Chapter 20

Laurette had traveled halfway around the world to be with me during my time of need. She was exhausted when we parted, and the last thing I wanted to do was bang on her door at five-thirty in the morning. But after pacing back and forth in my room, my brain bubbling over with conspiracy theories, I had to wake her. Racing down the hall and pounding on the door, I silently prayed she would be up, battling jet lag and unable to adjust to the time difference.

“Who the hell is it?” barked a groggy, raspy voice. It was the monstrous, moody Laurette only a select few of us ever saw, and only after a night full of too many apple martinis. Or perhaps at the gym when I dragged her out for an early Sunday morning spinning class.

“It’s me,” I said. “I heard from Charlie.”

There was some faint rustling from inside, and after a few seconds the door flew open. I jumped back a bit, startled by a face caked in dried-up beauty cream, a black sleep mask flattened against her forehead and wild, unruly hair that I initially mistook for a fright wig.

Laurette caught the horror in my face before I had a chance to cover it up. “Give me a break. I wasn’t expecting company.”

She glanced down the hall to make sure a wandering guest wasn’t going to catch sight of her, and then she used one hand to fasten shut the blue Japanese kimono with gold dragons that she picked up on a two-day shopping spree in Hong Kong. With her other hand, she grabbed my shirtsleeve and yanked me inside the room, shutting the door behind us.

“What did he say? Did he admit he was with Akshay?”

I nodded, and Laurette fell back on the bed, still clutching the front of her robe, the air escaping her. She couldn’t believe it. Finally, when she spoke, she could barely raise her voice above an anguished whisper.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “Charlie would never—”

“I don’t think he did,” I said before relaying the part of our conversation where Charlie got the sex of Snickers wrong.

Laurette took this in, her eyes widening. “Do you think he was trying to give you some kind of secret message?”

“Yes. I think someone was forcing him to make the call.”

“Akshay?”

“Who else?”

“But why would Akshay hold Charlie against his will?”

“Maybe Akshay is some kind of obsessed East Indian version of Glenn Close from Fatal Attraction who got it into his head that he and Charlie are meant to be together and will go to any lengths to make that happen.”

But why hadn’t I seen those signs before? I knew he was besotted by Charlie, but would he go so far as to kidnap him?

I scooped up the phone on Laurette’s bedside table, cradled the receiver between my ear and left shoulder, and flipped through my miniature telephone book, which I had stuffed in my breast pocket before coming to Laurette’s room. As I started punching in some numbers, Laurette stared at me, aghast.

“Who are you calling this early in the morning?”

“Sir Anthony Stiles. Don’t worry. He’ll be up. Probably tutoring one of his young male protégés on the art of fondling your scene partner.”

After a few rings, a rather chipper Sir Anthony answered the phone. “Are you calling from outside? Is the bell not working again?”

“Excuse me?”

There was a pause. “Who is this?”

“Sir Anthony, it’s Jarrod Jarvis. I’m sorry to be calling you so early.”

“My dear boy, what is it? What’s happened?”

“I’m afraid my boyfriend might be in some kind of trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“I’m not sure. But Akshay Kapoor may have some information on his whereabouts.”

“I never trusted that Bollywood brute.”

“I really don’t have any further details, but I would like to pay a visit to Akshay’s flat, and I knew if anyone kept that cast contact list for the play, it would be you.” Definitely, since my understudy’s phone number was on that list and he was a shaggy-haired, droopy-eyed, adventurous young buck who played for both teams.

“Why, yes, I’m sure I have it here somewhere.”

I heard some rustling in the background, and then a bell ringing.

“Be right there,” Sir Anthony called out, suddenly a slight tension in his voice.

“I’d normally comment on how rude it is that someone is calling on you at this obscene hour, but here I am hounding you over the phone.”

“Oh, don’t be silly, Jarrod. I was up. And I’m expecting him. Nice young chap from a Dutch acting school in Amsterdam. Here as an exchange student. We met on a train earlier today. I promised to share a few pointers.”

“I see,” I said, refraining from making any kind of perceived sarcastic remarks for fear Sir Anthony might withhold Akshay’s flat address.

“I realize my tutoring time is a bit unusual, but the poor boy just got off work. He’s a dancer at one of those cocktail bars on Charing Cross Road.”

The bell rang again. “Yes, yes, I’ll be there in a minute,” Sir Anthony shouted as he flipped through more papers. “Persistent young lad, isn’t he?”

I was afraid Sir Anthony might give me the brush-off if he got worried his young, hard-bodied new boy toy might flee out of exasperation, but luckily he located the cast list, and I jotted down Akshay’s flat address in South Kensington.

After hanging up, I turned to find Laurette already half dressed. She was applying some eyeliner and combing out her tangled hair at the same time. “I’ll be ready in two minutes.”

She wasn’t about to allow me to go break into an apartment on my own, especially in a foreign country.

Within ten minutes we were in the back of a cab for the short drive over to Akshay’s London flat. The sun was just coming up, and a few joggers huffed and puffed up and down the dampened streets on this cold, foggy morning typical of old Mother England. We rolled past the Victoria and Albert museums and turned onto a narrow side street, stopping in front of a three-story brownstone situated on a well-kept corner. We paid the driver, and as he sped away, Laurette and I stood there staring at the old building with absolutely no clue as to how we were going to get inside.

“Sir Anthony said Akshay lives on the first floor. Maybe he left a window open,” I said.

We hurried up the four steps to the front door. I jiggled the knob. It was locked. No surprise there. I leaned over the railing to get a good look inside the flat. It was dark, but I could make out the distinctive décor inspired by his home country. Lots of Indian Thakat wood furniture, the doorway to the kitchen adorned with a metal valance with wispy, billowing, multicolored curtains evocative of the region, and hardwood floors softened by an area rug with an intricately woven pattern.

I pushed up on the windowpane, but it wouldn’t budge. It was locked from the inside.

“What do you see?” Laurette said.

“It’s a beautiful apartment,” I said.

“Oh, let me see. I love the Home and Garden channel,” she said, leaning over the railing, squeezing past me to gawk in the window. Her left hip pressed against the doorbell, and we heard it ring inside.

“What is that?” Laurette said.

“You. Stop leaning against the bell.”

Laurette repositioned herself just as a light in the living room snapped on and someone walked through the gauzy curtains separating the living room from the kitchen. I gasped as Akshay’s mother stared at our surprised faces pressed up against the window. I didn’t know what to do, so I waved.

Mrs. Kapoor quickly unlocked the front door and welcomed us inside. She was almost relieved to see us. This certainly put a crimp in the covert activities we had planned, but it saved us from possible arrest for breaking and entering.

Ever the consummate hostess, Mrs. Kapoor immediately prepared some herbal tea and a plateful of biscuits, and the three of us sat at the kitchen table. I felt as if some kind of explanation was in order.

“I’ve been trying to reach Akshay for the last couple of days, but he doesn’t seem to be answering his home phone or his cell,” I said. “I didn’t want to leave for the States without saying good-bye.” I was trying to give the impression that her son and I had grown fond of each other during my time in London. I felt no need to tell her I detested her pompous, arrogant, boyfriend-stealing spawn.

Mrs. Kapoor nodded somberly. “Well, like I said on your voice mail, I have been trying to reach him myself. He never goes this long without calling.” She was fighting to remain calm. Her mother’s intuition was telling her something was perilously wrong. “Sometimes he will send my husband and me e-mails, but we know nothing about computers.”

“Do you have any idea where he might have gone?” Laurette said.

“I’ve thought about it. Akshay loves to travel, but he never leaves without telling us where he’s going. I thought perhaps he was cast in a movie back home at the last minute, but I called our relatives in Mumbai, and they say no one’s heard from him.”

I didn’t want to further complicate matters by explaining to Mrs. Kapoor that my boyfriend Charlie was also missing and might be with Akshay, so I decided not to mention it.

“Mrs. Kapoor, would you mind if I looked around with my friend here?”

She threw up her hands. “I don’t see what good it will do. I have searched every inch of this flat and found nothing that tells me where I can find Akshay.”

“Maybe a fresh pair of eyes could make the difference. Please.”

“Of course. Be my guest. But I must go home. My husband believes I am overreacting, so I came over here while he was still sleeping. I have to get back before he awakens and notices I’m gone.”

“We’ll leave everything as we found it. I promise.”

“Just find my son. Please.” The worried lines in Mrs. Kapoor’s face deepened. She set her cup of tea down, straightened her beautiful red print wrap, gave us each a peck on the cheek, and then left.

Laurette and I wasted no time searching the flat, rifling through papers, opening desk drawers, playing all of Akshay’s answering-machine messages. There were at least four messages from his mother, her concern growing with each one. I wandered into the back bedroom, where a stack of head shots and books on acting cluttered a small desk next to an old, oversized, outdated computer. Akshay had been so busy clawing his way to the top he hadn’t had time to upgrade his system. It suddenly struck me what Mrs. Kapoor had said in the kitchen. She knew nothing about computers, which meant she probably hadn’t even bothered to turn this one on. There might be a clue on his hard drive. I flipped on the power switch and waited a full three minutes before the clunky old machine was up and running. I went into his e-mail account and scanned the long list of messages, mostly porn ads and get-rich-quick scheme offers. There were a couple of notes from fellow actors who updated him on the state of their own careers. That’s what we actors do in e-mails. We start out by asking how you are in one brief sentence to be polite, and then we launch into a detailed dissertation of our own self-involved lives that could last pages. I finished perusing the messages and nearly clicked out of the message box before my eye caught it.

“Laurette! Come in here!” I hollered.

Laurette wandered in with a wooden spoon and a carton of strawberry yogurt. I gave her a withering look.

“Is that a clue you found in the refrigerator?”

“What?” she said. “It was already open. I was afraid it would go bad.”

I spun around and pointed at the screen. “Look at this e-mail. I almost missed it.”

Laurette leaned down over my shoulder to read the message. It was a confirmation notice from an on-line British travel agency called UK-away.com. It included an itinerary on Olympic Airways detailing a flight two days ago from London to Athens and connecting to a commuter flight to the Greek island of Mykonos as well as a confirmed reservation for a one-bedroom apartment at the Andromeda Residence in Mykonos town.

“They went to Greece?” Laurette said.

“No. Akshay booked a single ticket. Charlie didn’t go with him.”

“Well, maybe they didn’t travel together. Maybe Charlie met him there.”

Was Charlie in Greece? Or was he still here in London? Or somewhere else? Something about Greece kept bothering me. I had been there before. Years before I met Charlie. It was undeniably one of the most beautiful places I had ever visited. I was struck by the stunning white structures with blue shutters and trim that melted into the peaceful landscape. I spent hours on the soft sands of the beaches staring out at the endless, bright blue crystal ocean . . . Wait a minute. Soft sands and crystal ocean. My God! Isis’s prediction. She was insistent that Charlie was somewhere with soft sand and a crystal ocean. Greece! It had to be Greece!

I leapt up from the chair, banging into Laurette and almost knocking her over. “Charlie’s in Greece! Come on!”

“We’re going to Greece?” Laurette said, a hint of excitement in her voice.

“Yes.” I quickly shut down the computer. We were heading back out to the living room when we heard the front door open. Laurette and I exchanged quizzical looks.

“Do you think Mrs. Kapoor came back?” Laurette said.

I put my hand up to silence her, crept a few feet to the curtain separating the bedroom from the hallway, and lifted it back just a bit. Two men with dark features, both hulking and intimidating in stature, began ransacking the flat.

Laurette and I stood in the bedroom, paralyzed by fear, with no idea how we were going to get the hell out of there.