All Dressed in White Page 6

Laurie was realizing she was at a disadvantage for not having followed the story while it was hot. “Over five years without a word sounds like more than cold feet.”

  “Nothing? No body ever found?”

  Laurie was a journalist, the daughter of a cop, and the widow of an emergency room physician, but she still was not accustomed to Alex’s matter-of-fact approach to speaking about crime. “According to Amanda’s mother, there have been absolutely no new developments in all these years. I got the impression that police were divided—either she left voluntarily or was killed. But either way, they have stopped looking. It’s a cold case.”

  “Meaning, right up your alley. And what’s in Brooklyn?”

  “The would-be groom, Jeff Hunter.” Laurie quickly laid out the basic biography: Colby College, Fordham Law, a job with the Brooklyn Public Defender’s office since graduation. “This is when it gets interesting.” She told him about Amanda’s will, leaving her trust fund to her fiancé. “Amanda’s mother considers him our number one suspect.”

  “Are you worried that because he’s a criminal defense attorney he’ll take the fifth, so to speak, and not do the show?”

  “Exactly. Plus his wife’s a lawyer, too. Her name’s Meghan White. She practices immigration law, not criminal defense, but still—”

  “Even if he’s willing, you’re concerned that she’ll try to stop him.”

  “Or have her own reasons to clam up. Because here’s the thing: Meghan was Amanda’s best friend. She was also there at the Grand Victoria, so she’s a potential suspect, too. Marrying your best friend’s fiancé fifteen months after she disappeared? Seems a little quick to me. I thought since you speak their language, maybe you could help convince them to do the show.”

  “I’m told I can be very persuasive. But do we even know if they’re home?”

  “I left a message on both their phones. Obviously they talked to each other and then Jeff called me back. It took a lot of persuading, but he gave the okay for us to come.”

  Alex leaned toward her until their shoulders touched.

  “Palm Beach sounds like a good place to shoot, don’t you think, Counselor?” she asked him.

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  20

  The converted brownstone looked just as it had appeared when Laurie entered the address into Google Maps’ street-view function. It was a four-story walk-up. No doorman.

  She pressed the buzzer for apartment B, marked “Hunter/White.” Though Amanda’s mother had referred to Meghan as “Mrs. Jeffrey Hunter,” Laurie knew Meghan had retained her maiden name. She had already rehearsed her introduction. She looked at Alex nervously as seconds passed in silence. He pressed the buzzer a second time.

  “The intercom’s broken, Ms. Moran.” The voice came from the second floor above them. She recognized Jeff Hunter, his head out the window, from the LinkedIn profile picture Jerry had shown her. “Are you Alex Buckley?”

  Laurie could see that Jeff was astonished.

  “I just used your closing argument in the J. D. Martin case in a seminar for our new lawyers. Masterful stuff. Just masterful.”

  Alex gave him a friendly wave. “That’s very flattering. Thank you.”

  “Come on up.” He tossed out a key ring, which Alex caught in one hand. “Nice catch.”

  As Alex unlocked the front door, Laurie said, “Did you see the way he looked at you? It’s like he’s a little kid and Derek Jeter just gave him an autograph.”

  “That’s me: the Derek Jeter of law geeks.”

  “See? I knew you’d come in handy.”

  Jeff was waiting for them on the second floor, apartment door open. He was just about six feet tall with dark brown hair and intense hazel eyes.

  “Come in please. I’m Jeff Hunter, by the way, but I guess you know that.” He shook Alex’s hand and then greeted Laurie.

  To Laurie’s relief, Jeff seemed friendly enough as he invited them to sit in the living room. The apartment was small, but comfortable, with a mix of mission-style and contemporary furniture. From a quick scan of the framed photographs arrayed on the console table, she got a sense of Meghan’s appearance. Tall and thin, with long, curly black hair and sharp, angular facial features, she was the opposite of Amanda.

  “Meghan isn’t home from work yet,” Jeff explained, “and it’s very possible she won’t be home for at least another hour.”

  Laurie had been hoping to meet both of them, but on the other hand, she knew this might be her only shot to speak to Jeff alone.

  “On the phone you mentioned that you’re familiar with the show,” she began. “Then you know our show isn’t about singling out any one person as a suspect. It’s about the ways that an unsolved crime can plague the lives of everyone around it. The uncertainty. The lack of closure.”

  “The whispers I hear when someone recognizes my name,” Hunter said bitterly.

  She nodded. “So you know what I’m talking about.”

  “How could I not? I was in an absolute daze after Amanda disappeared. One day, I managed to walk out for a press conference wearing two different shoes. I didn’t even notice that our wedding rings were missing when I was packing up to leave. My God, I felt like I was leaving Amanda behind—”

  Alex interrupted. “The wedding rings were missing? Did Amanda have them? I’ve never heard anyone mention any kind of theft in connection with her disappearance.”

  “I have no idea what happened to them. I put them in my room safe when I got down there on Wednesday, but I admit I was very careless about locking it. A hotel employee must have taken them, but who knows? God, this is taking me back. Five years ago the hardest thing I ever did was to get on that plane. My friends Nick and Austin came with me to my room to help me pack, if you could even call it packing. I was a basket case. We threw my clothes, shoes, everything into the suitcase. It’s possible I even tossed the rings out inadvertently. I was completely out of it. I didn’t even realize I might be under suspicion, as you call it, until Nick and Austin pulled me aside and told me the cops were eyeing me as the chief suspect.”

  Jeff was shaking his head, remembering the moment. “They convinced me I had to look out for myself. The whole story became about money: specifically, how Amanda’s family had it, and mine didn’t. Reporters were calling Amanda the Ladyform Heiress. In comparison, I seemed like a gold digger from the wrong side of the tracks.”

  “Is that when you hired a defense attorney?” Laurie asked.

  “Yes. My friends were looking out for me, but I’ve never had anything to hide. You know, when I first saw your show, I even thought about calling you. It seemed like a way to get people talking about Amanda’s case again. But I didn’t think Amanda’s father would go for it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Not his thing. Walter’s super-quiet and private. Old school. Something like this would strike him as . . . flashy.”

  “It was actually Sandra’s idea,” Laurie explained, “but he’s going along with it.”

  “Also not like him. He’s the boss of that family in every way.”

  Laurie sensed resentment beneath the statement, but would explore it further when the time came. If the time came.

  “They’re no longer together, actually.”

  Jeff looked down at his feet. “I didn’t know. That’s very sad. We didn’t . . . Well, let’s say we fell out of touch. It’s so strange not to know them anymore. When Amanda was sick, I was basically part of their family. By the time we were supposed to get married, I called Sandra and Walter Mom and Pops. Henry said I was like the brother he never had; we were that close. Even Charlotte—Amanda’s sister—had warmed to me, and once you meet her, you’ll know that’s some feat. But then once I told them I was dating Meghan . . . I assume you know about that?”

  Laurie nodded.

  “I didn’t want to hide it from them. I told Sandra I was certain that my feelings for Meghan were real. It obviously changed the way they saw me. I was no longer their ‘Saint Jeffrey
.’ That’s what they used to call me. It was kind of a joke that started when Amanda was sick.”

  “Amanda was ill?”

  “Not by the time of the wedding, but she’d had Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Diagnosed at twenty-six. We’d been dating for about a year, but on and off, the way things go when you’re young.”

  “Only a year?” Alex asked.

  “As a couple, yeah. The news kept saying we were college sweethearts, but we were just acquaintances at Colby. It was actually Meghan who reintroduced us after we all moved to New York. Meghan and I were young lawyers, and Amanda had moved here to open a New York City office for her father’s company. We liked each other a lot immediately, but at first the relationship wasn’t a priority. We were both working all the time. Anyway, when Amanda got the diagnosis, I realized I didn’t want to spend one more second away from this amazing woman. I proposed before we even knew whether she’d make it. The chemo made her so sick, it was hard to watch, but she beat it. That’s where I got the ‘Saint Jeffrey’ nickname. Every time she went to the doctor, every time she was sick, I was right there at her side.”

  Alex gave Laurie a concerned look. She knew he was thinking that this was a very different version of Jeff than the one she’d heard from Sandra. “Do you think that’s why people were so willing to believe that she just got cold feet? Maybe she felt too guilty to call things off after you stayed by her side through her treatment.”

  “Amanda wasn’t like that, at least not anymore. By the time she finished the cancer treatment, she’d lost twenty pounds, but was tougher than anyone I knew. And if anything, once the police got done questioning me, they had turned the whole thing around. Supposedly it was Saint Jeffrey who didn’t want to go through with the marriage. Apparently I’d rather kill a woman than face the shame of breaking up with her. Plus, I assume you know about the will.”

  “Sandra mentioned it. It took Amanda’s family by surprise.”

  “If I cared about money, would I be a public defender? If it had been up to me,” Jeff said wistfully, “we would have had a tiny wedding in New York City. Amanda and her family were the ones who believed in big, lavish ceremonies. I never wanted their money, and I still don’t. Even though I’ll never believe that Amanda just walked away from a wonderful life, I still try to hold out some small hope that, somehow, she’s still alive.”

  “When did you realize she was missing?” Laurie asked.

  “She didn’t show up for brunch on Friday morning. At first, we thought she was sleeping in. I tried calling the room to see if she wanted me to send up some breakfast. When she didn’t answer, I went to check on her. Meghan came with me. Amanda didn’t answer. We looked all over—the gym, the beach, the pool—and finally asked the hotel for a key. When I saw her wedding gown laid out across the bed, I was so relieved. I could imagine her trying it on one last time and leaving it out. But then Meghan told me Amanda tried the dress on before the dinner the night before. That’s when she told me they never actually saw Amanda go back to her room. It was obvious that something was seriously wrong. Housekeeping had not made up her room that morning. The bed had not been slept in on Thursday night.”

  Jeff’s description of his moment of panic when he realized that Amanda had not slept in her hotel room seemed too authentic to be fabricated. Then Laurie reminded herself that he’d had over five years to rehearse his story.

  “Mr. Hunter,” she said, “it’s obvious that many people suspect you in Amanda’s disappearance and that you want the opportunity to clear your name. We want to take on this case. Since I’m sure you’ll want to see it eventually, I took the liberty of bringing the standard release we ask people to sign before production.” She reached into her briefcase and slipped him the agreement.

  “If I do the show, I assume that all of this would be fair game? The will. My relationship with Amanda. Were we actually happy? Was I cheating? Did she leave me at the altar? Why did I marry her best friend?”

  Laurie was not going to lie to the man. “Yes, those are the kinds of things we’d get into.”

  He was nodding slowly as he flipped through the pages, taking it all in. “Okay.”

  “I can send you our previous specials if you want to re-watch them and get back to us with any questions.”

  “No, I mean, okay, I’ll do it.” He walked to his kitchen, grabbed a pen from the counter, and began signing.

  “Well, that’s great.” Laurie couldn’t remember a time when anyone had agreed this easily. Alex gave her a quick wink when Jeff wasn’t looking.

  “You sound surprised,” Jeff said, handing her the signed agreement.

  “No, just pleased.”

  “I’m no Alex Buckley, Ms. Moran, but I’m a good lawyer, and I can read a witness’s expression. You were surprised because part of you thinks I may have killed Amanda, in which case the last thing I’d want is to sit down on camera and talk to you about her disappearance. So, Alex, I look forward to being on the receiving end of one of your trademark cross-examinations, because I didn’t do anything to hurt Amanda, and never could have.”

  “This is your chance to tell the world that,” Laurie said.

  “What anyone thinks about me is less important. I just want to know what happened to Amanda. Because I know she didn’t leave that resort on her own.”

  21

  Meghan White was greeted by the smell of something delicious roasting in the oven when she got home. Jeff was in the kitchen wearing the apron she’d bought for him last year, the one that said, “Real Men Bake Cookies.”

  “That smells glorious.” How lucky she was to have married a man who could cook. Everything about Jeff made her feel lucky. He was sweet and funny and her closest confidant. He was her best friend. She was waiting for the right moment to tell him the news. “What are we having, Jeff?” she asked.

  “Rosemary and garlic lamb chops. You claim they’re your favorite.”

  He greeted her with a hug that was longer than usual.

  When he finally let go of her, he was looking at her as though something was wrong.

  “Is everything okay?” Meghan asked.

  “Sit down.”

  “You’re scaring me, Jeff.”

  “Just sit. Please.” Once she did, he poured her a glass of prosecco and waited for her to take a sip, but she did not.

  “I don’t need wine to have a conversation,” Meghan said. “How did that meeting go? I absolutely couldn’t get out of the office.”

  “I should have waited until we talked. I signed on to do the show.”

  • • •

  Fifteen minutes later, Meghan sat on the edge of the bed, staring at her wineglass, still full, on the nightstand. She had changed into casual slacks and a pullover. She needed some time to think. The decision was already made. She had heard the certainty in his voice. Jeff’s mind was made up. He hadn’t been asking for her permission; he’d been breaking the news: He was doing this show. And Meghan knew that, in reality, he was making the decision for both of them. How could she say no? How would it look that first she took the man Amanda was supposed to marry and now was trying to block a reinvestigation of her case?

  She wiped away a tear with the back of her hand. When Amanda’s case had churned through the 24/7 cable channels, Meghan had managed to stay out of the story. Amanda’s parents had been the ones front and center, with Jeff at their side. It was months before the reporters stopped calling Jeff for comments.

  When they got married, she had been terrified that the media frenzy would start again. That’s why they had gone quietly to the courthouse. It’s why she didn’t take Jeff’s name. She didn’t want the scrutiny.

  But this show would put them before millions of judging eyes. Viewers would want to know what kind of woman would steal her missing friend’s fiancé. They’d want to know what kind of man could marry another woman so soon after his beloved Amanda went missing. Everyone would hate them.

  She started to lift her glass, and then put it back down,
reminding herself that she shouldn’t.

  She pictured herself explaining everything about her marriage to a bunch of strangers on camera. When Jeff and I started to develop feelings for each other, we were just as surprised as anyone else. They’d fallen out of touch after college, but their paths crossed after law school when Meghan helped Jeff navigate a thorny immigration issue for one of his clients. He offered to take her out to dinner as a thank-you. After two dates fizzled, they remained strictly professional colleagues and friends. And then Jeff bumped into Meghan at a coffee shop near the courthouse when she was about to meet Amanda. She immediately sensed a spark between them. Maybe if Amanda had arrived a few minutes later, their paths would never have crossed again.

  So how was it that they had ended up together? That’s the question the television show would want to ask. It really was because of Amanda. In the aftermath of her disappearance, they had consoled each other over the loss of a woman they both loved. They had friendship first and then a deep bond that came later. And because of that bond, Meghan now knew what she had to do.

  She walked back to the kitchen, stopping first in the hallway bathroom to pour her wine in the sink. Jeff was at the counter, slicing a tomato. She wrapped her arms around him tightly. “Okay, we’ll do this. Together. For Amanda. And for us.”

  He turned around and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I knew I could count on you. How were things at work today? When you got home, it seemed like you wanted to tell me something.”

  He always could tell what she was thinking. “Nothing big. I did manage to get an extension on Mrs. Tran’s visa.”

  “That’s good. I knew you were worried about that.”

  She would wait a few days before telling him the actual news. She did not want all this talk about Amanda to overshadow the fact that she hoped and believed she was pregnant. The home test kit had been positive. She had made an appointment with her doctor for an additional test to confirm. If the news was good, she’d need to make sure that those past problems she’d had with prescriptions wouldn’t affect the baby. Wow, a baby. She felt a lump in her throat at the thought.