Page 62 of For Better or for Ransom

“Not all of it,” Divya contradicted him, a smile tugging at her lips. “But I hear you. I just didn’t decide to barge in because of that thought. I have new evidence.”

“Now you’re talking. What evidence? Because up until now, this meeting could just have been a chat over breakfast—tomorrow.”

Divya groaned. Then she took her phone from a pocket of the bubblegum-blue pajama set she was wearing. “So first I went back to the video Sol found. Trying to find an address or a way to find the user who posted it, see if we could interview them.”

“Did you find an address?” That meeting should still have been a chat the following day.

“Maybe. The user seems to hang out a lot in a coffee shop in Palma. I thought we could go there tomorrow.”

Luke scoffed. “Here’s that word again…tomorrow.”

“Oh, come on, Luca!” Sol’s voice tore through the room. “Don’t you see Divya is trying to tell us something?”

Divya pointed to Sol, agreeing with her. “Thanks, I’m so glad you came, Sol. Managing Signore Contadino here is not always easy. He can be extremely temperamental—and broody.”

Sol cast her eyes upward. “Don’t I know it!”

It was late. He was tired. Sol and he had been interrupted in the middle of the most important conversation they’d had—probably ever. And now his love partner and his detective partner were teaming up against him—again. Brilliant, what else could he ask for?

“Please, Divya, continue,” he opted to say, trying for a civil tone.

“Right, so the thing is, looking for the user who posted the could-be Leonardo video, sucked me into this rabbit hole. I’ve been stalking at least fifty different accounts whose creators have used local geolocators on their content, and have mentioned Leonardo Pascual somehow. It was all nothing—a bunch of fans wanting to know more things about his next show and some speculation about who his partner is—until…”

He was going to lose it. “Until?”

“Look at this!” Divya searched something on her phone, then flipped it and showed the screen to Sol first, then Luke.

Luke took the phone, went to sit on the other side of Sol on the bed so that both could watch what Divya had supposedly discovered—and that couldn’t wait until tomorrow.

It was a close-up picture of a golden bracelet with two parallel lines engraved in it. The same jewelry design Sandro had been wearing. The post’s caption made Luke shiver:

You’ll never guess who this belongs to. Stop trying and start bidding.

Sol took the phone from Luke’s hand, and got it closer to her face, reading it a second time. “Even if you’re no longer shirtless, my brain is still mushy,” she started saying, her brow furrowed. “Why does this sentence sound so familiar?”

“Because it’s the same structure used on the notes we’ve found in Leonardo’s dressing room and the hotel room,” Divya said.

Luke sighed. Divya had found something.

“Yes!” Sol exclaimed and she was still clearly drunk. She was never that audibly excited sober. “So what now?”

“I tried seeing if there was a name or anything for the user who posted that picture,” Divya explained. “But of course not. His user name is FadeToBlack and there’s no profile picture or anything. They haven’t posted much⁠—”

“But?” Luke was getting impatient.

Sol turned her face to him, glanced at him with sweet eyes. “Luca, you’re impossible.”

He put his hands in the air and gestured to Divya to please continue talking, even if he really needed her to cut to the chase.

“But,” Divya said and glared at him. “One of the other things FadeToBlack posted yesterday was a picture of a rattan pendant lamp, no caption, it had one of those geolocation tags.”

“It did?” He almost yelled.

Divya’s smile was smug. “It did. It was posted from a cocktail bar in Palma, in walking distance from our hotel, actually.”

Bloody hell. “And you think we should go take a look now?”

“I mean. It looks as if whoever is responsible for Leonardo disappearing could be hanging out relatively close by. You see, this was urgent! The cocktail place won’t be exactly open tomorrow morning. But now, it’s perfect timing. Do you still hate me for barging in?” Divya gave him a saccharine smile.