Page 17 of For Better or for Ransom

Isabel was sitting on a tufted upholstered armchair in front of them, attired in wide-legged trousers and a cashmere jumper, all in her signature black. She was zealously clutching a cardboard tissue box with one hand, holding a used tissue with the other.

“Encara no m’he fet a la idea de què ha passat.”

Sol smiled at the director. Then translated her words to Luke and Divya: “She says she’s still getting her head around what happened.”

Even if Isabel had spoken proficient English the night Sol and Luke had met her—when the police were at the Casanova theater—the director now spoke only in Catalan. Luke was so glad Sol was there—and so baffled by the director’s behavior.

“Ask her what she thinks has happened,” Divya instructed.

Sol did so. The care in her voice when addressing the director was impossible to miss. The moment Leonardo’s disappearance had been mentioned, Isabel had produced a tissue from her sweater’s sleeve to wipe her nose and runny eyes. Isabel seemed to be very affected by Leonardo’s disappearance, and Sol was probably trying to be sensitive. But of course it could also be that it was just a bit of theatrics from the director wanting the detectives to believe she was very touched by Leonardo’s situation.

“Isabel thinks Leonardo is dead.” Sol, who was between Luke and Divya, turned her head from one to the other to make sure both could hear her.

“Dead?” Both Divya and Luke said in unison.

A shiver ran down Luke’s spine. Death was something he hadn’t contemplated for that particular case. Perhaps he’d been naïve—and utterly incompetent—but even though he still didn’t know what had caused Leonardo Pascual to be missing, Luke wanted to believe the actor was okay.

“Why does she think so?” Divya said.

Sol asked the director. The journalist’s eyes twitched upward when Isabel answered, but she forced them back down, keeping her expression flat.

“She read her own tarot cards. Based on what she got, Isabel thinks something terrible must have happened to Leonardo. Her theory is that he slipped on dog shit—she is really not a dog fan.” Sol rolled her eyes when turned to Luke, so that Isabel wouldn’t see her. “She thinks he then fell to the ground, broke his neck, and now is lying in some hospital morgue.”

Isabel nodded as if endorsing Sol’s translation of her words. At least the director’s assumption about Leonardo’s fate was that it all had been an accident and not that someone had purposely killed the actor. Still, Luke couldn’t shake his discomfort—even if he didn’t believe a tarot reading was strong enough proof that the actor could be in trouble.

“We checked the hospitals. The police did too. He’s not there,” Divya explained.

Sol confided with the director again, and came back to the detectives: “Isabel thinks that somebody probably stole Leonardo’s wallet while he was lying on the floor on the street, that’s why you can’t find him.”

Luke wasn’t going to argue with Isabel and tell her they hadn’t found a body that matched Leonardo’s age and general physical description. He preferred to smile uncomfortably and pretend he was taking notes.

“Can you ask Isabel why she thinks that’s what happened?” Divya told Sol.

After a few minutes of back and forth in Catalan between the director and the journalist, Sol finally said: “It’s the only reasonable explanation to her.”

“Come on!” Luke hoped not to have sounded as frustrated as he was, but the whole lost-in-translation situation was getting a bit too much for his taste. Especially considering the director seemed to choose when to and not to understand and speak English. “You were talking to her for quite some time.”

Sol leveled him with one of her stern looks. He shrugged his shoulders, defensively.

“I’ve been trying for her to elaborate on that answer. She’s quite adamant about giving me the same short reply. She’s proving quite the interviewee,” Sol grumbled.

“So she doesn’t believe he could have been, let’s say, kidnapped?” Divya graciously intervened.

A couple of minutes of back and forth between the two Catalan women ensued. Luke tried deciphering some of their words, since he spoke Italian with his family and the languages had some similarities, but he was only able to guess at the increasing frustration in Sol’s sentences.

“She says no one would want to kidnap Leonardo.”

“What about an overzealous fan?” Divya asked again.

“Oh, I asked her that, she dismissed me.”

“So what does she make of the note?” Luke asked Sol.

“I also asked her that. But let me warn you: you’re not going to like her answer.” Sol kept turning from one detective to the other to deliver that information but was now facing him. “Isabel thinks it was you who put it there so that Meshflixx would hire the agency and you’d get paid to do nothing.”

Luke blinked for a few seconds.

“I told you you were not going to like the answer. Of course I tried telling her that was preposterous.” Sol lowered her voice to an almost whisper so as not to be heard by Isabel. “But the woman doesn’t listen. She technically must have seen the note before you and I went to Leonardo’s dressing room, but still believes it was you who put it there.”