Page 30 of A Very Happy Thanksgiving
“And in danger of being wiped out. Their habitats are being destroyed, light and noise pollution have ruined their sleep patterns, and they’re being snatched from the wild so tourists can pose with them for money.”
“Maybe you could make a video with those critters?” Serena suggested. “We could do a voiceover. Animal videos always do well on social media.”
“By drawing attention to the tarsiers, we run the risk of more tourists wanting to take a selfie with one,” Havana pointed out.
“Then we have to explain why that’s a lousy idea. I don’t think most people would deliberately want to hurt endangered animals; they just don’t realise that their actions cause harm.”
“We have a goal in common,” Marc added. “We all want this to be over. Let us help so we can go home.”
His publicist was sitting on a book deal—two publishers were slugging it out over the rights to his autobiography. Neither of them would win, because he wasn’t going to write it, but until now, he’d always thought his life was too dull for folks to care about. His carefully curated social media, full of promo shots and lies, gave the illusion that he was vaguely interesting, but in truth, he was more likely to fall asleep reading a novel than fall out of a nightclub. He’d never kiss and tell on his womanising phase, and his years in Nebraska were out of bounds. What else was there?
Well, now there was the world’s most ridiculous abduction.
But he still wouldn’t be selling the story.
CHAPTER 11
Phae
“Do you want the good news or the bad news?”
The accent was Australian, the voice male. I pushed away the remains of the nasi goreng we’d eaten for breakfast. Turned out that if you offered enough money, an airport official would pick up food from a local restaurant and deliver it right to your plane.
“Both,” Emmy said.
“The good news is that McDonald is here in Perth.”
Finally. We could get this show on the road. In the air. Whatever.
“And the bad news?”
“He’s about to leave.”
“Where’s he going?”
“We’re looking into that. Just wanted to give you a heads-up.”
“We should’ve gone to Perth,” I muttered as Emmy hung up.
“And we’d have landed ten minutes before he took off.”
“That’s enough time to ground an airplane.”
“This way, we refuelled ourselves and the jet, and we’re ready to go on the hunt. All we have to do is monitor his flight path and get ready to intercept.”
Out of habit, I considered the possibility of taking down McDonald’s aircraft. There were plenty of radar black spots over the Indian Ocean, and if Emmy’s jet was anything like ours, she’d have a way of making that happen. Who would inherit Malati? The wife? Would she push forward with the resort project? We knew she was a big fan of shopping, yoga, and her reiki healer—right now, she was cosied up with him in the Portrait Milano, enjoying the pool, the bar, and the complimentary Ferragamo toiletries—but her views on conservation were still a mystery.
We’d spent the wait eating, catnapping, and researching McDonald. He was a semi-successful businessman who respected the almighty dollar and little else. Semi-successful because he’d inherited most of his wealth and hadn’t yet managed to squander it all on women and liquor. Two of his three kids—by his first wife—had little to do with him, and the third was following in his footsteps as an arrogant jackass. Emmy and I had three options—appeal to the part of his psyche that craved praise and admiration, bribe him into cooperating, or hit him with a touch of blackmail.
The third option was challenging because his entourage of bodyguards and assistants had squashed any evidence of significant assholery. The first option? A possibility, but the evidence suggested McDonald was incapable of empathy. Which left option two. We knew he hadn’t paid much for Malati—Mimi had been talking to the folks from the other end of the island, and he’d convinced the former owners of the land that he just wanted to build himself a home there, that he cared about the flora and fauna, that he’d invest in the community and provide jobs for everyone. Then he’d pulled a bait-and-switch with the final contract, and they’d signed away everything they held dear in return for eighty thousand US dollars and an eviction notice.
“If necessary, I could fund a buyout of the land on Malati. It won’t be a bad offer if he simply wants to make a quick buck, plus he’ll look as if he did the right thing.”
“Although technically, he doesn’t even have to scrap the development. We just need him to make a convincing statement suggesting he will.”
“That might be an easier sell. He’d enjoy the chance to screw over those pesky environmentalists a little bit more.”
“And when the publicity surrounding the abduction has died down, he carries on with his plans as if nothing happened.”
