The Hunt

29

“What have you done?” cried Alex, jumping up from his seat. He rushed to stand before the screen, rereading the words in disbelief.

“This can’t be happening,” moaned Iggie. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

Leo ignored them. “I’ve put in a counter, right there,” he said as his finger swam onto the screen and pointed at a box in the corner. “To track how many people download the software. The word should be starting to get out-I announced the launch on my blog a few minutes ago. Let’s watch, shall we?”

Eleven, read the number in the box. But then it turned to twelve, and then to thirteen. Then, right before our eyes, it jumped to eighteen, and from there to thirty-five. A moment later, the count had passed two hundred, and a moment after that it topped a thousand. The digits began moving so quickly they were barely legible.

“Make it stop,” said Iggie. He’d pulled his knees up to his chest and was rocking back and forth in his chair. “Somebody make it stop.”

“Have I mentioned this is live?” Leo said with a chuckle. “I bet we’ll be at a million before the day is over, and ten million in a week.”

“Are you insane?” shouted Alex Cutler, at Leo presumably.

Leo considered this. “No, I don’t think so.”

“You’ve ruined everything!” Alex’s future bank account was declining in direct proportion to the rate at which the number in the box, and his heart rate, increased.

“Do you need me to explain it again?” Leo asked, his voice calm. He moved his finger, pointing to another box on the screen. “Check this out. It looks like people are making donations, too.”

$25,412, read the number in this box, but only for a second. In a flash it was closing in on $40,000, and this was just the beginning.

Alex let out a bellow of rage. “That’s my money,” he yelled. “You’ve stolen my money.”

“I wouldn’t call it stealing, and it’s all going to good causes,” said Leo reasonably.

“Call him off,” said Alex, his eyes darting around the room. “Somebody call him off. We’ll do whatever he wants us to do. Just call him off.”

“Too late,” I said with a shrug.

“And too bad you can’t Taser him from here, isn’t it?” added Hilary.

“You-” said Alex. His hands clenched into fists, and he lunged for her.

She shoved an empty chair at him, and it hit him hard, right in the knee. Judging by his cry of anguish, it was the same knee she’d kicked before.

“That must have hurt,” Hilary said with a delighted grin.

“You-” said Alex again, bending over, his face twisted in a grimace of pain.

“What are you going to do now?” Leo asked him from the screen. “Kill her?”

I didn’t know whether it was the lost fortune, the second blow to his knee or the taunting that pushed Alex over the edge, but over the edge he went.

“I was waiting for when I would have time to take the boat out far enough to dump the body,” he raged. “I couldn’t kill her before then. The body would have started to smell. But I shouldn’t have waited. I should have killed her. And I should have killed you when I had the chance, Leo. Then you would have been really dead. I should have known you’d spoil everything if you could.”

“Was that a confession?” asked Luisa.

“It sounded like a confession to me,” said Hilary.

“It was definitely a confession,” I said. “Good thing we’re recording this. You got that, right Leo?”

“Got it,” he confirmed, tilting the camera to show the screen of another electronic device. We could see red letters displaying Recording before Leo turned the camera back to his computer screen.

Iggie, meanwhile, continued to rock and moan, and the numbers on the screen ticked higher.

Alex looked wildly around the room, momentarily speechless as he absorbed what he’d just done. With a roar he picked up a chair and threw it at the screen. The chair bounced and tumbled to the floor, leaving a dent on the screen where it had hit, but the numbers in the boxes continued their steady upward climb.

“Alex, Alex,” said Leo. “Haven’t you learned by now that violence solves nothing?”

Apparently he hadn’t, because that’s when all hell broke loose.

Alex picked up a second chair, and he threw this one at the Webcam, knocking it onto the floor before picking up yet another chair. This one he pitched toward the head of the table.

“Get down!” yelled Peter, and everyone dived for cover. The chair crashed into one glass wall, splintering it, and Alex followed it up with another chair, and then another and another. Shards of glass flew around the room as the barrage continued.

Then I heard Ben cry out. There was a thud, and the room went suddenly still.

A second later, rough hands grabbed me around the neck and pulled me out from where Peter had pushed me under the table. Alex yanked me into a standing position, and I felt something cold and hard against my temple. Then I heard the unmistakable noise of a gun being cocked.

“Everybody just shut up and back off,” he yelled. “I need to think.”

I could understand why he needed to think, but I didn’t see why he had to do it with a gun pointed at my head. Ben was out cold, yet again, which was how Alex had managed to steal his weapon. Between getting dumped and then being clobbered over the head twice in two days, Ben might end up winning the prize for the worst San Francisco visit ever.

“Uh, Alex,” I said, as politely as I could under the circumstances. “Do you really want to add a successful murder to the various attempted charges you’ve already racked up?”

That probably wasn’t the right thing to say, because he only tightened his grip around my neck, jabbed the gun harder at my temple, and began edging toward the door.

“Rachel and I are going to go somewhere to think,” said Alex, dragging me backward. “As long as nobody bothers us, nobody will get hurt.”

Personally, I didn’t find this promise credible. Neither did Peter, because he slowly eased up from the crouching position he’d assumed. “Alex, look, it’s not too late to get everything straightened out,” he said, making the smallest of movements in our direction.

Alex lifted the gun from my head and pointed it at Peter. “Don’t take another step,” he said. “Not even an inch. And that goes for the rest of you, too,” he added, training the gun on the assembled group.

Peter held his hands up, palms out. “Why don’t you take me with you, instead?” he said. “We’ve got a history, after all. I could help you talk everything through.”

“Peter, you can’t just switch places with me,” I said. “You might get hurt.”

“Better me than you,” he said.

“Dude, it’s not your choice,” said Alex. “I’m the one with the gun, remember?” As if to remind us, he jabbed it against my temple again.

“What do you care which hostage you have as long as you have a hostage?” Peter asked.

“Well, for starters, you’re a lot bigger than she is. Don’t take this the wrong way, Rachel, but as hostages go, I’d rather have a weakling. No offense.”

“None taken,” I said.

“But I’d make a better shield,” Peter pointed out. “Since I’m bigger. If somebody tries to get at you, they’d have to get through me, and there’s more of me than there is of Rachel.”

“I’m not going to stand here arguing about who I’m taking hostage,” Alex said.

But all of this debate had distracted him. I saw movement from the corner of one eye, and then I heard the sort of grunting battle cry I’d only heard before in Jackie Chan movies.

I would have ducked if Alex didn’t have me in a headlock. There was a whir of navy pant-suited limbs, and the gun went flying in one direction and Alex went flying in another, slamming against the conference table. Miraculously, I hadn’t been touched.

“Ooof!” said Alex, right before one of Caro’s legs whipped out and caught him in the abdomen. Then her other leg whipped out to catch him in the same sore knee, and he gave a tortured groan.

Caro made the Jackie Chan noise again, and with a final flying kick, she finished him off.

Of course, I thought, watching as Alex fell to the ground. Caro would be a black belt, too, on top of everything else.