“Hello?”
“Hi, Jess, it's Daniel.”
“Daniel…Johns?”
“No, Daniel Gillies. Ben and I got married last week.”
There was a silence.
“Oh, right…congratulations.”
“I was being SARCASTIC.”
“Oh.” Jess did a transatlantic phone call blush.
“Listen. Hannah called me yesterday and she was in trouble.”
“In trouble?!”
“Yes. At first I just sat around and laughed a lot, but then my goddamn conscience kicked in.”
“Well, what happened?”
“She was trying to call you but you'd left the hotel, so she was going to try you in Scotland! She'll miss me!” Jess panicked. There was a deep sigh on the other end of the line.
“Yes, Jess. That's why I rang around some friends and found out where you were so you could help her.”
“Well that – hang on, how did you get from you to hobbits? You don't know the hobbits!”
Daniel sighed again.
“I'm married to Natalie, who was in Neighbours with Kylie, who was in Moulin Rouge with Ewan McGregor who was in Star Wars with Liam Neeson who was in K19 – The Widow Maker with Harrison Ford, who was in What Lies Beneath with Miranda Otto.” There was a pause. “And in Indiana Jones with John Rhys Davies.” There was another pause. “Either way they both had Elijah, Dom and Billy's positions for me.”
“Did they have Sean's pos-“ Jess looked up at the others. “Ahem. Anyway, carry on.”
“She's in Rio De Janeiro.” Daniel continued.
“Holy pretzels.” Jess said. Hannah really was spending all of Chris' money.
“By mistake.” Daniel added.
“What? They just woke up in Rio?” Jess said sarcastically.
“Their plane was diverted from the Bahamas to Florida.”
“What?! That makes no geographical sense.”
“Correct.” Continued Daniel. “And something even fishier is going on because I spoke to Gillies earlier and he said he received a weird phone call from Chris 3 days ago telling him that they'd been kidnapped-“
“WHAT?!”
“And when Gillies finally decided that the phone call wasn't a prank several hours later, he rang his mobile back and someone picked it up and didn't say anything – all there was was heavy breathing.”
“What?!”
Daniel paused to let all this information sink in. “So I've come to a general conclusion that they're in somewhat bad trouble and that they're being traced.
“What makes you say that?” Jess asked.
“I'm a melodramatic person at heart and sitting on my arse all day with Natalie hovering around me is boring.”
“I see.” Jess thought for a while.
“So do you think we should get the FBI?”
“I don't know – it all seems a bit weird though. Do you think she's ok?” Jess asked.
“Well, this creepy heavy-breathing guy has her and Chris' phone, so best case scenario is she's been robbed.”
“And worst case?”
“She's dead.”
“Oh God!”
“Exactly. So I'd say get your Pommy butt to Rio now.”
“Ok!”
“Great.” Daniel hung up, pleased to be free of the madness.
“What was that all about?” Asked Dom. “It wasn't another father was it?!”
“No. Hannah's been dumped in Rio De Janeiro somehow!”
“What?” Elijah exclaimed. “Some honeymoon that is.”
“No, she got kidnapped!” Jess said.
“Oh, God!”
“How soon can I get from here to there?” Jess asked.
“Few hours on a plane.” Elijah replied.
Jess looked around at the lush house, air conditioning and hobbits.
“Bloody best friend always getting into trouble.” She muttered. “Ok!” She sighed. “LET'S ROLL!” Everyone looked at her in surprise. “Oh, sorry, that was Book Three.”
“You're also 31 pages premature.” Billy noted.
“Ooh, get you.” Jess stormed out.
“I think we're lucky, the taxi that dropped us hasn't even left yet.” Elijah noted. They all looked out of the door and sure enough it was still there.
“Hi, can we go back to the airport please?” Dom asked.
The taxi driver looked up in surprise as he had been deeply asleep.
“Are you ok? You look like you need a good 12 hours in bed.” Elijah said as they all hopped in.
“Yeah, I'm fine.” The driver said, then added: “I've just driven all the way back from Rio De Janeiro to get onto chartered driving land.”
“Rio De Janeiro?” Jess said, shocked – this world was just full of coincidences.
“What were you doing down there?”
“Bye Mum!” Elijah cried out of the window. The little woman that Jess had seen earlier waved as she weeded her garden.
“Oh, I picked up two crazy guys on their going-wrong honeymoon, saving them from cacti.” The driver turned towards the motorway.