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“This is Talia L’Apel we’re talking about. She wouldn’t do that.”

“Remind me what she said again?”

“Unbelievable.” Luther put his head in his hands.

“Imagine how I feel.”

“But surely she wouldn’t want you to die of starvation in this hole! She’s America’s Sweetheart.”

“How’s anyone gonna know?”

Luther hopped to his feet. “Just wait. Just you wait . I’ve got something to do, but I’ll be back soon.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“ARE YOU OUT of your mind?” Jerry Gold yelled.

He’d been storyboarding when Talia had called him into the kitchen to tell him her news. She’d told the kidnappers to go to hell in no uncertain terms. If they were lucky, she said, Max was being executed as they spoke.

He repeated, “Are you out of your mind?”

She gave him her best innocent look, which really was amazing.

Talia L’Apel was the sexiest woman on the planet, did things to him in bed you couldn’t even imagine. But she had the instincts of a small-potatoes con. He understood that, and accepted it, because he was madly in love with her, but her intellect…

What she lacked in innate intelligence she made up for in luck. Take her name, for instance. Talia’s real name was Talia Lipowitz. That could have actually worked, in this day and age. Look at Kim Kardashian. But starting out, she’d wanted a romantic name. One day, before she was even on the radar as a star (this was during her first marriage to Max Conroy), they were in a shop looking at women’s suits for a bit part in a film, and the salesgirl pointed out the lapel, saying it “really makes the garment.” And Talia got that shine in her eye. “Lapel,” she breathed, stroking the suit. “That’s French, isn’t it?”

Jerry tried to talk her out of it. He thought she’d be a laughingstock. But Talia was not only stupid, she was stubborn. (Not to mention heartbreakingly beautiful.)

And so Talia Lipowitz became Talia L’Apel, and lo and behold, people ate it up. Turned out that Talia was smarter about this kind of thing than he was. He’d overestimated the intelligence of Talia’s public, and it was then he decided to take dumbing-down lessons from her at every opportunity.

Jerry balked at carrying her Yorkie, but otherwise, he deferred to her streetwise cunning and manufactured just-off-a-turnip-truck innocence.

Except for now.

This time she was flat-out wrong. “You’re going to screw up everything! What about your baby from Africa? What about your reunion?”

“What about it? As far as I’m concerned, it’s less work I have to do. I don’t have to pretend anymore.”

“Less work? Is that how you see it?”

“I don’t know why you’re looking at me like that. I thought you wanted something like this to happen. Now we don’t have to work so hard, don’t you see?”

Dammit. How in God’s name had this shitstorm happened to him ?

Chapter Thirteen

NOT LONG AFTER Luther left Max, the trapdoor opened again. Luther made his way down, followed by Corey, followed by Luther’s uncle, Sam P., who stepped delicately for a huge man.

Corey carried a tripod and a small video camera. Black material swung from his belt—Max realized they were ski masks. The ski masks went with the scimitar in Sam P.’s hand.

“Really?” Max said. He lay on his cot, legs crossed at his feet, hands clasped behind his head.

“Get up, asshole,” Corey said. “It’s time for your close-up.”

Max obliged. He was calm now, as if he were in the eye of a hurricane, and the hurricane was his own rage. The rage would be easy to tap, but he could control it. “Where’s my mark?”

“Knock it off, jerko,” Corey said. “Do what you’re told and everything’s going to turn out fine. Otherwise…” He made a slashing motion to his throat.

“You really think a video will change Talia’s mind?”

They ignored him as they set up the tripod facing the wall. The lighting here was not the best, but Max thought it would only enhance the terror of the scene. “May I make a suggestion?”

Sam P., who was about to don his mask, said, “Certainly, sir.”

“Guess he wants us to shoot his good side,” Corey said.

Max said, “Who are you supposed to be? Rabid Islamists? Because if you’re going the scary Islamist route, you’re setting up a certain expectation.”

“Everyone’s a critic,” muttered Luther.

Max shrugged. “If you’re going to do this, don’t you want to do it right?”

Corey grumbled, but Sam P. said, “Let’s hear what the man has to say. He’s been around the block a few times, after all.”

“If you want to scare them, fine. But what’s the endgame? They have to believe you’re real kidnappers who want money, not Sharia law and death to infidels. If you pose like that and threaten to behead me, they’ll think that sending you money won’t buy anything, because you’re extremists who will kill me anyway. See what I mean?”

Sam P. looked at Luther and Luther looked back. “He’s got a point.”

“This is ridiculous,” said Corey. “He’s snowing us, man! He’s playing with our heads.”

Max said, “Look. Don’t you think I want to make it out of here alive? Don’t you think I have a stake in this?” He looked from one to another to another. It was his sincere look, the look he had when he was about to a) go to war, b) stand up to the bad guy or c) kiss a woman who needed kissing. He let his eyes bank like coals, smoldering with meaning. With belief.

Sam P. sat down on a folding chair. Amazing it could hold him. “So what do you propose we do?” he asked.

“You go simple, no frills. Just sit me on a chair and videotape me. Ask me a couple of questions. Just straightforward stuff—it will be chilling, trust me. Because it will be believable.”

Sam P. thought about it, then slapped his thigh. “Sounds good.”

Max saw Corey’s face fall. Corey had wanted to wear the mask.

“Another thing,” Max said. “Are you sending this just to Talia?”

Luther looked diffident. “That was the plan.”

“Because here’s what she’ll do. She’ll erase it. Just wipe it right off her phone—boom, like it never existed.”

Luther looked at Sam P. and Sam P. looked at Corey. They all looked at Max.

The center of power had shifted. Max was in control now. “See, what you’ve got to do—when the time comes—is go viral. That way she’s forced into meeting your demands. America’s Sweetheart isn’t going to stand by while her husband is killed by kidnappers, not with TMZ on the case. Not with Entertainment Tonight , and The Huffington Post , the cable shows, the bloggers, the tabloids, YouTube—she can’t ignore you then.”

Absolute silence. Then Sam P. said, “Dammit! Why didn’t I think of that? Max, I bow to your expertise.”

Corey muttered something unintelligible under his breath.

“OK, first thing we have to do is make it look like you’ve hit me.”

“ Hit you?” Sam P. recoiled in horror.

“You have ketchup?”

“I think so.”

“Go get it. And if you have any charcoal, or something to make me look bruised up a little, get that too.”

Sam P. said to Corey, without looking at him, “Do what the man said.”

Corey grumbled, but went.

And so they did it. Max sitting in a chair. Dim lighting, but just the right kind of lighting to show it was, indeed, Max Conroy. Max looked stunned but brave. He had to keep in mind that he was a leading man, so he maintained that strong, manly presence, even though he was tied to a chair. He played the part of the weary hero who had fought bravely against his attackers but succumbed to overwhelming odds.