All Dressed in White (Under Suspicion #2)(43)

“I didn’t want you to know how worried I was, but thank God you’re both back in one piece. How did it go? What was he like?”

Laurie sat on the sofa and pressed her hands to her face. “Scary.”

“Major creep,” Leo said. “Seriously off.”

“He’s living like a hoarder,” Laurie explained. “Floor-to-ceiling photographs everywhere. It was like something out of a horror movie. When I pressed him about whether he had pictures of Amanda, he threw us out of the house. Dad, should we call the police now?”

“And tell them what?” Leo said. “We don’t have any evidence. But I’m telling you: he’s the guy, the one the police missed all those years ago. Tying him to the case is a big breakthrough.”

“I don’t understand,” Alex said. “You just said you don’t have any evidence. How can you be so sure he’s guilty?”

Leo shook his head. “Sometimes I forget you’re a defense attorney. Trust me, we were the ones who were there. Jeremy Carroll knows something.”

“Leo, with all due respect, that doesn’t mean he’s guilty. I see clients all the time who get railroaded by police simply because they were nervous, or were trying to protect some harmless secret.”

“No one’s railroading anyone—”

“Okay, please, don’t argue,” Laurie pleaded. “Alex, Dad’s right. You weren’t in that house. There’s no question that Jeremy’s—” She paused, searching for the word. “A weirdo. And he didn’t even deny being the man in that video. He turned around to follow Amanda, and he’s been convicted of stalking people.”

“But you’re suggesting he did something far worse,” Alex pointed out.

Laurie turned to her father. “Dad, Alex is right that until we have solid evidence, we shouldn’t leap to conclusions.”

“So what do you want to do?” Alex asked. “It’s up to you.”

“Dad,” Laurie began slowly. “Based on your experience, you don’t think Jeremy will make a run for it or destroy evidence if we don’t move against him right now?”

Leo shrugged. “You never know, but if the guy can’t throw out old newspapers, I don’t think he’ll dump pictures he’s been holding on to for more than five years. And that house is probably his only asset. He’s not the type who can hop on a jet and live a fugitive lifestyle on the other side of the world.”

“And keep in mind,” Alex said, “just because he might know something about Amanda’s disappearance doesn’t mean he was involved.”

Laurie nodded. “What do you think about this? Jerry can call him and try to smooth things over. He can say that we’re reaching out to everyone who was at the Grand Victoria that weekend and didn’t mean to invade his privacy. That might calm his nerves.”

“Good idea,” Alex said.

“And Alex, none of us want to rush to judgment. We’ll keep an open mind for now, but that makes it all the more important that we hold everyone else’s feet to the fire. Don’t go easy on anyone.”

“I have no intention of going easy on anyone.” There was a glint in Alex’s eyes.

“Next up is Meghan. I can’t wait to hear how she wound up marrying her best friend’s fiancé,” Laurie said as she stood up and headed for the door.





41





“Are you almost ready, Ms. White? We have the cameras set up with the current light, and the shadows can change quickly outside.”

Meghan White held up one finger. She would have finished by now if she could have gotten a better phone signal. When she told Jeff that she would be part of this awful show, she assumed they’d have plenty of notice to make arrangements with work. Instead, they’d been hauled down here on the spur of the moment, as if Meghan could put her entire caseload on hold with the push of a button.

She was doing her best to telecommute, but hotel Wi-Fi connections were infamously insecure, so she had created her own using her cell phone’s hotspot. She watched the progress bar move slowly on the download of this appellate brief. The production assistant—was his name Jerry?—was obviously getting antsy. She wanted to tell him that if time was of the essence, they should have filmed inside. “Just another second, I promise.”


When the download was finally complete, Meghan closed her laptop and followed Jerry to the set of rattan furniture Laurie Moran had arranged on the promenade behind the main building. She resisted the temptation to wipe all the makeup off her face. The woman who caked it on had promised her that she would look natural on camera, but to Meghan, it felt as though she were wearing a layer of mud. She had stopped arguing when the makeup artist said, “You don’t want to look washed out on the screen. It makes people look scared.”

Meghan was scared, but she didn’t want to look that way. She asked for a little more blush.

Laurie Moran, the woman who had been hounding her on the telephone for the previous week, seemed amiable enough, but Meghan thought she had noticed a hint of sarcasm in the producer’s voice when she said she was happy to finally meet in person. Meghan was more nervous about going toe-to-toe with Alex Buckley. His cross-examination skills were well known.