Chapter 12 Hunter Hunted

(Author's Note: The TV series left a lot of Ryan Hunter's past mysterious. Here is my take on the character)

"Why the hell did you second that nomination?"

"Why the hell did you did you accept it, if you didn't want it?" returned Joan.

"Temporary insanity," grumbled Grace.

"If you can claim insanity, so can I. After all, I've been in a Crazy Camp."

"Girls! Please calm down," said Luke. "Friday nights are the only times we can go over secrets, so let's not waste time." They were gathered in Luke's room. Their parents were by now used to Grace's Friday sleepovers and left them to themselves.

"That's easy for you to say," snarled Grace. "You won't have to get your ass in an evening dress." She brightened at a thought. "Though as my escort, you WILL have to rent a tuxedo."

"Luke's right; we've got problems to focus on," Joan said. "I keep talking to Friedmann, trying to persuade him to stand by Glynis, but he keeps saying, 'Oh, you girls stick together.' Maybe you could talk to him, man-to-man, Luke."

"Maybe. But I want to talk about my research on Hunter first."

"Go ahead," said Grace.

"I did some of the hacking that Friedmann recommended, and the earliest mention that I could find of Ryan Hunter was February of this year, applying to replace a "lost" driver's license. Before then he was somebody else. Let's call him X. Giving things names makes them more concrete, easier to visualize."

"'To give airy nothing a local habitation and a name'" chanted Grace. As the other two stared she said, "Shakespeare. Never mind."

"I get it," mused Joan. "We can deduce a lot of things about X. He'd be Hunter's age, about the mid-twenties. And he would have disappeared just before Hunter appeared in February."

"And unless he came here specifically to look for Joan," said Grace, getting into the spirit of things, "he must be from this area of the country."

"And one more thing," said Luke. "X must have had a lot of money. Remember that when Hunter first appeared, he was already rich."

"He told Dad that he was independently wealthy," recalled Joan.

"Yeah. That was to avoid raising suspicion. If you have a lot of money and no obvious source, saying you inherited it is about the only thing that sounds legitimate. Otherwise somebody like Dad would think of things like money laundering and black marketing. But what actually happened is that X somehow left the money for Hunter to claim."

"So we follow the money, like the people in the movies?" asked Grace.

"Maybe, but I'm not very used to finances. I think it would be better to stick to finding somebody fitting X's description. A young wealthy man disappearing, or "dying" without leaving a body behind -- that's going to attract a lot of attention. I'll get on the Internet, look for news stories around the beginning of the year. That part's actually legal. Joan, you're taking Law. See if you can find out how somebody can transfer a lot of money without attracting suspicion."

The girls agreed that it would be a good strategy, and so they separated to go to bed for a night. Grace was using Kevin's old room, and it was starting to look as anarchic as her own.

The next day Luke spent several hours scanning the Internet for missing-person stories, intermixed with homework. By evening he was tired out, and decided to watch an old science-fiction movie on TV. Normally he had to fight for TV dibs (and usually lost) but on this particular Saturday Mom and Dad were going out to a concert, and Joan was on a date with Adam.

Joan came back a little earlier than expected, and her manner with Adam was very stiff at the door. She didn't invite him in to relax. Luke watched from the sofa, deciding that this was more interesting than his movie, but he stayed quiet until Joan shut the door on her boyfriend.

"What's wrong?" he asked. "Did Adam do something out of line?"

"No," she said ruefully. "I did."

"What do you mean?"

"We've got problems, Luke. Adam can tell that we're spending less time together than last year. First he thought there was another boy, then that I was simply losing interest. I felt that I had to do something rather drastic to prove that I loved him."

"What did you do?".

Joan turned red. "I offered to-to let him s-see me topless."

"What! Did you--?"

"Nope. Adam got real mad. Said he wanted Jane, not a centerfold."

"I still can't believe that you offered that. You've always been so shy about showing your body." He remembered how Joan always wore one-piece bathing suits when she swam (and even that was rare) and had been extremely embarrassed when pranksters had taken a phone-photo of her changing for gym, even though it hadn't revealed much. Over the years, Luke had had a couple of accidental glimpses of his sister naked, and thought, in a distant way, that she had little to be ashamed of, but it would be very awkward to tell her that.

"Yeah. Eventually Adam remembered that, and realized how painful the offer meant for me, and he calmed down. But you saw how awkward we were."

"Right. OK, Joan, concentrate on mending fences with Adam. I'll try to going to bat for Glynis this time."

------------------------

On Tuesday Luke visited Friedmann on pretext of asking him about decryption software, which he needed for the Hunter project. While there, he turned the subject to Glynis. Friedmann was clearly weary of talking about it.

"Look, I told Glynis that I'd stand by her, even marry her if she wants. But in return I want a promise that she'll give up the baby for adoption. We simply can't be burdened with a baby while starting out in a demanding college."

"Apparently she's afraid it won't be raised as a Jew."

"As if she was that observant. Yeah, I spoke to her grandmother. But one baby can't make that much difference in demographics."

"It isn't just demographics. Ripples matter. Glynis' baby could grow up to be somebody great, if it's raised right."

"In that case, maybe it's better if I don't get involved."

In the end, Luke had to admit that he had gotten nowhere -- except for an improved knowledge at decryption codes.

-----

"I think I've zeroed in on the right suspect for X," he told Joan and Grace when they re-gathered the next Friday. "There was a guy named Harold Reynolds, who disappeared in a winter storm while sailing in Chesapeake Bay. People had warned him that the weather was bad for it, but he insisted in going out anyway. The police made a report on the disappearance, and I was able to break into that."

"What do you know about his past?" asked Grace.

"Several things. His parents died when he was young, leaving him a sizable trust fund. He was brought up by a Reynolds uncle."

"Hunter said he was an orphan, though I didn't whether to believe him," remembered Joan.

"But here's the clincher. Reynolds had a girlfriend named Aurora Gottin. Last November, she went hiking on Mt. Nashman. During the hike, she lost her balance on a steep trail, fell and hit her head badly. Searchers found her dead. Reynolds was reportedly very upset at her death, so much so that some people told police that they thought his death was a suicide. That's why the police file was so detailed; they were trying to determine motivation."

"Mt. Nashman?" repeated Grace. "That's where Adam was stranded--"

"-- and where Ryan Hunter rescued him," said Joan. "I always wondered why. At first I thought he wanted to get on Adam's good side, then pump him for information about me. But when I got back together with Adam, and asked some careful questions, it turned out that Hunter never asked about me. So why risk his life to find Adam?"

"Because, from his point of view, it was like a second chance," mused Grace. "If he couldn't rescue Aurora, he could rescue somebody else, get a symbolic victory. You're right, Luke, I think Hunter must have been Reynolds."

"Do you have anything else?" asked Joan.

"Yeah. The police examined Reynolds' computer after his disappearance, and find two Emails. One from Aurora, sent a few days before her death, and another from a Reynolds cousin with whom he had been brought up. But they're encrypted."

"Can you break in?" asked Grace.

"Yeah, but the question is: should I break in? We all have our secrets, and we'd hate to have somebody break into our mail. If we're wrong and Reynolds isn't Hunter, we're prying into somebody's private tragedy. And as a policeman's son, I feel guilty about breaking into police records in the first place. Do we really want to pursue this?"

The three exchanged worried looks.

"Let's think about it for a week," suggested Joan. "When we get back together, we'll vote on what to do. Two out of three wins."

They agreed on that, and dispersed to go to bed again.

TBC