Chapter 3 .

I stepped onto the pedestrian trail along the railroad tracks, pulling my trolley bag behind me. I was also wearing a backpack. The Mountain View Caltrain was crowded to the brim, but I cut through the crowd and made my way to View Street where my waiting chauffeur had found parking.

The chauffeur was of middle-height, surely nothing short of late fifties. He looked the part in his plain white shirt, dark pants, matching coat suit and a top hat. He was standing beside a Tesla when I found him and a smile broke out on my lips. I had never been in one before.

The chauffeur took my trolley bag and made for the trunk while I pulled open the back door and climbed into the car. I slipped out of the backpack and kept it on the cushion beside me. I took out my phone from my pocket and headed straight for Molly's private message.

Tesla, baby! You owe me ninety now.

I chuckled as I thumbed the send button, adding a laughing emoji. Molly staked ninety dollars that I would be picked up in a Ferrari. I told her it was going to be anything but a Ferrari. I had been in a Ferrari a couple of times and I really didn't fancy going to the home of the wealthiest man in Silicon Valley in a Ferrari. I believed Snow had to offer something different from all those blind dates I had gone on that ended uneventfully, but the dates were still graceful enough to give me a ride back home. High-end cars were practically the plaything of Silicon Valley's residents and Ferrari was the most common.

Teslas are a great place to think about your future, by the way. I couldn't shake off the thought that the next thirty days would be a very long one month. In a matter of days, I had gone from being a tabloid journalist with Hunch Spotter to a college student of Stanford University interning at Raiden Snow's Mays Games.

In a month of pretending to be a college student, if I couldn't find proof of a Raiden Snow's #MeToo scandal, I would have to create one. The thought of my mother in her Garden City, ID home burned at the root of my mind. I could see her watching the court proceedings when Raiden Snow would turn on me with all of his litigant might. I could see tabloids digging into Gina Howard and ripping her apart. I pulled a grimace at the thoughts and made a go at shooing them out of my consciousness.

The road was clear when my chauffeur, whose name I had learned was Gerald Reeves, steered left onto Alto Verde Lane and a couple yards in, he swerved right onto a paved straight road that led us to a fifty-three-foot automatic sliding cantilever gate. We had only a brief moment to wait before the gate was slid open through a switch in the gatehouse.

Reeves floored the gas pedal once more and we continued down the straight path. Beyond the gate, the path was bordered on either side by a canopy of lush foliage that stretched out to an ultra-modern mansion built of glass, wood and concrete. I peered out the window with saucer-sized eyes as we drove past a mini golf green. Flanked on the right was a plot of a cared-for vineyard, but nothing was as jaw-dropping as the architectural perfection ahead of us.

The closer we got the more daunting the residence looked and without a shadow of doubt, I could tell that the estate sat on a parcel of up to an acre and half or something close to that. So, I asked my chauffeur. "How big is this estate?"

Eyes steady ahead of him, Gerald replied, "Two acres."

"Oh em gee!" I choked out with a bellow.

The estate held a promise of panoramic bay views as it was tucked into close proximity with downtown Los Altos. Okay, this was a twist I didn't expect. I knew Los Altos Hills couldn't be the playground of Silicon Valley's biggest stars all for nothing, but this, this was huger than I expected and I was so ready for the hereafter.

Reeves brought the Tesla to a halt in front of an imposing water fountain which was nine feet of tiered basins, with the water getting pushed up the tiers through a pump and cascading down to a large bottom reservoir.

"We are here, Miss Freeman." Reeves said, cutting off the engine. "Welcome to the Snow House."

Yeah, for this undercover operation I was no longer Gina Howard but Regina Freeman, a 22-year-old software engineering undergrad from Stanford University whose internship application got accepted by Mays Games. I had said my new name a million times to myself and yet, the last name didn't sound like it belonged to me.

My eyes were still glued to the edifice. Reeves opened his door and climbed out of the car. He came round to the back door and pulled it open for me. Without taking my eyes off the Snow House, as if it could all disappear if I shifted my attention even for a moment, I stepped out of the Tesla.