Page 71 of Stuart Woods' Golden Hour

“I said nothing about being fine.”

“It’s what I heard. Now, get out of here. The sooner you’re in Berlin, the better.”

“Oh, very well. I’ll let you go back to your little TV show. I’m sure this acting thing will pan out for you someday.”

25

Jillian finished off another RedBull and tossed the can in the rubbish bin with the half dozen others she’d already consumed.

She had decided to work the Teddy Fay problem from two directions. The first was to look for any hints that Fay had still been alive after his reported death. To that end, she’d set up several autonomous searches that were even now rifling through news and record databases around the world.

Her second direction was looking into his potential involvement in the World Thriller Film Festival.

For this, she took a more hands-on approach. She hacked into the festival’s computer system and obtained a list of every employee and volunteer. She then hunted down photos of each male on the list and discarded individuals who were too young, too tall, and too short to be Fay. That left her with eight men.

The only confirmed image she had of Fay was a decades-old screen grab pulled from security footage taken when Golden Hour had been active. The quality of the picture was less than ideal, but it was good enough that she could confidently conclude that even with extreme plastic surgery, none of the eight were Fay.

Frustrated, she clicked through the film festival’s website, hoping for inspiration. It wasn’t until she was perusing the synopses of films that would be showing when she realized she’d overlooked something obvious.

It could be said that the people who made each of the films were also associated with the festival. Perhaps not all would be coming to Berlin, but some would be.

The task would mean drilling deeper, but this was the kind of thing for which she lived. The task had the added benefit of needing her complete focus and thus kept her from hearing the questions that were swirling in her head about Braun, if only temporarily.

She grabbed a fresh energy drink, downed half, then cracked her knuckles and set to work.

26

“Thank you, Tessa and Mark,for joining me on a delicious day touring one of my favorite cities in the world,” Javier said.

“We should be thanking you,” Tessa said. “So much fun!”

“I say we do this again someday soon,” Mark said.

“I’m going to hold you to that!” Javier said. He turned his smiling face to the camera. “And thanks to all of you for watching another episode ofFood Coma. Don’t forget to go out and seeStorm’s Eye! Until next time, this is Javier Coma.”

With a signal from the off-camera assistant director, the gondolier pushed the boat holding Javier, Tessa, and Mark into the middle of the canal. The trio waved at the camera and then talked with one another as if they were heading off on another adventure.

Once the director determined they had enough video, he shouted, “Cut. That’s a wrap!”

The gondolier guided the boat back to the walkway, and a crew member helped everyone climb ashore.

“Thanks again,” Javier said to Tessa and Mark. “That was a blast.”

“I wasn’t lying about doing it again,” Mark said.

“And I wasn’t lying about holding you to it.” Javier gave each of them a hug. “Best of luck with the film. I’m sure it will do great.”

The producer and director came over and shared their thanks.

As they were saying goodbye, a motorboat pulled in behind the gondola, with Lizzie in back.

“Ready to go?” she said.

By the time they reached the hotel, it was almost seven p.m.

“I don’t suppose either of you are up for dinner,” Lizzie said after they’d stepped off the boat.

Tessa put a hand on her stomach. “I doubt I’ll be eating again until we’re back in the States.”

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