Chapter 6

6

S ol flew economy plus instead of business because she hadn't been feeling completely like herself when she booked her plane ticket. She felt something similar to hesitation for spending her other money when at present she had no immediate prospects of earning any with her work.

She normally had no qualms about spending the sum that had been so generously given to her. It helped her maintain a more comfortable life than if she'd had to rely on her profession alone. She was grateful for it. She would perhaps have chosen a different career path—a more lucrative, safer, easier one—had it not been for the other money. Writing still felt like an occupation for the bourgeois.

But regardless of her relative wealth, which forced her to employ a finance guru and pay the government an indecent amount of taxes, she considered herself quite down to earth.

She led a simple life. She wasn't extravagant. She had only gotten used to a few minor luxuries really: air conditioning, radiant heating, a connected car, delivered groceries, and occasional visits to an excellent cosmetic dermatologist. Her biggest propensity toward splurging was a taste for four- and five-star hotels—and flying first class. Nothing major.

Her preference didn't come only from the extra comfort and room provided by the most expensive type of airfare, but because statistically there were fewer chances of encountering yelling children. And, most importantly, she wasn't at risk of having to interact with and fight for space against one of the many relentless man spreaders who abounded on planes.

But that was exactly the situation at her current economy plus seat. She had opted for that seat while booking her last-minute flight because the semblance of a belt-tightening gesture was needed after having lost her job—especially considering her financial illiteracy had prevented her from finding out how much money she still had in her fund. Plus, the flight was only two hours. Surely, she could endure economy plus during that time. Right?

Not really.

Not if she didn't find a way of isolating herself from a man spreader who wouldn't shut up about the rise of conscious Artificial Intelligence while being oblivious to the non-written rule of never crossing the invisible border that divides two seats occupied by strangers on a plane.

Sol retreated in her seat in the direction opposite to the man spreader, adjusted her KN95 face mask for the umpteenth time, and reapplied hand sanitizer. She grabbed her oversized handmade BIBA leather bag, took out her Bose noise-canceling headphones, and put them on. She retrieved Taylor Jenkins Reid's latest novel, which was also inside her excellently outfitted purse, and completely blocked her neighbor by strategically placing the book in front of her face.

They landed an hour later. The moment she saw the city's nocturnal coastline and the wheels contacted the runway, she felt better. It was almost absurd how, after so many years being a consummate expat, the moment things turned sideways she always felt the same urge to get on a plane headed for one particular destination. But she could finally breathe now. Everything would be okay.

She was home.

Things had started to look bad for Sol . Luke still wanted to believe the journalist had nothing—or at least not much—to do with the disappearance of the leaked script, but he was beginning to doubt his good sense. Especially when so many things pointed toward her.

First, there was a lavish lifestyle that would put her in need of cash unless they could confirm where her money was coming from or that she was indeed receiving funds from her family. Because Divya was right. No writer who wasn't more of a brand name could afford to live, dress, shop, and eat out the way Sol did.

And now, after a couple of hours of exhaustive online digging, he'd found ties to her and Voyeur , the same dubious internet outlet that first uploaded a series of badly taken photographs of Meshflixx's stolen script with Sara Daniels's name watermarked on it. The script had disappeared from the studio on a Thursday evening. Voyeur leaked its content the following morning.

It appeared that Sol had written several short articles for said outlet in the early 2000s. The collaboration had only lasted for a few months, according to the results yielded by a deep search of internet archival material. Sol Novo–bylined articles at Voyeur were no longer available with a simple Google search, but the digital trace was there and it linked the Stringer with the leak.

"Found anything juicy?"

Luke jumped at P's approach. He hadn't known he was being watched.

"Not sure yet," Luke said, even if he was certain what he'd just unearthed wasn't just juicy but quite the bombshell. He also knew it was something he needed to tell P right away. It could be the kind of stunt he needed to keep the good graces of the partner. "I'm checking something on the Stringer's online CV."

In the process, he found mention of all sorts of random and minor jobs like Sol's tutoring job during her university years, but the CV contained no mention of her being a contributor at Voyeur .

When Luke shared his findings with P, his manager liked the Spaniard even more for the job and found the whole omission of Voyeur suspicious. Especially after he had spent half an hour playing with the company's drone and realized Sol's place on Roupell Street had solar panels recently installed and a parking space in the back garden where a brand-new Tesla Model Y currently resided.

Luke could understand that someone who had made a career in writing, like Sol had, would like to avoid including certain less reputable mediums like Voyeur , but he didn't try swaying Thompson or sharing those views with his manager. Luke couldn't afford to antagonize the friendlier of the partners at T&T.

It was no secret that Sweatshirt wasn't exactly a fan of Luke. He wasn't a fan of anyone, and Luke should have investigated more thoroughly before taking his job at the agency. He'd only discovered Thompson & Thomson's tendency of going through contractors and letting go of detectives after he joined the team.

But he couldn't afford to lose his job. Even if it had already been almost a year since things with his ex had fallen through, he was still penniless. After the separation, he'd had to look for a studio flat on his own and all his savings had gone to buying furnishings and covering an astronomic deposit. Plus, the salary at T&T was nowhere what he thought it would be and he had no savings to speak of regardless of Divya's insistence that he set aside a bit of money every month.

He didn't want to think about the possibility of losing his job and having to crash on his youngest sister's sofa or—even worse—being forced to return to his parents' place.