Page 37 of Scripted for Love and Poison (Sol and Luke Mystery #2)

“ O fficer Tom Owens?” Luke had called the number of the detective in charge of Simon Smith’s disappearance.

“ Detective Tom Owens,” a frustrated Hunky Dory told Luke.

“Luke Contadino here. I thought you’d be interested in some of that quid pro quo.”

“If you called to tell me that Simon Smith is not dead, I’ve already read the article at Performance Weekly , thank you very much, buddy.”

“It looks like your boss was right, after all,” Luke said. “The key to some of this mess was in someone’s writings.”

“The fucking book,” Owens said.

“Look, I called because the Performance Weekly article didn’t mention all the details.

But if you’re not interested in some friendly exchange of information, I can just hang up and let you go back to your open investigations.

” He was only slightly bluffing. There was some minor information he’d give Owens, but he needed the detective and couldn’t afford not getting access to whatever he had .

“Hold on a second. What details?” Hunky Dory sounded mildly nicer.

“Well, he obviously staged his own kidnapping or whatever the scene at his flat was supposed to imply,” Luke started.

“The lab results for the blood at his apartment came back as a mixture of corn syrup, food coloring, and cocoa powder. It’s the kind of ingredients used by practical effects and makeup teams in movie sets,” Hunky Dory explained, and Luke thought that the whole thing sounded preposterously Hollywood once again . “So we were a bit puzzled by that.”

“Yes, his intention was never to be believed completely dead but to surround himself with lots of mystery and get himself a book deal and some headlines out of it,” Luke explained.

“I would have preferred not to have been sent on the wild goose chase of a missing journalist when there were other, more important things to investigate. But I’ll be glad to mark this whole thing as solved,” Hunky Dory said, a hint of frustration in his tone.

“Any chance you know where we’ll be able to find Simon Smith?

I’d like to have a friendly chat with him.

Don’t want him getting any ideas and pulling another fake disappearing act in case he doesn’t get to sell the screen rights of his book—which I’m afraid he might. ”

“That’s why I’m calling you, actually. To tell you his whereabouts.

He’s not home. He got it into his head that the press are going to be looking for him there,” Luke said, and he sighed.

“So he’s booked himself at a place called Chateau Marmont because he told me he was feeling like entering his celebrity era. If that makes any sense to you ...”

“I guess you need to be an Angeleno to get it,” Hunky Dory said. “Thanks for the information. Tracking him down has proven not easy. And I want to put that case to rest, for good.”

“No problem,” Luke said and then proceeded to state the real reason behind his call. “So how’s the Jason Zit investigation going? Any leads? We heard he may have been seeing someone?—”

“The girlfriend rumor?” Hunky Dory asked, and Luke was glad the detective seemed to have warmed up to him and was in a chattier mood.

“I’m starting to believe it was just that: a rumor.

We’ve poured over all of Jason’s emails, chats, phone calls, and text messages.

There’s nothing there to indicate he was having an affair or even an office bromance!

I don’t think he was even mildly flirty with anyone, to be honest. All our interviews with his work colleagues seem to indicate that.

And we haven’t been able to locate any friends who’d seen him in the last few months. ”

“Could the person having an affair with him have lied to you?”

“Yes, but some other colleague would have told us about them. I’m sure you’ve noticed, journalists?—”

“Are nosy and love to babble,” Luke said. He’d never let Sol know he’d said such a thing about her profession, even if he knew she shared the belief. “Could Jason have had any device you haven’t checked?”

“Like a second cell phone for booty calls?” Hunky Dory said. “We haven’t found anything. Unless he bought a burner with cash and kept it extremely well hidden, I’d say the man was faithful—and utterly boring. ”

“Let’s see if I got this right . Julie is too happy to have been kept in the dark about Simon’s behavior, because she feels she was instrumental to him in getting this investigation going.

And that’s why he didn’t pick up her considerably more and more anxious phone calls,” Sol said.

She and Luke were having dinner at Felix Trattoria that night, and they were going over the latest development in Simon Smith’s case.

“Claudia is thrilled to have been the editor in chief at the outlet that first reported Simon’s story and declared him not only not dead but a genius.

I won’t read you the headline, because I’m sure you’ve seen it. ”

“I have. Claudia called me and read it to me,” Luke said, savoring a glass of Frappato and then handing it over so that Sol could taste it as well, as she’d ordered something different.

“That thing is clickbait gold,” Sol said, then tasted Luke’s light-bodied red wine. “And Officer Hunky Dory is thrilled to have one less case to worry about. Oh, and of course, Simon Smith is now hunkered down at Chateau Marmont, thinking himself the next Hunter S. Thompson.”

“You’re disappointed,” Luke said.

“You’re making it sound as if I’m sad that the man is alive.

But it makes you think about the survival capabilities of white, straight men of his generation.

The man has been absolutely abusing the works of others for years.

Nobody likes him. He feigns his own demise and now is rewarded with headlines and most probably a book deal, according to what I’m reading and hearing.

” Sol sighed and sipped some more wine. “The whole thing has made me wonder?—”

“About what?”

“Are those the lengths people have to go to get their works published these days?” Sol distractedly twirled the tonnarelli cacio e pepe on the plate around her fork. And she questioned the prospects of her yet unpublished book.

“Do you mean do you need to fake your own death to have some agent or publisher show interest in your book?” Luke looked at her with those warm chestnut eyes that always made her stomach flutter.

“Of course not. But is there any other way?” she wondered.

“I know you don’t like being reminded of this,” Luke said, and he appeared to be tentative. “But just be patient. I know something will turn up. It’s just a matter of time.”

“You know I’m not a big fan of patience!”

“Believe me, I do,” he said with his most smoldering smile, and she managed to almost forget about everything else. Even that she was still a person of interest in a murder investigation, or that unpublished book of hers. But the moment was interrupted by the arrival of an annoying text message.

“Sorry, I thought I had silenced it.”

Her cell phone had been lying on top of the table, as she’d taken it to show Luke a message from Lola when they’d been seated at the candle-lit table facing Abbot Kinney.

“I can’t believe it!” she said. “It’s from David. He says he’s ready to be a nice ex .”

“Is that what you talked about yesterday?” Luke asked her, and did he look a bit hesitant?

“In a way, I guess. I think we both needed some sort of closure.”

“And you got it?”

“At least this way I get to think about the ten years I spent here and not pretend like he never happened,” Sol said.

Even if she had a hard rule preventing her from talking about past relationship failures with present lovers, she somehow didn’t feel awkward sharing that with Luke.

“I still won’t call him to go for a drink when I come to LA like I do with Miquel in Barcelona. But it’s nice to be on good terms.”

“Glad you managed to get it sorted with him,” Luke said, and he did look genuinely glad. “Basically because it looks like you won’t be ditching me for him.”

“What? Of course I won’t be ditching you. Certainly not for him!” she protested. That had to be the most ridiculous idea. “I thought you were the one contemplating taking some time off.”

“Time off?” His eyebrows knitted together. He sounded genuinely confused—and a bit offended. “Why would I want to take any time off from you ?”

“We had the most hideous Christmas break!” Sol finally came clean. And it was only after she said those words that she realized it had probably been the wine that gave her the courage—or lack of common sense—to do it.

“What? It wasn’t hideous! It was great!” Was he being serious?

“Okay, perhaps it was a bit cramped,” he admitted when she didn’t say anything.

“And an absolutely different experience than when we traveled alone this summer. But I’m still glad we got to spend the end of the year together.

Not sure your parents share my enthusiasm . ..”

“I’d like to tell you that they’ll warm up to you, but I wouldn’t get my hopes too high if I were you.” She sighed. “Don’t take it personally, though.”

“So you hated Christmas?”

“A little. Didn’t you?”

“Not really,” he said, his eyes fully on her from across the table. “You know I don’t like prying. But how have the holidays tended to be in the past when you were in a relationship? ”

“By the end of both my marriages, utter misery and reproachful hell,” she admitted. “I think I’ve been divorced too many times, and now I’m scarred for life!”

“There’s no such thing as having divorced too many times!

” He sounded genuinely sincere. And that was one of the reasons Sol had allowed herself to fall for him.

Even if she was still terrified about what the future could hold for them.

Because one thing was sure: She didn’t want to go through a separation again.

Not from him. He listened, he always knew what to say, and he looked like an Italian model.

“In any case, it’s ridiculous that you were thinking I was going to leave you, for David or at all. I actually wanted to ask you?—”

“Se ...” he continued her unfinished sentence, speaking in Italian and with anticipation. But was it really the right moment to open herself to him even more and say those words?

Fuck it!

“Si querrías venir a vivir conmigo,” she told him.

“You’ll have to tell me if I’m getting ahead of myself and totally misunderstood you. You know my Spanish is still limited. Ma sì, andrò a vivere con te.”

“Seriously?” she asked him, surprised. “Now it’s me who is wondering if my limited Italian is deceiving me.”

“It’s not,” he said.

“We’ve just had some very shitty days, and you still want to live with me?”

“Perhaps that way people will stop thinking I’m too young for you and this is just a fling that will soon run its course,” Luke said.

Sol was looking forward to people not correcting her while she referred to him as her partner.

She normally didn’t care what others thought, but she realized she, too, was tired of some folks around them deeming their relationship only temporary.

“But these last few days haven’t been so shitty.

And I recall, once we’ve been finally able to find some time for ourselves, they’ve been actually remarkable.

All we needed to smooth things over was shagging and talking. ”

“You make it sound so easy,” she said.

“Isn’t it easy?” His eyes were still pinned on her. Had he blinked at all since telling her the secret for a working relationship? Shagging and talking.

“My past experience indicates that it’s definitely not easy,” Sol explained.

“I’m not talking about past relationships, cara. I’m talking about us ,” he said, and she could feel her insides melting.

“If it wasn’t that I already told you that I love you, I’d probably be telling you after what you just said.” She was blushing, and her heart rate had spiked.

“You still can tell me.” He smiled, and she realized how much she’d missed this flirty version of him.

“I’m going to admit that we have something special,” she said, and she was loving the food, the wine, the conversation, and most especially the company. “But, for argument’s sake, I don’t think it’s as easy as simply shagging and talking to sustain a relationship. There’s more than that.”

“Of course, but those two are necessary pillars.”

“You should have given Jason Zit your advice the other night. Perhaps saving his marriage was just what he needed not to have ended up poisoned,” Sol said, and she regretted the words the moment they came out of her mouth. She’d tried being clever, but the joke felt ill-timed and in poor taste.

“What makes you think so?” Luke’s demeanor had changed. He no longer was a lover thinking of all the ways to seduce his partner. He was in his detecting mode.

“Forget about it. I’m obviously a bit tipsy. Not sure why I said what I did.”

“You may be tipsy, but I think you’ve been spot on. It was the obvious first conclusion. Why didn’t we think about it before?”