nineteen

Despite starting the day thinking I had everything figured out and ending the day full of questions about everything but the fact that something was rotten in the state of Dinamarca, I was out cold the moment my head hit the pillow Monday night. I woke Tuesday morning from a dreamless, saturation-point sleep to the smell of coffee and stumbled out toward the kitchenette. Frank was standing in the living room.

“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,” he said, without any trace of a fairy tale lilt, and certainly not for my benefit given that Anastasia Chastain-Stone stood beside him.

“What are you doing here?” I blurted, not yet awake enough for proper decorum.

She pointed at plate filled with assorted baked goods. “Brought you breakfast.”

“Aren’t you’re supposed to be honeymooning?”

She glanced at her sparkling engagement ring/wedding band combo for the briefest of seconds. “It looks like it’s gonna be a bit more of a working honeymoon than I’d anticipated.”

My blood pressure went into instant hyperdrive. “You’re here because Geo—”

“Is going to be okay,” she said quickly. “And sooner rather than later. At least I hope.”

“Meaning what?”

“They’re moving him out of intensive care as soon as possible.”

“He’s in intensive care?”

“They put him on a respirator last night, but they’ve got him stabilized now.”

“Dear God,” I said, beelining for the coffee, where I filled a mug and helped myself to a big gulp without bothering with cream or sugar. “Please tell me you’ve been called in to expedite the process of getting us the hell out of here.”

“In a manner of speaking,” she said.

“Which means?”

“Well, we can’t just pack up and leave without Geo.”

“Not all of us, of course,” I said, over the flush of a toilet in the kids’ bathroom. “But, seeing as he’s on the road to recovery, and my children’s safety is of a certain amount of concern to me …”

“Maddie, we’re absolutely safe,” Frank said. “You heard the police officer last night.”

“By police officer, don’t you mean Alejandro’s cousin?” I said.

Anastasia nodded.

“Wait. So you already know they’re all related?”

“The Hacienda de la Fortuna is a family-run corporation,” she said. “And this is apparently a small town, particularly where the more prominent families are concerned.”

“Then you don’t find it suspicious and more than a little scary how quickly Alejandro’s death was swept under the rug?” I asked, borrowing heavily from Ivan. “Particularly by his relative or relatives in the police department?”

“We seem to have a real mystery on our hands,” she said. “And seeing as the first flight we could get anyone on isn’t until Thursday morning—”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said.

Anastasia flashed a smile fraught with possibility and that telltale reporter-on-the-trail-of-a-hot-story glow I knew only too well.

Frank’s smile was no less luminous. “Great TV is not about shying away from danger.”

“By pretending to investigate like we did all day yesterday?” I asked, almost as annoyed by Frank’s devotion to the party line as I was worried about being in the thick of yet another murder.

“The setups and shots were planned in advance,” Anastasia said, “not your investigation into what happened to Alejandro.”

“Not according to what I heard,” I said. “Geo planned to have things wrapped up, with a suspect in tow, by tonight.”

“Wouldn’t that be great,” she said wistfully. “An episode in the can and back on my honeymoon by tomorrow …”

“Assuming no one else gets—”

“They won’t,” Anastasia said, cutting me off.

I looked into her calculating cobalt blue eyes. “And how can you make a promise like that?”

“Philip has agreed to head up our security detail,” she said.

“And we’ll have an officer and the camera crew watching the kids at all times,” Frank added.

I looked from Stasia to Frank and back again. “Level with me,” I said.

“Maddie!” said Frank, giving me the don’t say-anything-that-might-compromise-our-career-come-hell-or-high-water glare.

“Shoot,” she said.

“What did Geo know that he wasn’t telling us?” I asked.

Frank looked immensely relieved that I’d refrained (for the moment, anyway) from voicing any of my more sinister suspicions where cast and crew were concerned.

Stasia shook her head. “I tried to find that out myself, but until he’s off the ventilator, back in a regular room, and fully lucid, we’re not going to know.”

“Then what exactly is it you plan to have us do in the meantime?”

“Keep looking into everything and everyone who could possibly be involved.”

“Which could be anyone, given that Alejandro wasn’t exactly Mr. Popularity.”

“Yes, that is a problem. So is the fact that the suspects Geo had originally listed all had alibis during the time of the water park incident.”

“So those people are no longer suspects?”

She looked unsure for the first time. “They’re worth requestioning before we spread out from there.”

“Just like we did yesterday with Geo?”

“No cue cards this time,” she said. “You ask whatever you need
to ask.”

“So the Espinoza/Lopez/Garcia clan has agreed to ad lib as necessary?”

“They want to find whoever is behind this as badly as we do,” she said. “Which is why Philip himself is headed back to the police station to try and find out whatever else there is to know.”

“His buddies didn’t get much response the first time they tried to get involved,” I said, doubtfully.

“Things have changed,” she said.

“How so?”

“I’m back on set again,” Anastasia said, reaching into her purse and handing us copies of the day’s call sheet.

I looked over the schedule, which was admittedly much less regimented than Geo’s, but still had us locating and interviewing the same people. After which, our investigation was to continue on as part of a Mayan ruins trip. Frank simply read the sheet, folded it, and tucked it into his pocket. Apparently he was a-okay with Stasia’s plans.

“You really think we’re going to come up with anything?” I said.

“Who knows? I’ll settle for an Emmy,” she said.

At least I knew she was being honest about one thing.