All Dressed in White (14 page)

“Tonight’s my night with my sous chef,” Leo said, popping his head around the corner. Laurie smiled at the sight of her father in the chef’s hat that Timmy had given him last year for Father’s Day.

Timmy’s grinning face, smeared with tomato sauce, appeared for an instant and then disappeared into the kitchen again.

Her father was preparing what he called his “Leo lasagna” for dinner. She knew from eating it that it contained Italian sausage, mozzarella, and fresh ricotta, but that didn’t explain why it tasted better than every other sausage lasagna she had ever sampled. Her father was so protective of the recipe that he joked about putting it in his will.

“I’ll get it out of Timmy,” she said. “What’s that new video game you’re asking for?”

“Nice try, Mom,” Timmy said. “Grandpa, your secrets are safe with me.”

“Laurie, I’m actually surprised you’re home. Alex told me that Andrew was coming into town. I assumed you would want to join them for dinner tonight.”

After Alex accepted her invitation to host
Under Suspicion
, Leo had struck up a friendship with him outside of the show. They had grown even closer since Laurie and Alex had started seeing each
other. She was delighted that her father approved and had someone to talk sports with, but sometimes there were downsides to their independent communications.

“I was too wired,” she said. “I needed to get some more work done before I could relax.”

“Well then, go ahead and do it,” her father said. “Chardonnay or pinot noir?”

With her father and son hard at work on dinner and a glass of wine in hand, it was a good time to follow up on some of the issues that had come up today on Amanda’s case. First on her mind was Charlotte’s claim that Meghan accused Amanda of stealing a multimillion-dollar idea. There was no reason Charlotte would make that up, but it seemed far-fetched to think that Meghan would kill her best friend over a business dispute. Besides, Ladyform continued to own the idea, whether Amanda was there to control it or not.

But Laurie’s conversation with Charlotte echoed for a second reason: her description of her sister’s personality. Sandra made Amanda sound almost impossibly happy about every aspect of her life. She hadn’t even mentioned Amanda’s cancer. But Charlotte spoke about Amanda in a darker way, as if both women were trapped beneath their parents’ expectations. Laurie had gotten the same impression from Mitchell Lands. If the lawyer was right, maybe Amanda had changed her will to leave some money behind for Jeff once she disappeared for good.

She scrolled through her emails until she found the one from Jerry with all the contact information for the show’s participants. She dialed a number on her cell phone. Amanda’s brother, Henry, answered after two rings.

•  •  •

A moment later she was having a hard time hearing Henry over the sound of a crying child in the background. “I hate to say this, but I
probably know less about Ladyform than you do. Maybe no one told you, but I’m sort of the black sheep in the family. I love my dad, but I had no interest in spending the rest of my life making underwear, let alone fighting with my sisters about the right to do it. I moved out west with a college buddy and started an organic wine company in Washington. Aside from both of us preferring to run our own businesses, I’m about as different from Walter Pierce as a son could be. If Meghan accused Amanda of stealing some idea, I know nothing about it. And I can’t say anything about Jeff’s whereabouts that night, because I crashed early. It was a party weekend for everyone else, but Holly and I had just had our first baby, Sandy. All I wanted to do that week was sleep.”

“But you were at the Grand Victoria with the rest of the wedding party. You must have spent time with Meghan and your sister.”

“Oh yeah, sure. I didn’t hear a cross word between them. And I think if they’d been talking about the company, I would’ve tuned them out because, frankly, it’s boring. I understand that Charlotte would blow some tiff about a Ladyform idea out of proportion, but if I had to guess, I’d say there was no bad blood between Meghan and Amanda. If Meghan came across as not being worried, that’s just how she is. Maybe it’s because she’s a lawyer or something like that.”

“What do you mean by not worried?” Laurie asked. They had received her signed agreement to participate, but even though they had exchanged messages, she had still not actually spoken to Meghan directly.

“You know, she’s kind of a cool cucumber. Never gets ruffled. I can be the same way. Like at first, when Jeff was running around the resort looking for Amanda, I assumed she went for a swim or something. But once we realized she hadn’t slept in her room, even I was panicked. But not Meghan. She was acting like everything was okay.”

“Do you think she knew more than she let on?”

“Wow, you really are suspicious, aren’t you? No, like I said, it’s just her way. Different strokes for different folks. So has everyone agreed to do the show?”

“Yes, everyone we asked.”

“Kate Fulton?”

“Her, too. Is there something I should be asking her? As you said, I’m suspicious of everyone.”

“Touché. No, I was just wondering. I don’t stay in touch with any of Amanda’s friends anymore. Look, I have no idea what happened to my sister, and I still miss her like crazy, but I’ve got to be honest: I don’t think you’re going to learn anything new with this show.”

“And why is that?”

“Because, as much as it pains me to say it, my best guess is that she went out late for a swim or a walk and crossed paths with the wrong kind of person—the kind of person who doesn’t get caught. I for one am not looking forward to being back down there.”

29

L
aurie was trying to picture Amanda’s best friend remaining calm while everyone else panicked. Maybe Henry was right. Not everyone responds to worries in the same way. Or maybe, as Amanda’s best friend, Meghan had been in denial, refusing to believe that anything could have possibly gone wrong.

She looked at her watch. It was just past seven-thirty, not too late to call someone in Atlanta. She picked up her phone again and called Kate Fulton.

Laurie introduced herself and asked if Kate had time to review some basic information. Kate confirmed that she was a homemaker in Atlanta, a mother to four children, and wife to her high school sweetheart, Bill. Laurie found comfort that Kate’s bio lined up with the information they’d gathered so far in their research. Preparations had been moving so quickly, she was worried they would overlook something important. Not to mention that several of the participants were spread out across the country, so she was forced to question some people by phone.

“How did you feel when you realized that Amanda was missing?” Laurie asked.

“Terrified. I don’t even know how to describe it. It was like time stopped, and everything went blank. I just knew in the pit of my stomach that something had gone horribly wrong. I couldn’t stop crying.
In retrospect, I’m sure I only made things worse for Amanda’s poor family.”

“What about Meghan? Did she react the same way?”

“Oh, God no. Meghan? She’s the exact opposite. Her way of dealing with bad news is to try to fix it. In college, we called her TCB—always Taking Care of Business. She’s a planner and thinker, but Amanda’s disappearance was something that even Meghan couldn’t fix. She was at a loss for what to do, but no, she’s not a crier.”

“Did you find it strange when she began a relationship with Jeff?”

Kate paused for a moment. “Of course we were all surprised. I didn’t even know they were dating. Meghan called me after the wedding—or what she referred to as their
non-wedding
. Just vows exchanged at the courthouse.”

“Is it possible they might have been seeing each other before Amanda disappeared?”

This time she didn’t need to reflect before answering. “No way. Jeff was head over heels for Amanda. Meghan had tried getting his attention before, and they just didn’t click. I think it was actually their mutual love for Amanda that helped to bring them together later.”

Laurie heard her father tell Timmy to be careful of the heat from the oven, and resisted the temptation to walk to the kitchen to supervise. “What do you mean, she had tried getting his attention?”

“They’d gone on a couple of dates. Meghan was always interested in Jeff, even in college. If you’ve seen him, you know he’s very attractive, and they were both drawn to public interest work. They’re a good match, but for whatever reason, they didn’t hit it off at first. I think Meghan was sort of disappointed.”

“So Meghan played matchmaker for Amanda? That was thoughtful.”

“Not really. Jeff bumped into Meghan in the neighborhood, and Amanda happened to be there.”

That was interesting. Laurie had gotten the impression that Meghan had intentionally set up Amanda with Jeff. She was about to ask for more details when Kate shifted the conversation back to Amanda’s disappearance. “More so than anyone except maybe Mr. Pierce, Meghan really wanted to believe that Amanda left on her own. I always thought it was her way of coping.”

Laurie shook her head in frustration. She still had no sense of Meghan as a person. After she and Alex met with Jeff, she had called Meghan twice to try to schedule a meeting, but got voice mail both times. Meghan had replied only by email, saying that she was busy at work but “looked forward” to talking “soon.”

“That’s what we keep struggling with on our end,” Laurie said. “To us, it seems far more likely that something bad happened to Amanda. Why would anyone possibly disappear for all these years?”

“They wouldn’t, or at least Amanda wouldn’t. But at the time, it hadn’t been a matter of years. And we were all trying to convince ourselves there was some explanation. It was the day before the wedding, and Amanda was having doubts.”

“She was?” Charlotte said she sensed her sister was having second thoughts, but this was the first time anyone had claimed to have heard Amanda express them.

“Doubts might be too strong of a word. But when we were alone, she was asking me if I was happy. If I wished I had met Bill later in life. Whether I’d had enough adventure before settling down. But if I thought she was really going to back out of the wedding, I wouldn’t have been so terrified when she was missing. I can’t bring myself to say this to Sandra, but I’m convinced my friend is dead. I know for a fact she wouldn’t put her family through this.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Back when we were at Colby, a girl named Carly Romano disappeared. It was nearly two weeks before they found her body in Messalonskee Lake. Actually, this will give you some idea of how
Meghan and Amanda were so different. We didn’t really know Carly, but the entire college was affected. Amanda was the one who organized the prayer sessions and candlelight vigils; Meghan was the one who helped organize the on-campus search teams and handed out flashlights and safety whistles. Amanda was a caretaker. Meghan was a pragmatist. Anyway, one night, while everyone was still searching, Amanda told me that she nearly broke down when she met Carly’s parents. She said she almost hoped they’d find a body, because she couldn’t imagine anything worse for a parent than not knowing.”

Laurie thought she was living in hell those five years when Greg’s murder was unsolved. She couldn’t imagine how she would have felt if he had simply failed to come home one night. How do people go on?

30

L
eo hadn’t allowed Laurie into the kitchen while he was cooking, but he seemed more than happy to let her help with the cleanup. Timmy was off the hook because of his work as sous chef and was in his room practicing the trumpet Leo had bought him last month. He was an enthusiastic student, but as far as Laurie was concerned, his weekly lessons couldn’t kick in soon enough.

While she transferred the leftover lasagna into a Tupperware dish, she made a point of using the spatula to prod between the layers. “Provolone cheese?” she asked.

“Nope.”

“Gouda?”

Her father shook his head. “I’m not going to tell you.”

“Can you at least tell me if it’s a dairy product?”