Free The Hunt by Jennifer Sturman Page A

or any of the other more recent Internet billionaires.”
    “So was that it?” Peter asked her. “Nobody knows where he is or how to reach him, but his old roommate wants his Bill Gates picture back?”
    “I do have one potential lead,” Luisa said, taking a cigarette out of her engraved case and tapping its end on the table. “Somebody mentioned she may know a way to get in touch with him. I’m going to follow up with her later.”
    “Who’s that?” I asked. “Someone from college?”
    “No, just a friend.” She busied herself with her silver lighter.
    “Which friend?” I asked. I’d seen Luisa light cigarettes on countless occasions, and it had never required such concentration.
    “Just a friend,” she repeated, finally releasing a lick of flame from the lighter and touching it to the tip of the cigarette.
    It was unlike her to be evasive, but perhaps being evasive went with the blushing and giggling.
    And my withdrawal hadn’t completely compromised my powers of deductive reasoning. Putting Page 27

    together the blushing and giggling with the phone call Peter had fielded that morning indicated with abundant clarity that the “friend” in question was almost certainly Abigail—not that I had any idea as to why Abigail thought she could locate Iggie when nobody else could. It was also abundantly clear that Luisa hadn’t “overslept” on her own.
    I was about to ask her who she thought she was fooling with her coy references when her phone rang. She dug hastily into her bag to retrieve it and checked the caller ID. “I’ll just be a minute,”
    she said, jumping up. “Hi,” she said into the phone, her voice practically giddy. She walked toward the far side of the statue, but even at a distance I could see her cheeks redden.
    I didn’t know what to think of anybody anymore. Fearsome, fearless Hilary was sending out distress signals and cynical, self-contained Luisa was behaving like a love-struck teenager. And I was supposed to make sense of it all without caffeine. It didn’t seem fair, but it did prove to me how far I’d come. I was definitely normal compared to the two of them.
    I turned to Ben. “What about you, Ben? Did you get a chance to check out the security tapes?”
    He nodded. “I spent the last couple of hours reviewing the footage from the different cameras.”
    “How did you convince hotel security to give you access?” asked Peter. “Did you show them your FBI identification?”
    Ben took another sip of his latte. “Uh, well, yeah. But I guess they took pity on me, too.”
    “Why’s that?” I asked.
    “I told them my girlfriend was cheating on me and I needed to prove it.”
    That excuse must have been close enough to the truth to be embarrassing. Ben might be a bit slow sometimes, but he was really taking one for the team, I thought with growing respect. It was too bad Hilary couldn’t see how he was coming through for her. Maybe she’d rethink the potential for their relationship.
    Luisa rejoined us, lowering herself into her seat and stowing her phone in her purse. Her cheeks were still flushed. “Where were we?” she asked with a bright smile.
    “Ben was telling us about the security tape,” Peter told her.
    “How’s your friend?” I asked.
    “Did you see Hilary with Iggie?” Luisa asked Ben, ignoring my question and busying herself with lighting another cigarette.
    “No, just Hilary,” Ben said. “She came in on her own a little before midnight. One of the cameras caught her at the lower lobby entrance. Another caught her going up in the elevator from the main lobby and getting off on our floor, and then another caught her getting into a different elevator a minute or two later with her laptop and notebook. And then the camera for the lower lobby showed her leaving. But I didn’t see Iggie in any of the footage.”
    “Well, she definitely left the party with him,” said Peter. “One of the kids who works for the valet service remembered them