All Dressed in White (22 page)

“Oh, yeah, sure.” Nick and Austin exchanged an amused glance. “A buddy when you’re out talking to women. A partner in the hunt, so to speak.”

Laurie wanted to edit both of them out of the show entirely. No wonder she had always avoided the dating scene.

“Jeff wasn’t like that?” Alex asked.

“Definitely not,” Austin said, trying to get a word in. “In college, he was focused on his studies. He’d hang out mostly in groups.”

“What about later, once he was a lawyer in New York?”

Austin clearly didn’t know the answer. Nick was the one who was closer to Jeff. “He’d go out on the occasional date,” Nick said, “but nothing serious. I was actually the one who got into a serious relationship for a while—”

“Melissa,” Austin said. “That didn’t last for long.”

“True. I had one misstep at a buddy’s bachelor party. Melissa found out about it and was gone. I haven’t tried again, but hey, unlike
some people
here, at least I gave it a shot. Anyway, once Jeff started seeing Amanda, she was all he talked about.”

“But weren’t they on and off for a while?” Alex asked.

“At first,” Nick said. “One or the other would be so busy at work that they’d shift the relationship to the back burner. But, wow, once they started going out for real and then Amanda got sick, every minute
he wasn’t at work he was with her. When she told him she had cancer, he asked her to marry him the next day.”

“What about after she was sick?” Alex asked. “Did you ever see them fight?”

“They argued like any other couple,” Austin said, “but he would never hurt her.”

Nick shot a disapproving glance to his friend. “Trust me: whatever happened to Amanda, Jeff had nothing to do with it. He was crushed when she went missing.”

“Until he became involved with Meghan,” Alex said.

A flash of anger crossed Nick’s face. “That’s not fair. Was the guy supposed to become a monk for the rest of his life? Is it that surprising that he’d fall for someone Amanda also loved and respected?”

“You’ll have to forgive Nick,” Austin observed. “He’s fiercely protective when it comes to Jeff.”

Laurie thought she detected a note of jealousy in Austin’s voice.

“Now, you’ve both said that you last saw Amanda around five o’clock, after you finished group photographs.”

Both confirmed the same timeline they’d provided to police. After the photo shoot, they’d gone to the bar for an hour and then to their rooms. A little before eight, they met in the lobby and went to dinner at the Steak and Fin, finishing around ten. Henry left while they stayed for an after-dinner drink there. Then they had a nightcap in Jeff’s room and went to their rooms around eleven.

“It’s our understanding that you were down here around the time Amanda and her girlfriends were coming back to the hotel. Did you cross paths with them?”

Nick shook his head. “No, I didn’t see Amanda again after they took pictures.”

Austin gave the same answer.

Laurie listened intently as Alex hammered questions at them.

“So you two fun-loving bachelors left Jeff’s room and went to bed
around eleven o’clock. Isn’t that a little on the early side for both of you?”

“We’d been out late the night before. We’d been in the sun all day. We had plenty to drink before dinner, at dinner, and then in Jeff’s room.” Nick turned to Austin. “I don’t know about you, but I was beat.”

As usual, Austin quickly agreed. “I’d had enough. I went straight to my room and to bed.”

“Okay, let’s go back to when you two were alone with Jeff in his room. You have both told me previously that Jeff expressed reservations about marrying Amanda. What did he actually say?”

“I jokingly asked him if he was getting cold feet,” Nick said. “We were both astonished when he said, ‘Yes.’ ”

“And what was said after that?”

This time it was Austin who answered. “Jeff said that Amanda wanted him to change jobs. That he was too good of a lawyer to waste his time working for peanuts at the Public Defender’s office. Jeff told her that he liked being a public defender and helping people, and he was really good at it.”

“What was your response to that?” Alex asked.

“We laughed it off,” Nick said. “I told him getting married always means she’s going to start managing your life. Get used to it.”

“And what was Jeff’s response?”

“He laughed with us,” Nick said. “But we got the impression he was sorry he had started this conversation. It was right after that that we said good night and headed to our rooms.”

“So you went to your respective rooms at eleven o’clock and you contend that you stayed in your rooms all night. Is that right?”

“Yes,” they both answered.

“And as far as you know, Jeff was not planning to leave his room after eleven?”

“That’s right.”

“And is it fair to say no one can confirm that you were in your rooms for the night beginning at eleven o’clock, which is approximately the last time anyone ever saw Amanda?”

A flash of anger came over Austin’s face. “I guess not.” Nick nodded in agreement.

“Were you aware at the time that in her will Amanda had left Jeff her two-million-dollar trust fund?”

“We found out about that after she disappeared,” Nick said.

“Do you think Amanda would have told Jeff about his potential inheritance?”

They looked at each other. “It’s entirely possible,” Austin said quietly.

Laurie could tell that they both desperately wanted to vouch for their friend, but they couldn’t. There was no getting around one basic fact: Jeff had the most to gain by Amanda’s disappearance.

45

“M
om, those ladies over there are drinking blue martinis.” Timmy was pointing to a group of four women. Their drinks were the color of dishwashing liquid. “You wouldn’t want one of those. You like martinis dry.”

Alex’s eyes sparkled with amusement behind his glasses. “Timmy certainly does know his mother.”

Laurie and Alex had postponed their plans for a dinner alone at a Michelin three-star restaurant after Timmy pleaded to go to the hotel’s sushi restaurant. Leo could not stand the thought of eating raw fish. He called it
sea slime
.

Timmy, on the other hand, was even more adventurous with a sushi menu than Laurie. But she suspected that her son’s excitement about this particular restaurant was less about food than about the two L-shaped aquarium bar counters where live fish swam beneath the glass.

Alex was about to check in with the hostess when Timmy asked if they could sit at the bar. “You’re always saying we should try new experiences,” he argued. “We don’t have this back home.”

Alex broke the bad news. “You’re a little young for the bar, buddy. Try again in about twelve years.”

“I can’t wait to be old enough to sit at the bar.”

“Just what a mother wants to hear,” Laurie said dryly. “I don’t want him to end up like those two barflies Austin and Nick.”

Once they were at the table, Alex said, “Speaking of the two Romeos, what did you make of their interview today?”

She shrugged. “They’re exactly as Sandra described them. I don’t get the appeal, personally, but I know Brett will be happy. At least they’re entertaining for television.”

“Enough about those two,” Alex sighed. “So Leo’s already convinced the photography intern was involved.”

Without new facts, Laurie wasn’t eager to revisit this topic. “I know you think he’s jumping to conclusions,” she said. “Maybe we should leave it on the back burner for now.”

Later, as they walked through the lobby, Timmy asked if he could sleep in Grandpa’s room tonight. Laurie found herself happy to have even more time to spend with Alex.

46

L
aurie was shocked the next morning when Charlotte Pierce arrived on set at the courtyard behind the hotel. She wore an impeccably tailored white suit with a black silk shell. Her hair and makeup were camera-perfect. This did not look like the same woman she’d met in the office at Ladyform.

“Don’t look so surprised,” Charlotte said, perching herself comfortably on the love seat they had staged for the occasion. “You didn’t think I’d go on national television looking like the ugly duckling, did you?”

Alex took his place, nodded, and the cameras began to roll.

Five minutes later, Laurie checked her watch. Charlotte had already recited the same information she’d given Laurie when they met in New York. She was a businesswoman who was used to communicating efficiently.

But part of Alex’s talent was to introduce questions that his subjects hadn’t anticipated. “What was it like being Amanda Pierce’s sister?” he asked casually.

“I have no idea what you mean by that. It’s like asking me what it’s like to breathe. She was the only sister I ever had.”

“Yet I sense in you a woman who could in fact describe what it’s like to breathe, if someone asked you the question.”

She gave him a half smile. Laurie could almost hear her deciding
to play along. “Fine. It was like being the weed next to the rose. In any other family, I would have been a superstar. I graduated at the top of my class from the University of North Carolina. I’m a pretty nice person. I work hard. But Amanda was special. Men wanted to marry her, women wanted to be her. She knew how to please people.”

“Jeff’s friends sensed that you weren’t especially happy about the wedding.
Disinterested
was the word one of them used.”

“Well, first of all”—Charlotte waved her hands dismissively—“Jeff’s friends are idiots. Second of all, I wasn’t
disinterested
. I was worried, and not about Amanda. I thought Jeff was the one making a mistake. I loved my sister, but I was probably the only person who really knew her. She looked like a princess from a fairy tale, with bluebirds brushing her hair. But she was cunning. Ambitious. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but she hid it behind this perfect, gentle façade.”

Laurie found herself fascinated by Charlotte’s description. It felt utterly honest.

“So why were you worried about Jeff?” Alex asked.

“Because he had no clue what he was getting himself into. He started dating Amanda and then almost immediately she became very sick. Weak,” she added sorrowfully. “It was the only time in her life when she was vulnerable, but if anything the experience only hardened her. I can tell you this. She was going to put him through the ringer. She was going to change him the way she changed Ladyform. Her idea of a successful husband was not a public defender.”

Alex leaned toward Charlotte. “So do you suspect Jeff Hunter in your sister’s disappearance?”

She paused a long time before answering. “I guess that depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether he figured out that if he married Amanda, he’d be under her thumb as I always was.”

47

L
eo woke up feeling completely rested. This bed is great, he thought. It had been ten years since Eileen passed. Since then, it was only on trips with Laurie that he slept somewhere other than in his own bed or in Laurie’s guest room. He realized it was probably time to buy a new mattress. Maybe he’d think about it when they were back in New York.