All Dressed in White (Under Suspicion #2)(44)

Her laptop tucked away, she no longer had an excuse for delay. Okay, she said to herself, let’s do this and then Jeff and I can go home and move on with the rest of our lives.

? ? ?

The minute they were past introductions, Alex Buckley began by asking Meghan to explain the timing of her courtship with Jeff.

He clearly isn’t pulling any punches, Meghan thought. He’s going for the jugular.

“You had to have known that some people would disapprove of your starting a relationship with him when Amanda—his fiancée and your best friend—was still missing.”

Meghan had practiced her answer hundreds of times, but now that she was here, all she could think about was those hot lights and cameras pointing at her. She had worked so hard to avoid all this attention.

She managed to make it through her memorized response. “We were both as surprised as anyone, Alex.”

“You’ve told people over the years that you were the one to reintroduce Amanda and Jeff.”

“That’s right. At a coffee shop in Brooklyn. Amanda loved their bagels,” she said sadly.

“But you didn’t intentionally get them together, did you?” he asked in a sympathetic tone. “Isn’t it true that Jeff just happened to bump into you?”

“Yes, I guess that’s right.”

“In fact, weren’t you romantically interested in Jeff all the way back in college?”

She shrugged. “College crushes come and go.”

“So you did have a crush. And then you were excited when you both ended up in New York after law school and he invited you out.”

“Yes, I suppose I was.”

“And were you the one to tell him you didn’t want to see each other anymore, or was that his decision?”

“It wasn’t like that. We didn’t even have that discussion. We just never went out on a third date.”

“And is that because Jeff didn’t invite you?”

“Sure, I guess.”

Meghan could feel the implication in the pause that followed. The show had scored a point at her expense. All these years, she had allowed people to think that she played cupid between Amanda and Jeff. Would everyone see the truth now? Would they know that she had loved Jeff all along? That she had sobbed for hours after Amanda called her the day after the coffee-shop run-in to say that Jeff had invited her to dinner? Meghan had known instantly that she had lost her shot. She never could compete with Amanda.

Now in desperation, she tried to turn the tables on her interrogator. “Have you ever heard of tunnel vision?” she blurted. “Let me explain it. It’s when an investigator gets suspicious of one person and views all the evidence through that lens. I could point to any person in the wedding party and start raising questions. It doesn’t mean any one of us is involved. Take Kate, for example. On the night Amanda disappeared, she said she had too much to drink and needed to go to her room. But when I went to check on her, there was no answer, even though I banged on the door. In the morning, she claimed not to have heard the knocking, even though Kate is the lightest sleeper I’ve ever met. In college, she would wake up if someone played a CD two rooms away. Do I know where Kate was that night? Not really. But did Kate have anything to do with Amanda’s disappearance? I’d bet my life she didn’t. Are you going to play gotcha with all of us? Are you trying to make us all look guilty?”

Meghan felt like she had made a valid point, but realized the producers could always edit anything they didn’t like. By the time they were done with their creative splicing, she might come across like a defensive lunatic.

Alex shifted gears. “Did you threaten to sue Amanda for stealing a product idea from you?”


Meghan’s worst fears were coming true. Well, not her very worst fears, but she knew this interview was not going well. She felt even more nauseous than she’d become accustomed to in the past week. How in the world did they even know about the fight at the Ladyform offices? She thought Amanda’s disappearance had long ago overshadowed their argument. It must have been Charlotte. That woman never forgot a grudge.

“I didn’t threaten her, but I did let her know my feelings were hurt. Back in college, the two of us came up with a trick to hold our keys and our iPods while we were working out. We sewed neoprene pockets onto our exercise clothes. It kept the contents dry and tucked snugly into place. Plus, we thought it was pretty cute. When I saw Ladyform’s X-Dream collection in stores, I was so upset that I went to Amanda’s office. We argued over whose idea it was. I thought it was mine, or at least a joint idea. She insisted the real work and the ownership was hers and the company’s. In my opinion, if she didn’t think she was doing anything wrong, she would have told me in advance.”

“You were screaming loudly enough that people could hear you all the way down the hall. Did the fact that Amanda was going to marry a man you were still interested in add to your anger?”

Meghan was beginning to regret not trying to dissuade Jeff from coming here. Now she was trapped. She had no choice but to keep talking. “I admit, the argument in her office was heated. But she called me the next day. We met for lunch. She explained all the design work and experimentation that had gone into turning our simple little trick into a breakthrough product. She apologized for not telling me in advance, and I told her she could make it up to me by paying for the very nice bottle of champagne we were drinking and sending me a box full of free workout clothes.” She smiled at the memory. “In the end, it was a minor snit between friends. And it was over the same lunch that we had the conversation I always go back to. It’s the reason I truly believe that Amanda left this hotel on her own.”