It took more than half an hour to get from Pacific Heights to the hotel, a drive that had taken less than fifteen minutes when we’d made it in the opposite direction at one that morning. Gustav and Ray were gone, replaced by the day-shift staff, but Luisa and Abigail were waiting for us.

“Where’s Ben?” I asked as they slid into the backseat.

“Do I look like Ben’s keeper?” snapped Luisa, quickly putting to rest any hopes that her mood had improved overnight. At least I could be confident she was keeping up her end of the dare. This was the only reason I refrained from remarking on Abigail’s clothes, which were different than what she’d been wearing the previous night but also looked suspiciously like an outfit I’d recently seen on Luisa.

“Ben said he had a few things he wanted to follow up on here in the city,” supplied Abigail before embarking on a detailed discussion with Peter of which route to take. Apparently the 101 was more direct but the 280 more scenic.

My brain was still working too slowly to wonder what, exactly, Ben was following up on or if it was related in any way to what he’d been doing while Luisa and Abigail had been dining à deux the previous evening. Nor did I pay attention to the route Peter ultimately decided upon, as I never paid attention to directions when I wasn’t driving. Whichever highway we ended up on was choked with cars in both directions, including an astonishing number of hybrids. I’d seen a handful of them in Manhattan, and even a few hybrid taxis, but here we were surrounded.

As we meandered south in stop-and-go traffic, Peter and I filled in Luisa and Abigail on the text of the file he’d decrypted, showing them a printout of the e-mail, and together we discussed the ways in which the various dots might connect.

“Let me make sure I understand,” said Luisa in a way that really suggested she was having difficulty understanding how she’d found herself involved in this whole mess in the first place. “To start with, there’s Marxist Santa, who’s trying to throw a wrench into the Igobe IPO by leading all of the investment bankers who might handle the IPO on a scavenger hunt.”

“It’s not the most direct way to go about things, but I can’t figure out why else he’d be targeting the people he’s been targeting,” I said.

“And we’re sure that Marxist Santa has inside access to Igobe?” asked Abigail.

“How else would he know which bankers to target?” I said.

“And then there’s the hacker, Petite Fleur, who also wants to bring Igobe down by compromising its technology,” said Peter.

“So Petite Fleur is second. And then there’s the third person we know Hilary’s met with at least once, presumably about her Igobe article, and who also has a soft spot for Karl Marx,” Luisa said.

“Which suggests that the third person from Hilary’s e-mail could be the same as the first person, Marxist Santa,” I concluded. “And maybe Marxist Santa knows what Petite Fleur is up to, and that’s what he’s promising Hilary will be the ‘story of the century.’ Or maybe Marxist Santa and Petite Fleur are one and the same.”

“Obviously,” said Luisa dryly. I had to admit, I was pretty confused myself.

“Is it possible that this person-or persons-kidnapped Hilary?” asked Abigail.

I thought about that. “I guess it’s not impossible, but Hilary’s on his side. Or their side.”

“And which side is that?” asked Luisa.

“The side that’s standing in the way of the people who would benefit from an Igobe IPO. Namely, Iggie and Alex Cutler,” I said, trying to sound less confused than I felt.

“It would be good to know when and where ‘same time’ and ‘same place’ are supposed to be,” mused Abigail. “Did Hilary tell any of you where she’d been in the days leading up to the party?”

She might have, I thought guiltily, but I’d been so wrapped up in proving my normality I hadn’t paid much attention.

“I only remember her mentioning she’d been doing research,” said Luisa. “I don’t think she told me where, and I didn’t ask.”

“Ben might know,” suggested Peter.

Ben hadn’t seemed to know much of anything thus far, but maybe he’d come through on this. “We should call him. Do you know if he’s still at the hotel-” I started to ask.

But then I had another idea, and it was nothing short of brilliant. “I think I may be a genius.”

“Rachel, you are many things, but you are not a genius,” said Luisa.

I chalked this up to nicotine withdrawal and let it go. “Hilary left a pile of receipts in her room. Maybe one of the receipts is from where she met the person from the e-mail.”

“So we could put together where Hilary was and when she was there from the receipts?” asked Peter.

“Exactly. Then we can meet up at the same time and same place with the person who sent the e-mail, and he might be able to help us locate Hilary. And maybe we can also find out if he is, in fact, Marxist Santa and what he thinks the story of the century is.”

“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?”