Page 17 of A Very Happy Thanksgiving
“So far. They haven’t tried to hurt us so far. And how will a rescue squad find us?”
“They’ll make appeals. Maybe someone saw the boat when we came ashore? The Indonesian authorities will be searching, our embassies will be screaming for action, and don’t forget your brother’s a private investigator.”
“Heath? Heath’s in England.”
“I bet he won’t sit this out.” Marc lowered his voice another notch. “Wasn’t he special forces?”
“He told you that?”
“Liam might have let something slip.”
“Nobody’s supposed to know about Heath’s old job, and besides, he retired from that stuff.”
“If my sister had been kidnapped, I’d go full John McClane.”
“How many Die Hard films were set on a tropical island?”
“It was just an example.”
“A bad one.”
“People are going to be looking for us. You saw that news article—the whole world knows we’re missing. Now all we have to do is make a video or two and avoid antagonising these crazies.”
“You really think it’s that easy?”
Honestly? No. If this were a movie, there would be an earthquake or a tidal wave, possibly a plague of locusts. Did they have locusts in Indonesia? Marc didn’t put his worries into words—there was no reason to scare Serena any more than these motherfuckers already had.
“They didn’t kill anyone on Malati, and if they harm a single hair on my handsome little head, then a hundred and thirty million rabid women will hunt them down and post their demise on BuzzHub.”
“Yes, well, I don’t have a hundred and thirty million groupies on my side.”
“You can borrow mine. Hell, keep them.”
Marc squinted at the script that would lead to their eventual freedom. Hopefully.
For decades, humans have been slowly killing the planet we live on, the planet we share with millions of other living creatures. Overpopulation, overdevelopment, overfishing. Plastics in our oceans, trash on our land, pollution in our atmosphere.
Mother Earth is dying.
We’re almost at the point of no return, and as I speak, LM Developments, Incorporated is preparing to raze the jungle on the Indonesian island of Malati to the ground and replace it with a soulless hotel complex, destroying the only habitat of the Tarsius malata. Enough is enough. Developments of this kind have to be stopped. Our planet has to be saved, one small piece at a time.
Mother Nature’s future hangs in the balance, and so does the life of Marc di Gregorio and Serena Carlisle.
Someone had added Serena’s name as an afterthought in pencil and forgotten to correct the rest of the sentence. So Marc had been the only target, originally? Serena was merely a bonus? Well, shit.
Only when the permit to build on Malati is revoked and the island’s survival is assured will Marc and Serena be released by the Wild Roots Collective and returned to their families. You have three days.
Once again, Serena’s name was an afterthought, and Marc hated that for her. She was part of the main cast of Whispers in Willowbrook while he was just a guest star.
Havana and the blonde returned with a buddy, a tall, wiry guy who smelled of tobacco smoke. He began fiddling with the tripod and the camera mounted on top of it.
“Is it working?” Havana asked.
“I think so. Ricky was supposed to be here.”
“Hush! No names, remember.”
Marc didn’t mention that he’d already worked out the Ricky connection, but he sent silent thanks to the stand-in for confirming it. Ricky Dunkley wouldn’t be able to run far, not with a broken ankle.
