The Hunt

22

“At least you didn’t lose any teeth,” said Peter.

A crowd of onlookers had gathered around us, either drawn by the excitement of unexpected violence or eager to take a break from their own games. One woman had come running from an adjacent court, announcing that she was a doctor and bending down to take my pulse and check that my jaw wasn’t broken. It wasn’t, and my tongue was still intact, too. But the ball had split the corner of my lower lip, which was what accounted for all the blood. I’d never known a lip had so much blood in it and I would have been happier not finding out.

The doctor and Peter debated for a bit about whether I needed stitches, but after she’d made liberal use of an antiseptic that stung so badly I nearly did bite my tongue off, she assured me I’d be fine. “There will be some swelling, but that should go away in a week or two,” she said.

“Or two?” I asked feebly. It hurt to move my mouth, and judging by the muffled way my words came out, my lip was already well on its way to swollen.

“Three at the most,” she said, packing away the first-aid kit somebody had brought her from inside the clubhouse. “Be sure to put some ice on it.”

The crowd began to disperse, probably disappointed by the relatively tame nature of the injury I’d sustained, and Peter helped me up to my feet.

“Rachel, I’m so sorry,” said Caro who’d been hovering to one side, her eyes filled with concern. “I really didn’t mean to hit you.”

“I know you didn’t,” I said. And I did. She was too thoroughly nice and wellmannered for even her subconscious to consider doing such a thing.

“Come on,” she said, leading me off the court. “Let me help you get cleaned up.”

There were a couple of women leaving the locker room as we walked in, and they looked at me with a combination of sympathy and revulsion. Once I saw myself in the mirror, I could understand why. My lower lip was several times its usual size, blood streaked my chin, neck and the previously pristine front of my borrowed tennis dress, and most of my hair had escaped its ponytail. Some strands were plastered to my forehead with sweat, while others corkscrewed out from my scalp in a number of unlikely and less than attractive directions.

“Ack,” I said, first at my reflection and then to Caro, indicating the red stains on her dress. “I’ve ruined your lucky outfit.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she assured me. “You only proved it’s not really lucky. Now, while you’re rinsing off I’ll go find something cold to put on your lip.”

I undressed and stepped into the shower with care, soaping up as best I could. When I emerged, wrapped in a big white towel, Caro was waiting. “Here,” she said, smiling and extending her hand. “This is just as cold as ice, and it won’t drip.”

It was as if the gods had decided today would be a good day to torture me. She was holding a can of Diet Coke.

The only reason I managed to restrain myself from opening the can and drinking the soda down in one magnificent gulp was that my ability to drink anything without a straw had been severely compromised. Instead, I held the sealed can up to my lip and prayed it was possible to absorb some of its contents through osmosis.

Caro insisted on staying with me as I dressed, just in case I caught another glimpse of myself in the mirror and grew woozy at the sight. And while this was considerate of her, knowing she was watching me made me self-conscious. Some people-Hilary, for example-had sufficient body confidence that this sort of thing didn’t bother them, but I’d never been the type to strut naked around a locker room, particularly not in front of my fiancé’s ex-and probably future-girlfriend. Mostly I did everything I could to avoid locker rooms altogether.

“I love your clothes,” Caro said to my exposed torso as I pulled my top over my head. “They’re so… New York.”

I was wearing jeans, a cotton tunic and ballet flats. It was hardly an outfit I’d describe as especially urbane, but I could see how anything that couldn’t be purchased at a sporting goods store might be described as “ New York ” in this environment.

“Peter really seems to love it there,” she continued.

“Where? New York?” I asked, surprised. There had been a few rough patches when Peter had first moved east, and it would be premature to say he’d accustomed himself to Manhattan living as yet. And seeing him back in San Francisco had made it all too clear how much he missed its outdoorsy lifestyle. Central Park was a pretty spot, but it couldn’t match the countless nature-based activities available in Northern California.

“I’m sure it’s just as much you as it is the East Coast. I’ve never seen him so happy. The two of you make such a great couple.”

I’d moved over to the mirror, where I was trying in vain to fix my hair without actually looking at my face, but I could see Caro reflected behind me. Her expression was completely free of guile.

“You think so?” I asked, wondering where she was going with this.

“You complement each other so well,” she said.

“Sometimes it seems like we have nothing in common,” I confessed, marveling as I did that I was admitting this to her, of all people.

“But that’s what keeps things interesting. Take Alex, for example.”

“What about him?”

“Well, I know a bunch of people think we’d be a good couple. Even Peter wants to set us up. He’s trying to be subtle about it, but…” Her voice trailed off.

“But Peter’s not so good at subtle,” I supplied.

“No,” she said with a laugh. “Peter’s definitely not so good at subtle. He’s too much of a straight shooter. He tried to act like organizing this tennis game was just a casual thing, but it was pretty obvious he was trying to play matchmaker.”

I froze with one hand on my comb and the other grasping a chunk of hair. Even with everything that had happened the previous night, I clearly remembered Peter telling me it was Alex and Caro who had suggested the game. So why hadn’t he admitted that he was the one who’d initiated it? If his conscious motive was, in fact, to throw Alex and Caro together, why hadn’t he just told me the truth? Anxiety fluttered down from my chest to take up residence in my stomach. Maybe it was actually starting to happen: the feelings Peter had been repressing were finally escaping from the subconscious pit in which he’d tried to keep them buried, and he’d wanted an excuse to see Caro and me at the same time, the better to compare and contrast and sort out what he truly felt. That was a disconcerting thought-it was pretty obvious who’d come out ahead. In fact, if the contest had indeed started, it was probably already over, as well.

Caro was still talking, and I tried to concentrate on her words rather than my panic. “Things would never work with Alex and me,” she was saying. “I can’t put my finger on it, exactly, but we just don’t click. We have a lot of the same interests, and we have a lot of friends in common-we’ve gone sailing a couple of times, and we’re even in the same cycling club-but there’s something missing.”

“Oh?” I asked, but I wasn’t surprised to learn Caro was in a cycling club. She was probably in all sorts of clubs dedicated to activities that Peter would love, things like kayaking and rock climbing and Ultimate Frisbee. I wasn’t in any clubs, except for a book club that hardly ever met. When we did meet, we usually skipped the book and went straight for the booze.

“We carpool every so often, when there’s a cycling outing or to parties, but somehow it’s always hard to keep the conversation going. He gave me a ride home the other night, and it felt like the drive would never end.”

I was looking for anywhere to take my thoughts but where they currently were, and typically, my mind zeroed in on the wrong part of what she was telling me-namely, that if Alex had given her a ride home from the party, then he most definitely hadn’t been with Hilary. But it couldn’t hurt to be sure, and trying to identify Hilary’s new man was infinitely preferable to wondering how long it would be before I was in the market for a new man, as well. “What kind of car was Alex driving?” I asked. “The other night?”

“What?” asked Caro, surprised by the direction in which I was taking our little locker-room chat. “Um, an SUV of some sort. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

“Is that the only car he has?”

“It’s the only one I’ve seen him drive. It’s convenient because he can strap his bike onto the back.”

Part of me was relieved to hear this. I didn’t want Alex Cutler to be Hilary’s first love. His tennis court behavior suggested that underneath the pleasant exterior lay the interior of a jerk.

“Speaking of couples,” said Caro, even though we hadn’t been, “What’s going on with your friend Hilary and her boyfriend? His name is Ben, right? The tall guy with the dark hair?”

Caro might not have been expecting me to ask about Alex’s car, but I definitely hadn’t been expecting her to ask about Ben. I gave up on my own hair and turned to face her. “I was just thinking about them. You know, they broke up the other night. At the party.”

“Really?”

“Yes. In fact, Hilary’s already got a new guy.”

Caro hesitated. “Then does that mean Ben’s available?”

“I guess so. Why?”

I thought she might be starting to blush, but she was so tanned it was hard to tell. “Oh, I was just wondering,” she said, striving for a casual tone. “We started talking at the party, right at the beginning of the evening, and I felt like we were hitting it off. But then I got hijacked by Alex, and the next time I saw Ben he was with Hilary, and Peter told me they were together.”

“Not anymore,” I said, wondering at this new twist. Was it possible Caro was as skilled as Peter at deluding herself about what sort of man was right for her? As far as I could tell, she and Ben couldn’t be less alike: she was polished and bright and outgoing, and he was-well, not polished, frequently moody and occasionally a bit slow. But Caro was interested in him. Maybe there was something about carrying a gun that had a more universal appeal than I’d realized.

“Do you know if he ever found a place to rent a boat?”

“Rent what?” I asked, beginning to collect my things and stow them in my bag. At Caro’s insistence, we’d thrown away the blood-stained tennis dress, but I had the feeling it would be appropriate to buy her a new one. That wouldn’t have been a problem if I had even the faintest idea as to where to begin shopping for such a thing.

“He was asking me about places where he could rent a sailboat for a day or two. I can’t remember how it came up, but I’d mentioned that I sail.”

“I didn’t know Ben was a sailor,” I said. Then again, there was a lot about Ben I didn’t know.

“He was thinking it would be fun to get out on the water for an afternoon,” said Caro. “I suggested a couple of marinas where you can rent boats, and I even offered to lend him mine.”

“Uh-huh,” I said distractedly, stealing a surreptitious glance at my BlackBerry. The little red light was flashing again.

“I don’t use it as much as I’d like, and it’s a pity for it just to sit there, empty,” Caro said, presumably about her boat.

“Uh-huh,” I said again as I scrolled through the messages that had accumulated. Ben, as if he knew we would be talking about him, had sent me a text just a few minutes earlier. I clicked it open.

Sorry I missed your call. Still waiting on list of L’ini owners and haven’t gotten to receipts yet. Following up on hunch now. Will check in later. Ben

Belatedly, I realized we’d neglected to tell him Hilary was safe, although, from his perspective, it might be better for her to have been abducted than gushing with unprecedented excitement about the new man in her life. And his message served as a vivid reminder that he should have known better than to think things would work out with Hilary-she would never be able to sustain a long-term relationship with someone who used emoticons.

I was in a mean mood now, and this was a mean thought on my part, but it wasn’t the meanness that gave me pause. In fact, it was more than a pause-it was an epiphany. The realization washed over me with abrupt clarity, leaving me amazed at how long it had taken to arrive.

Hilary could never have written that text.

All of Hilary’s friends knew there was a long and varied list of things for which she had little patience, but the message Luisa and I had received included several items near the top of that list: an immoderate use of exclamation points for starters, not to mention gushing professions of love, and, most importantly, emoticons. Falling in love might have given her newfound patience when it came to gushing, and perhaps even about exclamation points, but nothing was powerful enough to overcome her passionate distaste for emoticons.

But Luisa and I had both been so eager to get back to our own lives that we’d accepted the text as legitimate and dismissed Peter’s concerns without a second thought. I couldn’t help but groan.

“Are you all right?” asked Caro.

“What? Oh, I’m fine, thanks.” But perhaps some degree of osmosis had indeed occurred, because my mind was suddenly working with a speed and precision I hadn’t felt since my last Diet Coke, and it was pointing me in an entirely new direction. I knew with absolute certainty what had happened: Hilary’s kidnapper must have found the phone she’d used, seen the SOS texts she’d sent early Sunday morning and was now trying to counteract them via the same medium.

Which meant Hilary was still missing.

Which also meant we were back to Alex Cutler. Only, we couldn’t be back to Alex Cutler, because I also now knew he’d given Caro a ride home from the party, and not in a Lamborghini but in an SUV.

Which meant we were back to square one, which meant Iggie. But Abigail was confident Iggie was telling the truth about having left Hilary at the Four Seasons, and something told me she was right. Being married to a person provided excellent training in lie detection. Or so I’d heard. The way things were going, it was unlikely I’d ever find out for myself.

Which meant we were back to whatever came before square one.

And that’s when I had another epiphany, and this one was also well overdue.

We’d been overlooking the most obvious suspect.

What if Hilary’s disappearance had nothing at all to do with Igobe or her magazine article? If that were the case, then we’d ignored the very first person we should have considered, the very first person it was customary to consider when something happened to a woman: namely, her husband, boyfriend or significant other.

And in this case, that very first person was Ben.