Page 75 of For Better or for Ransom

“Don’t forget the pines,” Sol said. “You’ll never find his shadow in the pines… I wonder.”

“What is it?” There was urgency in Luke’s words.

“I talked to someone this afternoon.” Sol lifted her stare from the phone to the detectives. She was faced with their expectant eyes. “She told me she took a couple of people the other night from downtown Palma to one of the luxury residential estates on the east side of the island.”

“You found the cabbie? Why didn’t you tell me that?” Luke uttered, impatience edging his voice in a way Sol hadn’t witnessed often.

“Well, I was busy, wasn’t I?” Sol growled. In her biased views, there was only one person able to be impatient in their partnership, and that was her. “But I didn’t think it was Leonardo and FadeToBlack when I talked to her. The taxi driver told me the two guys had been chatting amicably all the ride there—it’s a one-hour trip. They chatted in English and the driver said hers is a bit limited so she wasn’t sure what the chat was about, only that it was friendly. And no, that didn’t raise any alarms for me because half the island speaks English—and the other half German so… Plus, I’ve talked to at least twenty taxi drivers this afternoon. Most of them had driven someone who could have been Leonardo, but then I discarded them for some reason or other like in this case. But when you add a swimming pool, coast line, and pines… It has to be those two people. They were headed to Costa des Pins.”

···

Luke

“I can’t believe we’re on the road, again,” Luke grumbled. He was the one at the wheel as the three of them headed to Costa des Pins to try to find the specific villa where FadeToBlack had taken Leonardo Pascual a few nights before and see if they were still there.

It had been decided that only after having scouted the villa and confirmed Leonardo’s presence, would they call the local authorities. They didn’t know if the search was going to render any fruitful findings.

The other thing Luke couldn’t believe—other than having to be driving again so shortly after having returned from Cala Formentor that day—was that Sol was in the car with them.

It had been a clear and unforgivable oversight on his part. There had been so much confusion and urgency once they’d figured out what they needed to do next, and once the plan to scout the villa first and call the police later had been established, that he practically hadn’t noticed Sol had sneaked inside the car with him and Divya.

He hadn’t wanted to throw her out of the car, that hardly screamed husband behavior. But letting an untrained civilian join for an operation that could be potentially dangerous couldn’t really be described as husband material either. He was fuming at his own ineptitude to keep Sol at the hotel—and exhilarated at the prospect of finally finding Leonardo Pascual. But he was also worried. What if they’d been too late?

As the sun set while Luke drove east, silence took hold of the car. It was as if each of its passengers had their own preoccupations to mull over.

“We need to do this again,” Divya said after long minutes of silence. “Once we find Leonardo and finish with this bloody case, we should plan for a trip together. Moon must join. Let’s find another island and simply relax this time.”

“That sounds marvelous!” Sol perked up from the back passenger seat.

Luke chuckled. “Of course it does. There’s nothing you like more than being on an island, cara.”

“May I remind you that Great Britain is indeed an island?” Sol said, and it hit Luke only then. Of course he’d meant Sol liked a different kind of island: the kind where she could wear a skimpy bikini and sunbathe at the beach. But he smiled at the realization of his lover, his future wife, loving the idea of living on an island, and London, his beloved hometown, being the epicenter of a very large one.

“I think we’re here.” Divya interrupted his thoughts as they entered one of the residential streets of the Costa des Pins development. It was a silent road, flanked by tall fences and manicured bushes on each side, offering just a glimpse of the luxury villas hiding behind closed gates.

“Okay, according to what the taxi driver said, you need to make a right on carrer de sa Font,” Sol told him.

Through the rearview mirror, Luke saw that Sol was checking a notebook. How crazy was it that she’d spent the afternoon calling cab companies and drivers, interviewing them, and taking notes? And that she’d put together the mystery of where Leonardo was? When this whole thing ended not only did he need to ensure Sol was going to take him as a husband, they needed to talk about what sort of involvement she wanted with the Bakshi & Contadino Agency. Because it was clear that she’d become one of the detectives.

Luke followed Sol’s instruction and entered the slightly narrower street. “Do we have a street number?”

“We don’t.” Sol tsked. “But the driver remembered a tall, bright green gate and—most conveniently—some pines by the entrance.”

“It has to be that one.” Divya pointed to one of the gates ahead of them on the road.

“I think it should be that one, yes,” Sol agreed. “Now what?”

44

Sol

It appeared that Luke and Divya didn’t exactly know how to proceed now that they’d located the villa where Leonardo was possibly staying—or being held captive against his will but still getting to enjoy Palma’s nightlife. Sol couldn’t avoid finding the whole disagreement between the two detectives a bit perplexing. She’d always had the impression that she was an interloper, posing as an investigator and getting first-row access to that world just because of who her lover was. She’d always considered Luke and Divya shrewd, smart, and extremely professional.

But the more she spent time with them, in their capacity as private investigators, the more she realized theirs was a profession where the ability to improvise and sheer luck played such important roles—not unlike her own job as a journalist.

“I say we go inside, mate,” Divya repeated.

“You cannot mean that you want to break into private property and risk encountering a potentially dangerous kidnapper when we’re armed with nothing but our wits and our ability to jump tall fences and bushes.” Luke’s tone had gone from worried to pure exasperation. But Sol suspected part of the reason he was being extra cautious had to do more with her presence in the car than his fear of what there might be inside the villa.