certainly not having the reaction either Luke or Divya had anticipated.

“But with the poisoning of Travis Wise and then the death of Jason Zit, the headlines have been elsewhere,” Luke continued explaining.

“And Simon felt left behind. He didn’t like the article you published yesterday with my quote in it and absolutely no mention of him.

So he decided to be proactive and sent anonymous notes to Sol. ”

“What does Sol have to do with this story?” Claudia sounded surprised for the first time in the whole conversation.

“She managed to get her hands on a copy of Simon’s unpublished manuscript,” said Luke.

And why did he feel weirdly proud about his partner—not his professional one but his romantic one—for being extremely resourceful in the resolution of a case?

“There’s a riddle written in the book that Simon left with the hopes of readers suspecting that he wasn’t actually dead dead . And Sol found it.”

“So he’s sour at Travis for being poisoned and Jason for being dead and decides to accelerate the process and make the announcement that he’s not actually disappeared by sending notes to Sol. I love it!”

“Right. My colleague and I are drafting the full report, but do you want to inform your bosses while we do the same with the police?” He wanted to at least wrap up that part of the case soon.

“The police?” Claudia said, as if the concept of talking to the legal authorities sounded completely preposterous and bizarre.

“We can hardly hide this from them, as they have an open investigation on Simon Smith’s disappearance,” explained Luke.

“Oh, okay, okay. Can the sharing of information with the authorities be put on pause for, let’s say, a couple of hours? We need to get an article about this story published ASAP, and I don’t want to get scooped by a competing outlet,” Claudia explained.

These people!

“Are you sure about giving it this kind of publicity? This is exactly what Simon wanted when he started this ruse,” Luke said.

“But it’s such a well-crafted ruse! The headline?—”

“I know, it writes itself.” Luke sighed. And he didn’t even try to persuade Claudia any further, because the truth was that Divya and he could not only use the money resulting from that case but also all the publicity. Of course, Sol had been right, and he’d have to let her know.

While Luke was having a surreal conversation with editor Claudia Hopkins, Sol was dialing the number of editor Julie McQueen. The Londoner picked up after two tones.

“You found Simon?” the editor answered. Fortunately, Sol had much better news than the last time the editor had used that line on her.

“I mean, I didn’t, but Luke and Divya did. I helped a bit, though,” Sol said. “But Simon is well.”

“Sol, hon. That’s such a relief. So what happened to him? He got the director from one of the movies he’s trashed over the years to drug him and keep him in their basement while they force fed him brussels sprouts and chicken liver, right?”

“That’s weirdly specific, but no.” Sol realized she didn’t exactly know how she was going to deliver the information. She’d never done well when it came to empathy. “He pretended to disappear in an attempt to get publicity and get his book published.”

“Oh, the rascal!” Julie laughed.

Sol couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. “Rascal? Aren’t you upset that he had you worried sick and nothing happened to him?”

“I’m glad nothing happened to him, hon.”

“Of course you are, but still, aren’t you infuriated?”

“I mean, it’s just such a clever plan. Don’t you think?

” Julie continued. “And I see now that I may have been crucial to its whole development. I was the one to insist from the beginning that something had happened to him. I’m sure he counted on my friendship, and my tenacity, to stir some trouble. ”

“When you put it like this . . .” Sol said. Maybe she really had tried to empathize and see things from Julie’s perspective. Or maybe she’d just been working too long in an environment where all kinds of publicity could be seen as good publicity. Either way, she thought Julie was right.