Read Online The Hunt by Jennifer Sturman - Free Book Online Page B

dressing me up like a bridesmaid.
    This was probably ironic on some level, but I was too conscious of being late to meet Ben and Luisa and too badly in need of a Diet Coke to figure out how. My head was pounding and my hands had started to twitch. I was rooting through my purse, hoping in vain that I’d stashed some Advil in there, when the photo of Iggie, Biggie and person-unknown fell out onto the sales counter.
    Susan got to it before I did. “Here you go, dear,” she said, handing it to me, but then she paused, looking at the picture. “What a small world,” she said. “How do you know Leo?”
    “Leo?”
    “Leo. Here.” She pointed to the guy standing to the right of Iggie.
    “I don’t know him, actually. The person in the middle is someone I know from college, Iggie Berhrenz. He was at the party last night.”
    Fortunately, Susan didn’t ask why I was carrying around a picture of Iggie, as that would have been hard to explain, nor did she think it strange when I asked if she knew Leo’s last name.
    “Now, what was it?” she mused. “I may have forgotten, but I’m not sure if I ever knew it. He was always just Leo.”
    “Then how did you know his first name?” asked Peter, who had reappeared at my side far too Page 25

    late to intercede in Susan’s purchases on my behalf.
    “From Berkeley,” she said, pointing at the building in the background. “That’s Sproul Hall, on the U.C. Berkeley campus. Remember when I taught a seminar at the law school there, a few years back? Leo was one of the graduate students who worked in tech support. You know, helping faculty when they had computer problems. He could fix anything, and he was always so nice about it. Once, he stayed up all night helping me recover a lost file, and he refused to let me pay him anything extra for his time. And he’s a friend of your friend. What a small world,” she repeated in wonder.
    It wasn’t that small. After all, Iggie and his ex-wife had gone to graduate school at Berkeley, as well. But at least we now could put part of a name to the unidentified face, and it shouldn’t prove too hard to find out the rest of the name, or, I hoped, to track down its owner and ask him why he thought Hilary had felt it necessary to stash the picture in such a top-secret locale.
    He might even know where we could find Iggie. All we had to do was check with the university and ask them about former graduate students named Leo who had worked in tech support and helped visiting law-school instructors. With a name like Leo, it would be easy, I thought, pleased.
    My pleasure was almost enough to blot out any concerns about just where Peter’s mother thought I’d be wearing my pink dress and matching shoes.
    8
    W e said goodbye to Susan outside Saks after agreeing to meet for an early dinner in Chinatown.
    She offered to take the shopping bags home, which was nice of her, but it also meant I wouldn’t have the opportunity to accidentally allow my new outfit to be crushed under a passing cable car.
    “Thank you for standing idly by while your mother dressed me up like Bridesmaid Barbie,” I said to Peter as we waited to cross Post Street.
    “I thought you looked cute,” he said, putting his arm around my shoulders. “The pink is amazing with your hair.”
    I found his utter cluelessness about such matters to be part of his charm, so I didn’t bother to debate this with him. “What were all those phone calls?” I asked.
    “The valet service tracked down the guys who parked cars at the party last night and had them get in touch with me. There were three in total—high-school kids who work for the service on weekends.”
    “Did any of them remember Hilary?”
    “Did I mention they were in high school? They all remembered Hilary. She’s the living incarnation of adolescent male fantasy.”
    “I’m sure there were posters of women just like her decorating the walls at your frat house,” I said.
    “It wasn’t that sort of fraternity,”