All Dressed in White (Under Suspicion #2)(64)

She was starting to doze off right in the middle of the floor when her cell phone buzzed on the coffee table. It was a New York City area code.

“Henson,” she said, stifling a yawn.

“Detective, it’s Leo Farley.”

The ex-cop, she thought. He’d been invaluable in dealing with his daughter and her team. She was usually distrustful of the media, but she trusted Leo, and he seemed to trust the people who worked for that show.

“Hi, Leo. What can I do for you?”

“We know you’ve got officers watching Jeff, but they need to keep their eyes on his wife, Meghan White, too. Laurie got some photographs from that intern we told you about—”

Marlene sat up immediately. “She did what?” So much for trusting them.

“She thought she had a better shot getting him to open up if she went in alone. I waited outside, worried every moment. But she was right. It worked. Jeremy gave her some facts we didn’t know before.”

Marlene felt a headache coming on as Leo started talking about pictures of Meghan looking lovingly at Jeff, and then fighting with Amanda the very night she disappeared. She was close to a migraine by the time Leo got to Meghan’s phone call to Amanda’s lawyer and her connection to the girl who’d been killed at Colby.

“Where are you?” he asked. “Do you have a location on Jeff and Meghan right now?”

“I came home, but I’m sure everything’s fine. Last I heard, they were at dinner with their friends. Let me call my lead guy on the scene now.”

She hung up without saying good-bye, pulled up the number for Sergeant Jim Peters, and hit enter.

“Thought you were grabbing some shut-eye,” he said.

“Me, too.” No such luck, she thought.

“This sure is a beautiful place. I almost feel guilty collecting overtime for sitting here. Almost.”

“You’re still watching Hunter?”

“Yeah. He and the wife went to their room after dinner. If I see him leave, I’ll duck into the stairwell and call Tanner downstairs. He’s camped out near the elevators. We’ve been rotating for a change of scenery.”

“So they’re both there: Jeff and the wife?”

“No, just him. They had some kind of dustup and she stormed out of here a second ago. I went into the stairwell so she wouldn’t spot me.”

“Where’d she go? Is Tanner following her?”

“No, we’re trailing the husband, I thought.”

“We were. And are. Just call Tanner, okay? Tell him to keep his eyes on the wife, and you watch Jeff. Don’t lose either one of them.”

? ? ?

Marlene had changed into fresh work clothes and was putting on her shoes when Sergeant Peters called her back.

“You found Meghan?” she asked.

“No. I just talked to Tanner. He says she walked through the lobby, but he doesn’t know where she went from there.”





65





Jeremy looked at his watch, wondering how late he should stay at the hotel. He had gotten so distracted taking photographs of Laurie and her friends that he somehow lost track of the bridal party. By the time he walked back to the seafood restaurant, their table was empty.

He checked the other hotel bars, but no luck.

Now he was on the beach. A few couples passed him on moonlight strolls, but he didn’t recognize anyone. The moon was beautiful tonight. It had been a long time since he practiced his nighttime photography skills.

He changed his camera to a long exposure, pointed the lens across the ocean, and snapped. He checked the digital image on the screen. Stunning. He hadn’t lost his touch. At this time of night, most photographers would end up with either total blackness or a bright, harsh flash. But with a long exposure, he had managed to capture the pillows of waves across the ocean and the pepper of stars over the water. Not bad.

He was on his way back to the hotel when he spotted a woman walking toward him. She was alone, her long curly hair blowing in the wind. He was nearly certain it was Meghan.

He turned away as she passed. He gave her a hundred-foot lead, then began to follow. She’d never notice him from this distance.





66





Meghan sat at the edge of the hotel’s private pier, her feet dangling from the side. She had walked past several beautiful boats on her way to this spot at the end of the pier. The moonlight across the deep blue ocean water was beautiful, but her eyes were focused on the screen of her cell phone. She was completely stumped about what to say to her own husband.

A new text message appeared. It was Jeff again. Where are you? We need to talk.

Maybe she shouldn’t meet with Kate after all. She needed to smooth things over with Jeff. But Kate said she knew something about the TV show’s plans to railroad Jeff. Meghan needed to find out the details.


She looked over at the three boats docked at the pier. In the darkness, she couldn’t tell much about them except that they were large. She guessed they would be considered yachts, but she knew nothing about boats other than what she’d learned from the captain on their fishing excursion in the Bahamas.

What a perfect trip that was. She reminisced about their unofficial honeymoon. Jeff had organized every last detail, from champagne breakfasts to moonlit ocean swims. She shouldn’t leave him waiting any longer. She could call Kate from her room. She was about to stand up when she saw a person in her peripheral vision stepping onto the pier.