The Hunt

by Jennifer Sturman

  “That’s a great idea,” he said. Of course, Peter would be enthusiastic about anything that didn’t incriminate his old frat buddy, but even Abigail, who hadn’t spent the better part of a year convincing herself she was in love with me, agreed it was a great idea, and she chimed in to say so. To my credit, I did not turn around to say “so there” to Luisa in the backseat.

  “Let’s call Ben right now,” I said. “Maybe he can start piecing together Hilary’s trail, and if we don’t have any luck with Iggie or Alex, we can pick up from there.”

  “Fine,” said Luisa, “I’ll call Ben and run it by him.” This was as close as I was going to get to an admission from her that my idea was a good one. She reached Ben on his cell phone and spoke to him briefly, explaining about the e-mail and the receipts.

  “Well?” I asked when she’d completed her call.

  “He says he’ll get on it in a bit,” she replied.

  “Did he think it was brilliant?” I asked. “I bet he thought it was brilliant.”

  “Stop fishing for compliments.”

  “How was that fishing for compliments?”

  “Please.”

  “I wasn’t fishing. I was simply asking what Ben said.”

  She harrumphed in response.

  “Did you just harrumph at me?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I’m not being ridiculous. You’re being ridiculous.”

  “I’m not being ridiculous. And you started it.”

  “I did not start it. You started it.”

  “What precisely did I start, Rachel?”

  “You know what you started-”

  “AARGHH!” This was from Peter, not Luisa. Horns blared as he cut across three lanes of traffic and pulled onto the highway’s shoulder.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Luisa, alarmed.

  “Are you okay?” I asked as he jammed the car into Park.

  “I am fine,” he said between clenched teeth. “The two of you, however, are not. You’ve been at each other’s throats since we got in the car. In fact, you’ve been at each other’s throats since yesterday. Either stop the bickering now, or you’re going to get out and walk, and I won’t care if you go through a case of soda and a carton of cigarettes on the way.”

  “We can’t do that,” I pointed out. “We were dared, and we don’t want to be wusses.”

  “Then don’t be wusses. But the choice is the same. Which is it going to be? Ride and behave, or walk and bicker?”

  “We weren’t bickering,” said Luisa. “Do you think we were bickering, Rachel?”

  “Of course not,” I said. “But who knew that putting Peter behind the wheel would turn him into such a dad?”

  19

  Only Abigail’s calm mediation, Luisa’s and my promises that we’d try to act like reasonable adults and the suggestion that we make a quick detour to pick up some nicotine gum convinced Peter it would be safe to get back on the road. I’d never seen him throw a tantrum before, even one as relatively mild as his had been. A perverse part of me enjoyed learning what it to took to push him over the edge, but I knew better than to tell him that.

  Fortunately, we didn’t have much farther to go. Signs started popping up for Redwood City and Atherton, followed by Menlo Park and Palo Alto. We were going a couple of towns south of Palo Alto to Santa Clara, just past the “Googleplex” in Mountain View and Yahoo!’s Sunnyvale headquarters. Sunnyvale was part of Silicon Valley, so the vale was legitimate, and the weather here was definitely sunnier than in San Francisco, but it seemed to me that only a person who either had something to hide or a reckless need to tempt fate would name a place Sunnyvale.

  We pulled off the highway just before ten, letting Abigail guide us the few remaining miles. The buildings we passed looked like those in any recently built American office park, but the signs out front bore the sort of playful names specific to start-ups run by people barely out of their teens, and the cars in the parking lots indicated which buildings’ inhabitants had already struck Internet gold and which were still toiling away in the hopes of a future payoff. Igobe’s pre-IPO parking lot held more of the latter type, but there was a gleaming black Lamborghini parked in a reserved space in the first row.

  “Looks like the Igster’s in the house,” said Peter, pointing out its vanity plate, IGSTER1, as he steered into a nearby slot reserved for visitors.

  “And it looks like his employees are being alienated from the fruits of their labors,” said Luisa, observing the lesser cars in the lot and chewing furiously on a wad of Nicorette. As a general rule, she considered gum tacky, but she’d been willing to make an exception for the sake of Peter’s nerves, and her mood had made a dramatic turn for the better once she unwrapped the first piece. It was too bad there wasn’t a gum replacement for Diet Coke.

  “Iggie’s been having a hard time holding on to talent,” Abigail told us as we left the car and headed toward the entrance. “A lot of start-ups around here don’t pay much, but they are generous with stock options, so if the company does well and goes public, the options can be worth a lot. There are more than a few janitors and mail clerks who’ve made millions that way. Iggie’s tightfisted with everyone but himself, and he’s been stingy not only with salaries but with the options, too. It’s making it difficult for him to hire the best people, which is one reason why Igobe’s still using Leo’s original software designs, but it’s going to be a problem when he needs to start work on the next generation’s software release and updates.”

  Yet another thing it was good to know before I committed my firm to handling the Igobe IPO. The more I heard, the more I wondered if it would make sense to cancel tomorrow’s meeting altogether, whether Iggie was a kidnaper or not.

  In front of the building, purple flowers planted in a circle of green grass spelled out Igobe’s name in its trademark bubble letters. It was hard to imagine Winslow, Brown with such a logo, much less spelling it out in tulips-the firm generally stuck to a dignified sans serif font that didn’t require watering-but Silicon Valley culture had little in common with that of a white-shoe New York investment bank, save a fascination with money. Once the automatic glass doors of the entranceway slid apart with a muted swoosh, the differences became all the more striking. We stepped right into a vast open-plan work space that looked as if it had been lifted whole from a satire of dot-com era excesses. Twenty-somethings dressed in geek-hipster chic zipped around on scooters, while others flopped on brightly colored beanbag chairs or chatted in front of glass-fronted refrigerators stocked with an array of designer beverages. The decorator who had outfitted Winslow, Brown’s headquarters in dark paneling, Persian rugs, and wing chairs would have fled, shrieking in terror, if the scene hadn’t given him a coronary first.

  Only one other person besides us didn’t seem to fit right in, but she wouldn’t have fit in at Winslow, Brown, either. Across the expanse of carefully distressed polished concrete sat a reception desk made from molded purple plastic, and behind the desk and its collection of lava lamps sat an older woman with frizzy gray hair, red-framed glasses and a purple visor stitched with the Igobe logo. Even though she was of average weight, she was wearing a muumuu patterned in a neon-shaded floral print that made me think with newly discovered affection of the pink dress hanging in the closet back at the Forrests’ house.

  “Just shoot me now,” said Abigail, freezing inside the entrance.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Peter.

  “I can’t believe it. She’s still here.”

  “Who’s still where?” asked Luisa.

  But before she could respond, the woman behind the desk emitted a noise that sounded like a curdled yodel and would have put Camilla Gergen to shame. “Yoo-hoo! Biggie!”

  Abigail blanched, something I’d thought only happened in books. “Twice in twelve hours,” she muttered, and for a moment I thought she was going to retreat back through the sliding-glass doors. But then she squared her shoulders and strode forward.

&nb
sp; “Hello, Phyllis,” she said politely. “I didn’t realize you were still working here.”

  So this was the tree from which Iggie had fallen.

  “Of course I’m working here. My baby needs me! But we weren’t expecting you for another couple of hours, Biggie,” said Phyllis in a tone that managed to grate, scold and condescend in one fell swoop. “Igor’s scheduled in back-to-back meetings until noon. You know how busy he is. And we thought you were coming alone. Who are your little friends?”

  I hadn’t been called anyone’s “little friend” since the third grade. “This is my boss, Peter, and his fiancée, Rachel,” Abigail said. “And this is my friend, Luisa.”

  Judging from the way Phyllis set her lips, outlined in coral pencil a shade darker than her lipstick, she wasn’t even remotely pleased to see us, which seemed unfair. We were clean and neatly dressed, and we’d all managed to plaster amiable meeting-someone’s-mother expressions on our faces. I might not be looking my best, but Luisa was beautiful even when cranky and chewing gum, and Peter had the sort of unassuming good looks that always made me worry people thought he could do better when they saw us together.

  But it was Luisa, standing closest to Abigail, who was the source of her displeasure, notwithstanding her resemblance to Salma Hayek. Phyllis gave her the once-over and sniffed before turning back to Abigail. “Dr. Grout is right. This is just a phase you’re going through, Biggie. You’ve probably been watching too much of that Ellen DeGeneres person. I know it’s all the rage right now, but you and Igor are so well matched. You really shouldn’t let fashion dictate your choice of life partner.”

  “Yes. I blame it all on Ellen,” said Abigail in the mild tone I was learning she reserved for sarcasm.

  But sarcasm was lost on Phyllis. “Igor needs someone to be the woman behind the man. You were perfectly suited for that, Biggie. And it’s so much healthier when people play their proper roles in a relationship. Even Dr. Grout thinks so. There’s nothing as fulfilling as maintaining a happy household. Taking care of others is really the very best work a woman can do.”

  Abigail opened her mouth, probably to debate her proper role and just how happy her household with Iggie had been, but then she closed it, apparently recognizing how futile any attempt at debate would be. “Could you let Igg-I mean, Igor know I’m here?” she asked instead.

  “I told you already. He’s in a meeting, and he’s much too important to be disturbed.” Phyllis didn’t comment explicitly on our relative unimportance, but it didn’t take much imagination to guess what she was thinking. The Igster’s ego had clearly had some help from his mother in reaching its current size.

  We seemed to have arrived at an impasse, but then Iggie himself appeared around a distant corner, herding Camilla Gergen and a small flock of other banker types, presumably her colleagues, toward the exit. I ducked behind Peter-I’d seen enough of Camilla the previous evening to last for another eight years-but the space was sufficiently large that the group could pass at a safe distance with only snatches of their conversation echoing in our direction. We heard billion more than once, which probably explained why Iggie had shown them the courtesy of accompanying them to the door rather than letting them find their own way out.

  Once Camilla and her companions were safely on the other side of the sliding-glass panels, Phyllis, who had apparently accepted that Iggie was bound to see us waiting for him and decided to take control of the situation, gave another yodel. “Yoo-hoo!” she called. “Igor! Look who’s here, baby!”

  While Phyllis may have played an important role in developing Iggie’s ego, she had less control over other parts of his psyche and had been unable to extinguish the torch he still carried for his ex-wife. Once his eyes landed on Abigail he practically skipped over to the reception area. He was again dressed all in purple, from his shoes up to his shirt, although today he’d opted for silk instead of velvet. I wondered if Prince was aware someone was raiding his wardrobe.

  “She came early, and she brought some people with her, which is very inconvenient. I told her you were busy and that she’d just have to wait,” Phyllis said. “Your next appointment will be here any second, and you don’t have time for her now. Your calendar will get all backed up.”

  “That’s okay, Ma,” said Iggie. “I can always make time for Biggie.”

  He seemed about as thrilled as Phyllis had been to see that Abigail wasn’t alone, but he still welcomed us all graciously and offered a tour of the premises, eager to show off the scale of his company’s operations.

  “Thanks, Iggie, maybe later. There are some things we wanted to discuss with you first,” I said.

  “In private,” added Abigail, with a pointed look in Phyllis’s direction. It was possible giving pointed looks was a skill she came by naturally, but it was so well done I suspected Luisa had been coaching her.

  “Whatever you want, Biggie. We’ll just be a few minutes, Ma.”

  I could feel Phyllis’s glare on our backs as Iggie led us through the maze of low-walled cubicles, waving cheerily at the geek-hipster minions we passed before showing us into a glass-walled conference room. “Check it,” he said, flipping a switch. Instantly, the glass panes seemed to fill with smoke, and what had been clear was now opaque. “Is that cool or what?”

  We all agreed it was cool, although simple Venetian blinds or even some tasteful drapes would have been just as effective, but we couldn’t waste valuable minutes admiring the office decor, especially with Phyllis likely to interrupt at any moment.

  “So, Iggie, was that Camilla Gergen from Ryan Brothers we saw just now?” I asked. We’d agreed on the drive down to start by putting him on the defensive, assuming such a thing was possible where Iggie was concerned.

  “Who?” he said, with the same hammy overemoted surprise he’d tried on the phone last night. It was no more convincing in person.

  “It’s all right, Iggie,” I said. “I know you’re talking to other banks about the IPO. Anyone in your shoes would do the same thing.” This was true, although I doubted many people would want to wear his purple Doc Martens. “Did you tell them all they’d be first up to pitch, too?”

  “No, Rachel, your firm is going first. Really. The Ryan Brothers people were just here to give me some advice about-uh, about-”

  “Don’t worry, Iggie. I understand. In fact, it’s probably a good thing you’re talking to so many different firms, because the more I hear about Igobe, the less sure I am that my own firm would want to represent you. We prefer to work with companies with stronger prospects, and it sounds as if the future here might be less rosy than you’d like everyone to believe.”

  “What are you talking about?” he asked, his tone growing as defensive as we’d hoped.

  “We know that there are rumors that your technology can be hacked, and we know that Hilary was writing an article that was critical of Igobe,” said Abigail. “And we also know there’s a fifty-percent chance you were lying about whether you did more than drop her off at the hotel.”

  “How did you get to fifty percent?” asked Iggie, ever the math prodigy. I noticed he didn’t question what she had said about either the hacker or Hilary’s article.

  “There were two Lamborghinis at the Four Seasons that night, and we know one of them belonged to you. We also know one drove off without Hilary and one drove off with her,” said Luisa.

  “Which means she was either with you or she was in the other car,” concluded Peter.

  “Oh,” said Iggie with relief. “That’s easy. She must have been in the other car, because she wasn’t with me. I just dropped her off, like I told you.” He rubbed his hands together. “Now, are you guys staying for lunch, too? Because I was hoping to have some private time with Big-I mean, Abigail.”

  “Not so fast, Iggie,” said Abigail. “Who was driving the other Lamborghini?”

  “How should I know?”

  “You should know because the guys working the door at the hotel saw you both get out of your cars an
d talk to each other,” she said.

  “Wow, Biggie. You really have been following my every move, haven’t you?” Iggie sounded touched, as if he was interpreting the legwork we’d done as a sign that Abigail cared about him rather than distrusted him.

  “Not at all,” I said. “We’re just trying to find Hilary. We know from eyewitnesses and from the hotel’s security cameras that you took her to the Four Seasons, we know she went upstairs for her laptop and notebook, and we know she came back downstairs and got into one of two Lamborghinis that were there that night. If you were just dropping her off, why did you stick around and talk to the other driver? And who was he?”

  “I told you, we were just talking about our cars. There aren’t a lot of Lamborghinis around. Not many people can afford to drop that much green on a set of wheels, if you know what I mean.” He looked around, as if to make sure that we did, in fact, know what he meant and to see if anyone appreciated his impromptu rhyming skills. “We talked about our cars, and then I skedaddled. Sans Hilarita.”

  “Why did you leave without her?” Peter asked.

  “And why didn’t you go forward with the interview you promised her?” added Luisa. She asked this as if we knew about the interview for sure, but she was bluffing, something at which she excelled, although she’d scoffed at my repeated suggestions that she pursue a career in professional poker. “Did something make you change your mind while you were waiting for her?”

  Iggie didn’t say anything for a moment, and I could almost see the wheels spinning in his brain as he tried to calculate which excuse we might find most credible. “Okay,” he said eventually, his tone resigned. “Do you really want to know what happened? The whole truth and nothing but the truth?”

  “That’s why we’re here,” said Abigail. “That and to spend quality time with you.”

  But sarcasm was lost on Iggie, too. “I ditched her on purpose. I told her I’d give her an interview for her story, and then I took off while she was getting her things from her room.”