Page 53 of Scripted for Love and Poison
“Right,” Luke said, and both he and Divya were rolling their eyes in disbelief. Luke’s colleague seemed to be telling him,Showbiz people, mate.
“So.” Claudia’s tone changed to businesslike once again. “Victor Lago is out. Who’s in? What else have yousleuthed? Is that even a verb?”
“I think it is,” said Luke. “We’re following several leads at the moment.”
“Yeah, that won’t do. You need to stop exploring and start wrapping this whole thing up,” Claudia said, and it wasas if Luke was having déjà vu. Every time he was entangled in some sort of Hollywood investigation, they reached a point when the client lost their patience and wanted things solved quickly. “My bosses at Marquee Media aren’t happy. Between you and me, they’re thinking about firing you if you don’t come up with a culprit soon.”
“Investigations take time. If they are unhappy, we can send an invoice for services rendered,” Luke said, and he hoped the bluff in his tone wasn’t audible. “But we know there’s not simply one culprit.”
“What do you mean?” Claudia asked, and her tone had turned from ominous to genuinely curious.
“We think Simon Smith’s disappearance and the poisonings are unrelated.”
Luke could almost hear the wheels turning in Claudia’s brain.
“Interesting,” she finally said. “I’m thinking how we could use this information.”
“Use it?” Luke didn’t follow.
“As I’ve said, Victor Lago as our man was the perfect story. And we need some sort of favorable story. My bosses aren’t happy with so many of their employees at the media company biting the dust. They think it reflects badly on Marquee Media, which is why they hiredyou. But there can still be other ways of spinning this. One of my writers is going to be calling you in a few minutes. Would you be so kind as to answer their questions about the case?”
“You want to quote me in an article?” Luke asked. He’d never say so to Sol, but he didn’t like talking to journalists. He still knew it was a necessary thing to do for certain high-profile cases. And the publicity they’d gotten from past cases had brought Divya and him some new clients. He still felt trepidation every time he had to speak to a reporter.
“Yes, we’ll write something about the threat to the press when journalists are silenced,” Claudia said, and Luke thought she was saying those words out loud as she thought them.
“Silenced for what reason?”
“Doing their jobs. Obviously! Can you think of something clever to say?”
“I’m sure I can come up with something.” What was it that day that all women wanted him to say the right words but didn’t appear sure he was able to do it?
“And leave Simon out of this, okay?” Claudia said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean don’t talk about him in the story. Even if Jason was an absolutely mediocre editor with not the best manners—the man would never remember anyone—he and Travis were still pretty well regarded in the industry. Simon, on the other hand ...”
“Nobody seems to like him much,” Luke said, almost as if to prove he wasn’t such a simple man, after all, and could deliver what was being asked of him.
“Exactly. It doesn’t suit our narrative of sympathetic journalists being censored. Let’s leave him out, yes? You said the two cases weren’t related, anyway.”
Luke had said that, and he probably wouldn’t have thought of mentioning Simon if someone had asked solely about the poisoning case. But being told not to do it made him feel queasy, nonetheless.
“You know Simon mentions you in his book, right?” Luke asked the editor.
“And I’m sure he only had awful things to say about me,” Claudia deadpanned, and she sounded as calm as usual. “Tell me, does he havegoodthings to say about anyone?”
He needed to ask Sol, but he had a suspicion that theanswer to Claudia’s question was going to be no. When he hung up with Claudia, Divya didn’t wait to let him know what she thought of the situation.
“I’ll call Sol now and ask her whatever she found in the book. We need results soon. It sounds like we could find ourselves without a case unless we come up with something.”
“Good idea,” Luke agreed. There was no need to speak the wordsAnd we really need the money. They both were plenty aware of it.
“But you still need to go and apologize to her,” Divya declared.
“Seriously? Shouldn’t I be prioritizing the case? We want the client to like us and pay us?—”
“We both know you won’t be prioritizing the case if you’re all worried because you had a row with Sol. Go talk to her, fix this, and then you can start thinking about the case.”
