We had to curtail our fox and hound games for the European leg of the press tour. The studio spared no expense. We flew private across Europe as if we were some diplomatic entourage or a ceremonial royal family of some sort... and in a way we were. Right or wrong, in the minds of a lot of the general public, celebrity is the new royalty, only without any deference. Everyone was waiting for us to trip-up.

Our merry band of travelers, reassembled for this leg, was quite impressed at the chartered plane, though I knew it was in large part to spare me from airport scanners.

Our European tour was a bit more subdued than our US sweep, because the European Media already seemed in on the joke. European humour seemed at once more nuanced and perceptive, yet in some ways, less jaded than in the U.S. Perhaps they were just going easy on us since most of the cast was Australian or Canadian, and even though Katherine was American, I kept 'in character' – which really meant using an accent far closer to my own than my well rehearsed suppressed-Pittsburgh Katherine dialect. I got compliments all along our tour from people who noticed that I didn't sound American, but didn't even act it. I'm not sure what that meant, but I think it was intended as a compliment. I couldn't resist lampooning this theme though, by showing up at one event in a foam and mesh truckers cap, a schlubby velour tracksuit, chili-stained American flag T-shirt and all sorts of gaudy jewelry carrying a 64-ounce disposable soda cup. To the bewilderment of my interviewers, I explained with mock-offense, how upset I was that people were questioning my credentials as a 'U-S-A-nian' so I decided to put those rumours to rest once and for all.

I stepped out into the middle of the studio set and began spinning around like wonder woman, peeling and jettisoning my 'U.S.A.-nian costume' as I spun, making a game of trying to hit a gobsmacked Eoin, who was still sitting on the interview couch, with every article of clothing I tossed like some spiralling version of pitching 'horseshoes'. He quickly caught on and started reaching up a hand to snare the wayward item I overtossed, cackling so loudly I could see the floor crew wince and grab their headphones. I was nearly done my Wonder Woman bit when something unplanned happened. Maybe the large soda was a step too far. Not carrying it, but actually loudly slurping it through the straw during the interview. I felt the large bubble well up inside and knew I would not be able to contain it. I had already peeled out of most of the clothes and lost the hat, shaking my hair down around my shoulders while I spun the gaudy necklace down my back showing only the tasteful chain, and did similar with the rest of the jewelry going from gauche to tasteful in a quick twist. I had stepped out of my velcro-laced shoes and tracksuit, but the oversized Tee hung off me like a large dress, so far I was only revealing a bit of the dark hose underneath the costume. As I reached up to remove the Tee for the big reveal, I decided to use my unexpected gas attack and punctuated the Tee-shirt 'peel and reveal' with a large, loud belch.

It was even more explosive than I had expected, but synched perfectly with my tearing off the Tee-shirt and lobbing it into Eoin's guffawing face.

He didn't even remove the wadded up tee.... hiding under it like a mask while he clutched his knees to his chest and convulsed with laughter.

I had figured that by this time all eyes – and cameras, would be on me. Finally stopped spinning and looking unexpectedly elegant in my black sequined off the shoulder minidress, hair draped down over my collarbone and ending just before my quite prominent seeming cleavage, even if it was really just convincing trompe l'oeil.

Dennis, Mikey and I had worked on this gag for days, and I was quite confident that when we pulled it off successfully on live TV, people would be suitably stunned.

But live happens. None of us had factored in Eoin. OR the belch.

I noticed the cameras rapidly cutting back and forth between my elegant reveal and his quivering spasms of laughter on the couch.

When I saw a camera zoom into me and noticed the boom mike swing in from the corner of my eye, I put my fingers delicately over my mouth and with more genuine embarrassment than anyone would have guessed, stared meekly into the camera and said demurely “Oh my! I feel like I've just been fracked ...hard!”

Well, that did it. Eoin howled and rolled onto the floor, curled into the fetal position and spasming with hiccups and shrieks – actual shrieks of laughter.

I couldn't be mad at him for stealing focus and hijacking the bit. It didn't go as expected, but it was as memorable and meme-worthy as we had hoped. Just in an unplanned way.

I spent a lot of time on our last tour learning focus and breathing to NOT be affected by the contagion that was Eoin's hysterics. Although this time it took every bit of self-discipline I possessed to keep my 'poker face'. As I walked back to the guest couch and the dazed hosts, I asked innocently. “Alright. Which do you think is the real Katherine Keller and which is the act?” with a slight smile.

At this point, Eoin was being helped off the set by three stagehands who practically had to carry him, since he still seemed unable to walk on his own.

The hosts went to a break, and quickly stopped me from getting up to see about Eoin.

“We had heard stories and seen the you tubes from your U.S./Canada tour, but we thought this was all ...choreographed in advance...” I think I caught a suppressed grin or two.

“Well” I smiled politely. “Obviously I knew what I was going to do, since it took a lot of preparation and practice to learn to do that spin routine.... but I've found it works best if my costar sees it at the same time as the audience. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to see if he's okay.”

They nodded their assent and turned to grin at each other.

The rest of the interview went fairly smoothly, except for when Eoin was finally able to compose himself and rejoin us. He couldn't look at me without starting to giggle, and even though I refused to make eye contact, certain that it would send him off again, even when I'd answer the hosts questions directly, I could hear his stifled snickers.

We managed to get through the interview and hit YouTube before we returned to our hotel. I was a bit more ambivalent that my improvised spin-belch/T-shirt toss was quickly becoming the most popular seven second loop on instagram.

The European tour continued in the same mischievous, lighthearted manner as our US leg. Mikey Dennis and I enjoyed coming up with fresh hijinx to pull on Eoin, who for his part seemed to delight in his role as perpetual prank victim.

At one meet and greet in Darmstadt, we were doing our usual smile,shake,sign routine when someone in the crowd got a call on their mobile. It seems they had used a sample of one of Eoin's laughing fits as their ringtone. All eyes in the startled crowd turned suddenly to the mortified fan, then just as suddenly to Eoin, who had collapsed to a heap on the floor in gales of laughter. Instantly, everyone had their own mobiles out, and I'm pretty certain by the end of the night, most everyone had new ringtones.

And so it went. Light and mirthful on the official junket, while after hours at our hotel, Dennis, Mikey and I tried to unravel the mystery of the missing Katherine Keller.

Matt had some info he offered on the condition that I not ask where he got it, which seemed a lot like a how-to list of all the sketchy things the British Tabloids got prosecuted for. He half-heartedly quoted his unnamed colleague's motto that sometimes it takes a criminal to catch a criminal.

There was a whole toolkit of apps for hacking voicemails, lists of sites and credentials to access mobile carriers networks and essentially trace someones phone by the cell towers their phone 'checked in' at.... he had other tools that would let us let work backwards, finding people's mobile numbers and finding the id of their SIM card, their phone's IMEI and other technical stuff that was kind of lost on me, but seemed disturbingly familiar to my cousin Mikey, who nodded at every 'technique' Matt relayed.

“I followed the whole News of the World story avidly when it came out. It was fascinating. Who knew that the act of gathering tabloid news would be even more sordid and scandalous than the news itself?” Mikey grinned. “Yeah, I read a lot about how they did it. It's kind of like spycraft 101. Sounds like a good place to start... seeing if anyone in Katherine's management company is doing something ...or going someplace... unexpected. If she is being held against her will, someone must be keeping a lid on this.”

I nodded, remembering how surprised Dez was when he confronted me that first time in the lift. And how he used the word 'escape' then quickly changed the subject. I mentioned that to Dennis.

“That's not too suspicious. Katherine's been in and out of rehab at her management's ...insistence... and she often got fed up and pulled a houdini. The fact that Mr Lehmann thought this had happened again, doesn't mean he's in on it. …..then again, he was the one who brought you on board, and he doesn't seem too concerned that the real Katherine's still not back.”

OK. Dez was a possible, if not a probable. We had to do a lot of internet sleuthing to find out who the 'silent partners' in Hauteshot LLC were. Since they were the people invisibly running Katherine's business empire, at least some of them would have to be involved. No one else would have the ability or the motivation to abduct and hide their figurehead.

I began to think of the urban legends I had heard about Howard Hughes, L. Ron Hubbard, assorted foreign despots and dictators in repressive regimes, and all the speculation that their 'inner circle' had mutinied and secretly deposed their leader and figurehead when the status quo was threatened. I had no idea if any of this was true, but it sounded like plausible human nature, so I wasn't inclined to rule anything out.

Between Matt's contacts in the sordid press and Mikey's online friends – who I really didn't want to know about, we managed to track down the 'men behind the curtain' of Hauteshot LLC and began logging the comings and goings of Katherine's manager Burt Wasserman, her agent Lorne Cullen, her portfolio manager and Hauteshot CFO Andy Raditz, and about a half dozen other high rollers who seemed to rely on the Katherine Keller brand for their lavish lifestyles. Now we just needed to wait for data to accrue and patterns to emerge.

Meanwhile, things in Katherine-land were getting interesting. Apparently I was booked for a model shoot – which I thought Katherine had left behind her years ago.

Burt the manager 'reminded' me of the dustup in Prague 6 years ago, and how it was decided to avoid the damaging publicity of getting police or lawyers involved, that it was agreed that the next time I was in the Czech Republic, I would make restitution to the wronged party by doing a make-up shoot, yielding total creative control to the artist. When I asked Dennis about this, he just shook his head and smiled.

”Oh my God. I totally forgot about that! This was scandalous, even by Katherine's standards. Let's just say it involved a tryst gone horribly wrong and ended with the puppetmaster left restrained in the dungeon of a private club for days and Katherine running off with his soon-to-be ex-wife.”

“Oh.” That was all I could come up with. I was pretty speechless. “...um... and the 'restitution'?”

Dennis shook his head. “I don't want to even think about it. I don't think Katherine did either. She just made it a point to steer clear of the Czech Republic so she would never have to deal with her ...settlement...”

“I wish someone had warned ME....” I sighed