Page 10 of A Very Happy Thanksgiving
Had Marc tried to leave a message?
Who would he send it to?
He didn’t have my number anymore, I’d made sure of that, and I didn’t have his either. Three years ago, he’d changed it, which meant I couldn’t drunk dial from a burner phone in the middle of the night just to listen to his voicemail anymore. And I’d only done that a couple of times, okay? I wasn’t a total stalker.
Anyhow, we’d watched the videos, and Jez squeezed my hand under the table where nobody else could see. Tulsa had stayed behind to deal with a homegrown crisis, but Sin was with us, and Storm, although Storm was flying the jet. Priest was copilot, and he’d give her a break when she needed it. After we offloaded in Sorong, Sin would carry on to Sentani to network because whoever was behind this plan, there was a good chance it hadn’t been hatched on Malati. Making connections was her special skill, that and languages. She spoke nine fluently and a handful more passably, and thanks to her upbringing—her father had travelled the world as a prosthetist, taking his family with him—she felt as at home in Europe or the Middle East as she did in the US. Indonesia wasn’t a place she came often, but she still knew people here. If Marc’s disappearance was related to political instability rather than the work of common or garden criminals, the root of the problem most likely lay to the west, where the West Papua Freedom Army aimed to separate West Papua from Indonesia and establish an independent state.
So that was where Sin would head while the rest of the team focused on Malati. Mimi and her colleague Rix had begged, borrowed, and stolen—literally, in the case of one jackass who was holding back in the hope of making a few bucks from a media exclusive—every clip of the incident they could find and pulled them together into a macabre home movie.
And Priest wanted to know our first impressions?
Jez put my thoughts into words before I managed to articulate them.
“Where’s all the blood?”
This wasn’t our first rodeo. Or our first possible terrorist attack. And based on the amount of gunfire, we’d have expected significantly more casualties than we’d gotten. Either the attackers were shitty shots, or they’d missed deliberately.
But why would they miss deliberately? Six shooters in the clips, maybe more that weren’t on film, and they’d hit one person between them?
“How many bullet holes are we talking?” Emmy asked. “The occasional ding or Swiss cheese?”
Heath Carlisle was with her, and he looked faintly nauseated as the Kopassus team leader spoke up in heavily accented English. I leaned closer to read the name on his uniform. Sinaga.
“There are many holes.”
“Holes in what? I hate to say it, but those guys were making a movie, and the way shit went down was weird enough for it to be a PR stunt.”
Oh, please. “Are you kidding me? Marc would never cause an international incident to gain column inches.”
Jez kicked me under the table, and too late, I realised my mistake. Two mistakes, actually—emotion and familiarity.
“You know Marc?” Emmy asked.
Sin came to the rescue. “Just because you have half of Hollywood in your little black book doesn’t mean the rest of us hobnob with movie stars. But if Marc di Gregorio wants PR, all he has to do is take off his shirt.”
“There’s no way Serena would get involved in any bullshit publicity stunt,” Heath put in. “Or Marc. Away from the spotlight, he’s pretty down to earth.”
Curiosity got the better of me. “You know him personally?”
“He comes over for dinner whenever he’s in London.”
Oh. I hadn’t realised they were genuinely friends.
Emmy snapped her fingers. “Anyhow, back to the job. Marc and Serena might not do something that dumb, but what about the director? Producer? Anyone else looking for a big break?”
“The executive producer is a guy called Dylan Young,” Heath supplied. “I’ve met him half a dozen times, and he’s dedicated and exacting when it comes to his work, but he’s not out for world domination. Last I heard, he and his wife had adopted a little boy, and they’re renovating a house in the Cotswolds. There are half a dozen regular directors on the show.”
“Much equipment is broken,” Sinaga offered. “The cameras, the trucks, the lights, all smashed.”
“Unlikely they would’ve destroyed their own kit.”
“Unless it was an insurance scam,” Emmy pointed out, leaning back in her cream leather seat. “But that seems drastic.”
If she thought Marc would be impressed by the billionaire’s wife package—the expensive upholstery, the polished wood trim, real china plates, and water in a fancy crystal glass—she was dead wrong. Even now, he was as happy fishing with Huck as he was schmoozing on the red carpet. Kitty just loved to tell me these things.
“Let’s consider other options,” Priest suggested. “Who else has skin in the game?”
“The developer who owns the village. But ‘come for the sun, stay for the terrorist attack’ isn’t exactly the best ad for an upscale resort, is it?”
