All Dressed in White

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  In memory of

  Joan Nye

  Dear friend since our days at Villa Maria Academy

  With love

  —MARY

  For Richard and Jon

  —ALAFAIR

  Acknowledgments

  We now know who did it! Others in this tale are no longer “under suspicion.”

  Once again it has been my joy to cowrite with my fellow novelist, Alafair Burke. When we put our creative brains together we have a lot of fun.

  Marysue Rucci, editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster, is again our mentor on this journey. A thousand thanks for all the help.

  Thank you to Dr. Frederick Jaccarino for his helpful expertise on a medical issue in this story.

  “Root, root, root” for the home team. In my case it is “my spouse extraordinaire,” John Conheeney; my children; and my right-hand assistant, Nadine Petry. They are always with me with words of encouragement and solid advice. Thank you, merci, gracias, etc. etc. etc.

  And you, my dear readers. You are always in my thoughts as I write. If you choose to read my books, I want you to feel as though you have spent your time well.

  Cheers and Blessings,

  Mary

  Here comes the bride dressed all in light

  Radiant and lovely she shines in his sight

  Prologue

  It was Thursday evening in mid-April at the Grand Victoria Hotel in Palm Beach.

  Amanda Pierce, the bride-to-be, was trying on her wedding gown with the help of her longtime friend Kate.

  “Pray God it fits,” she said, but then the zipper finally glided past that tricky spot above her waistline.

  “I can’t believe you were the least bit concerned that it wouldn’t fit,” Kate said matter-of-factly.

  “Well, after all the weight loss last year, I was afraid I might have put on just enough to strain at the waistline. I thought better to know now than Saturday. Can’t you just see us struggling with the zipper as I’m about to walk down the aisle?”

  “We won’t,” Kate declared emphatically. “I don’t know why you were so nervous about it. Look in the mirror. You’re gorgeous.”

  Amanda gazed at her reflection. “It is lovely, isn’t it?” She thought of how she had tried on more than a hundred gowns, checking out Manhattan’s finest bridal shops, before spotting this one at a tiny store in Brooklyn Heights. Off-white silk with an empire waist and handmade lace overlay for the bodice—it was everything she had pictured. In forty-three hours, she would be wearing it down the aisle.

  “More than lovely,” Kate declared. “So why do you look so sad?”

  Amanda looked again in the mirror. Blond with a heart-shaped face, wide blue eyes, long lashes, and naturally raspberry-colored lips, she knew she had been blessed with good features. But Kate was right. She did look sad. Not sad, exactly, but worried. The dress fits perfectly, she reminded herself. That must be a sign, right? She forced herself to smile. “I was just wondering how much I could eat tonight and still fit in this on Saturday.”

  Kate laughed and patted her own, slightly round belly. “Don’t talk that way around me, of all people. Seriously, Amanda, are you okay? Are you still thinking about our conversation yesterday?”

  Amanda waved a hand. “Not a second thought,” she answered, knowing she was not being truthful. “Now, help me get out of this thing. The others must be ready to go down to dinner.”

  • • •

  Ten minutes later, alone in her bedroom, now wearing a light blue linen dress, Amanda slipped on an earring and took a final glance at the wedding gown, now carefully spread on the bed. Then she noticed a makeup smear on the lace right beneath the neckline. She had been so cautious, and still the faint smudge was staring back at her. She knew it would come out, but was this perhaps the sign she was waiting for?

  She had spent nearly the last two days as an outsider at her own destination wedding, searching for clues to tell her whether this wedding was meant to be. Looking at that spot on her gown, she made a vow, not to her groom, but to herself: we only get one life in this world, and mine will be happy. If I still have a single lingering doubt, I will not be getting married on Saturday.

  I’ll know soon enough, she told herself.

  In that moment, she found a sense of complete control. She had no foreshadowing of the fact that by tomorrow morning, she would have vanished without a trace.

  1

  Laurie Moran listened as the teenager in front of her practiced her high school French. She was on line at Bouchon, the newly opened French bakery that was around the corner from her Rockefeller Center office.

  “Jay voo-dray un pan chocolate. Make that deux.”

  The cashier smiled patiently as she waited for the young woman to string together her next request. Clearly she was accustomed to these clumsy attempts by customers to practice their French, even though the bakery was in the heart of New York City.

  Laurie wasn’t feeling quite as patient. She was meeting with her boss, Brett Young, later this morning and still hadn’t decided which story to pitch first for her show’s next special. She needed as much time as possible to prepare.

  After a final “mare sea,” the girl left, a box of pastries in hand.

  Laurie was next. “I’ll be ordering in anglais, s’il vous plaît.”

  “Merci,” the woman said fervently.

  It had become a tradition that on Friday mornings she would stop at the bakery and bring in special treats for her staff—her assistant, Grace Garcia, and her assistant producer, Jerry Klein. They were grateful for the selection of tarts, croissants, and breads. After she placed the order, the cashier asked if she cared for anything else. The macarons looked delicious. Maybe just a few for Dad and Timmy after dinner, she promised herself, and as a treat for me if today’s meeting with Brett goes well.

  • • •

  As she stepped from the elevator on the sixteenth floor of 15 Rockefeller Center, she realized how the layout of the Fisher Blake Studios offices reflected the success of her work this past year. She used to be in a small windowless office, sharing an assistant with two other producers, but since she had created a true crime–based “news special” focusing on cold cases, Laurie’s career had taken off. Now she had a long row of windows in a spacious office filled with sleek, modern furnishings. Jerry had been promoted to assistant producer and occupied a smaller office next door. And Grace kept more than busy in a large open space just outside. The three of them now worked full-time on their show, Under Suspicion, freeing them from other run-of-the-mill news programming.

  Grace had recently turned twenty-seven but looked even younger. Laurie had been tempted more than once to tell Grace she didn’t need to wear all of the makeup she meticulously applied every day, but clearly Grace preferred a personal style quite different from Laurie’s classic tastes. Today, she wore a multicolored silk tunic over impossibly slim leggings, with five-inch platform boots. Her long black hair was pulled into an I Dream of Jeannie topknot, teased into a perfect fountain.

  Usually Grace lunged for the bakery bag, but today she did not. “Laurie,” she began slowly.

  “Something wrong, Grace?” Laurie knew her assistant well enough to recognize when she was upset.

  Just as Grace was about to explain, Jerry stepped out of his office. Standing between Jerry’s long, lanky frame and Grace in her sky-high heels always made L
aurie feel short, even though she was a slender five-foot-seven.

  Jerry held up both palms. “There’s a lady sitting in your office. She just showed up. I told Grace to schedule an appointment for her at some other time. For the record, I had nothing to do with this.”

  2

  Sandra Pierce gazed out the window of Laurie Moran’s office. Sixteen floors below was the famous Rockefeller Center skating rink. At least, that’s what Sandra would always see, even now, in the middle of July, when smooth ice and swaying skaters were temporarily replaced with a summer garden and restaurant.

  She pictured her own children skating hand-in-hand at that very spot more than twenty years earlier. Charlotte, the oldest, on one side; Henry, her younger brother, on the other. In the middle was their baby sister Amanda. Her siblings held on to her so tightly that if her skates left the ground, she would still be safely upright.

  Sighing, Sandra turned away from the window and looked for something to keep her attention while she waited. She was surprised at the tidiness of the office. She had never been to a television studio but had been picturing one of those huge open floors with rows of desks like you see in the background of news shows. In contrast, Laurie Moran’s office felt more like a sleek yet comfortable living room.

  Sandra noticed one framed photograph on Laurie’s desk. Seeing the office door still closed, she picked it up and studied it. It was Laurie with her husband, Greg, on a beach. She assumed that the little boy in front of them was their son. Sandra did not know the family personally, but she had seen photographs of both Laurie and Greg online. Sandra’s curiosity about Under Suspicion had been sparked when the show first aired. But when she recently read an article mentioning the producer’s own background with an unsolved crime, Sandra knew she needed to come here to meet Laurie Moran in person.

  She immediately felt guilty for the invasion of Laurie’s privacy. She knew she would not want a stranger looking at photographs of her, Walter, and Amanda. Sandra winced as she realized that the last time she’d been with her ex-husband and youngest daughter was five and a half years ago—the last family Christmas before Amanda’s wedding. Or what was supposed to be her wedding.

  Will I ever get used to thinking of Walter as my ex-husband? she wondered. She met Walter her freshman year at the University of North Carolina. Because of her father’s military career, she had lived all over the world, but never in the South. She was having a hard time adjusting, as if the other students who had grown up there lived by an unwritten code she didn’t understand. Her roommate took her to the first football game of the season, promising that once she cheered on the Tar Heels, she’d be an authentic North Carolinian. Her roommate’s brother brought a friend along. He was a sophomore. His name was Walter, and he was a local boy. He spent more time talking to Sandra than watching the game. By the time they all sang the fight song in the final quarter—“I’m a Tar Heel born, I’m a Tar Heel bred, And when I die, I’m a Tar Heel dead”—Sandra thought to herself, I think I’ve met the man I’m going to marry. She was right. They were together from that time on. They raised their three children in Raleigh, just a half-hour drive from the stadium where they met.

  She thought about how, in the first thirty-two years of their nearly thirty-five-year marriage, they had helped each other in their very different domains. Though Sandra never formally worked for Walter’s family company, she was always advising him on new product launches, advertising campaigns, and especially personnel issues at work. Between the two of them, she was the one most attuned to people’s emotions and motivations. Walter returned the favor by pitching in whenever he could to help her with the church, school, and community projects she was always overseeing. She almost smiled remembering the sight of her big bear Walter numbering hundreds of tiny rubber duckies with a Sharpie for the annual rotary duck race on the Ol’ Bull River, reciting each number aloud as he added a new duck to the pile.

  Walter used to tell her that they were partners in everything. Of course, she realized now that was never quite true. As hard as Walter tried, he struggled as a father. He would show up to recitals and baseball games, but the kids could tell that his mind was somewhere else. Usually, his thoughts were on work—a new product line, manufacturing flaws at one of the factories, a retailer insisting on further discounts. For Walter, his best contribution as a father was taking care of the business, creating a legacy and financial security for the family. That left Sandra to make up for his emotional detachment from their three children.

  And then, two years ago, she had made a decision. She knew that she could no longer tolerate Walter’s extreme discomfort when she mentioned Amanda’s name. We had two ways of grieving, she thought, and there was too much grief for any house to hold under one roof.

  She straightened the pin affixed to her lapel, Amanda’s STILL MISSING pin. She’d lost count of how many she’d had printed over the years. Oh, how Walter despised those pins in boxes all over their house. “I can’t stand looking at them,” he’d say. “I can’t have a single minute in my own home away from imagining what might have happened to Amanda.”

  Had he really expected her to stop looking for their daughter? Impossible. Sandra remained devoted to her mission, and Walter went back to his regular life. No more partnership.

  So now Walter was her “ex-husband,” as strange as the word still sounded to her. She had been in Seattle for nearly two years. She had moved there to be closer to Henry and his family. She now lived in a beautiful Dutch Colonial at the top of Queen Anne and her two grandchildren had their own bedrooms when they stayed overnight at Grandma’s house. Of course, Walter had remained in Raleigh. He’d said that he had to for the company’s sake, at least until he retired, which she knew he never would.

  Sandra heard voices outside the office door, and quickly resumed her seat on the long, white leather sofa beneath the windows. Please, Laurie Moran, please be the one I’ve been praying for.

  3

  When Laurie walked into her office, the woman waiting for her immediately rose from the sofa to extend her hand.

  “Ms. Moran, thank you so much for seeing me. My name is Sandra Pierce.” The handshake was firm, and was accompanied by direct eye contact, but Laurie could see that the woman was nervous. Her words sounded rehearsed, and her voice quivered when she spoke.

  “Your assistant was very kind to let me wait here. I’m afraid I had a bit of a meltdown. I hope she’s not in trouble. She was very kind to me.”

  Laurie placed one hand gently on the woman’s elbow. “Please, Grace already explained that you were quite upset. Is everything okay?”

  In a quick scan of her office, Laurie was certain that the picture frame on her desk was at a slightly different angle. She wouldn’t have noticed the subtle movement of any other item, but that particular possession was especially important. For five years, her office had been devoid of any family photographs. She didn’t want her coworkers at the studio to be faced with a constant reminder that her husband had been murdered, and that the crime was still unsolved. But once the police had identified Greg’s killer, she had framed this picture—the last one she, Timmy, and Greg had taken as a family—and kept it on her desk.

  The woman nodded, but still seemed as though she might break down at the slightest provocation. Laurie led her back to the sofa, where she might be able to calm down.

  “I’m sorry, I’m not usually such a nervous person,” Sandra Pierce began. She folded her hands on her lap to keep them from shaking. “It’s just, I feel sometimes as though I’m running out of options. The local police, the state police, prosecutors, the FBI. I’ve lost track of the number of private investigators. I even hired a psychic. He told me Amanda would be reincarnated in South America in the near future. I never tried that again.”

  The words were flowing so quickly that Laurie was having a hard time following, but she only needed to hear so much to know that Sandra Pierce was yet another person who thought that Under Suspicion could solve her p
roblems. Now that the show was a hit, it seemed there was no limit to the number of people who were certain that a reality-based television show could fix every injustice. Every day, the show’s Facebook page was filled with intricate tales of woe, each of them claiming to be more tragic than the last—stolen cars, cheating husbands, nightmare landlords. There was no question that some of the people asking for help truly needed it, but few of them seemed to understand that Under Suspicion investigated unsolved major crimes, not minor offenses. Even when legitimate crime victims or their families contacted her, Laurie had been forced to turn cases down. She could only produce so many specials.

  “Please, Mrs. Pierce, there’s no need to rush,” Laurie said, even though she was feeling the time before her meeting with Brett ticking away. She went to the door and asked Grace to bring them two coffees. She had been upset with Grace for allowing a random person into her office, but now she understood why she had. There was something about this woman that called for compassion.

  When she turned to face Sandra Pierce again, she noticed that the woman was quite attractive. She had a long, narrow face and shoulder-length, ash-blonde hair. Her eyes were clear blue. Laurie might have guessed Sandra was not much older than her own thirty-six years if not for some telltale wrinkles on her neck.

  “Grace said you’re from Seattle?” Laurie asked.

  “Yes. I thought about writing or calling, but realized you hear from hundreds of people every day. I know it probably seems crazy to you to fly across the country uninvited and unannounced, but I had to do it this way. I had to make sure I didn’t waste the opportunity. I think you’re the one I’ve been waiting for—not you, I’m not a stalker or anything, but your show.”