The Hunt Read Online Free PDF

two floors above. I gripped the seat of my chair with both hands to keep myself at the table.
    But no sooner had our cell phones stopped than the Forrests’ home phone began to ring. “I’ll get that,” said Susan, just as both Peter’s phone and my phone started up again. She reached for the extension on the wall with one hand and started clearing plates from the table with the other, and Charles rose to help her.
    I took this as a cue the meal was over and rushed up the stairs to answer my phone, calling over my shoulder for them to leave the dishes to me. Normal future daughters-in-law probably delighted in post-meal cleanup.
    I grabbed my BlackBerry a second after it stopped ringing. Peter was more successful, reaching his own phone just in time. He would undoubtedly attribute his success to hydration, even though I’d beaten him up the stairs.
    “Hello? Oh, hi, Abigail,” he said. “It’s Abigail,” he mouthed to me, as if I couldn’t figure that out from his greeting. Perhaps he thought caffeine withdrawal was impeding my mental processes. Based on how I was starting to feel, this wasn’t entirely out of the question.
    I began scrolling through my message log. There were several missed calls, some of which must have come through while we were out on Peter’s little adventure in sadism. The most recent were from Luisa.
    “Really?” Peter said into his phone. The way he said it, with a combination of curiosity, invitation, and amusement, made me look up. It was the gossipy tone of a morning-after debrief.
    “I can check with Rachel, but I’m pretty sure Luisa’s not dating anyone.”
    I shook my head to confirm this was true. “Not since she and Isobel broke up last fall. Did something happen?” I asked excitedly, trying to keep my voice low so Abigail couldn’t hear me.
    “With Abigail and Luisa?”
    Peter covered the phone’s mouthpiece with his hand. “She’s not saying anything specific, but she wants the scoop.” He took his hand away from the phone and spoke into it. “Luisa was in a relationship for a long time, but they broke up in the fall.”
    I enjoyed listening to Peter gossip like this—it was a side of him I didn’t see often—and it was somehow comforting to know that a woman who looked like Abigail still needed reassurances before embarking on a new relationship. And now I also knew why Luisa had been trying to reach me. She probably wanted the lowdown on Abigail.
    My phone rang again, and I consulted the caller ID. Sure enough, it was Luisa. I pressed a button to answer the call.
    “Is there something you’d like to tell me, young lady?” I asked with mock severity.
    “It’s about time,” said Luisa, her tone harried. “I’ve been trying to reach you for ages. It’s important.”
    “Is it?” I asked, still teasing. It was rare for Luisa to be anything but perfectly composed, and I was savoring this unusual role reversal.
    But I definitely wasn’t expecting what she said next.
    “It’s Hilary. She’s disappeared.”
    4
    I t took a moment for Luisa’s words to sink in, but once they did, my response came easily.
    “It wouldn’t be the first time,” I said, which was true. We’d initially been alarmed on those freshman-year mornings when we’d found Hilary’s top bunk empty, but we soon grew accustomed to her showing up a day or two later with a satisfied look on her face, and a few days after that there would be yet another guy whose calls she wouldn’t take.
    “This is serious, Rachel.”
    “We are talking about Hilary, right?”
    “I spoke to Ben. He said she left the party without him, but she’s still not back, and he hasn’t heard from her. I’m worried.”
    “Well, we know she was ready to break up with Ben. Maybe this was her way of doing it. Tact Page 13

    has never exactly been one of her strengths, and she and Iggie looked as if they were really hitting it off last night, bizarre as that might seem.” Hilary was usually disciplined