All Dressed in White

33

Jerry had told Laurie that the ballroom was decorated beautifully, but words didn’t do justice to the setting. It felt like a scene from a fairy tale. White roses and lilies were everywhere, and tiny white lights shimmered from the ceiling like stars on a country night. Grace and Jerry were dressed for the event. Grace wore a surprisingly unrevealing cobalt-blue gown, and Jerry looked dapper in his slim-fit tuxedo.

“The two of you clean up nice,” Laurie remarked. “Well done. We should get some great footage to set the tone for the show’s opening sequence.”

She glanced over at the camera crew. The lead cameraman gave her a thumbs-up to signal that he was ready. They would not be recording their voices, but they wanted to capture the moments when the participants first saw each other in the room. Then Alex in a voice-over would narrate the scene and identify the people.

Sandra and her children, Henry and Charlotte, were the first of the participants to arrive for the reception. Even with her elegant silk pantsuit, Sandra had found a place for a button of Amanda’s photograph, complete with the image of a yellow ribbon, on her lapel. Laurie greeted Sandra and Charlotte with hugs, and then introduced herself to Amanda’s brother, Henry.

“Oh, Amanda would have loved this.” Sandra wiped away a tear. “Everything is precisely the way she wanted it.”

Charlotte placed an arm around her mother and gave her shoulder a little squeeze. “As I recall, this is just the way you wanted it, Mom.”

“I know it is. I love to plan a party, it’s true. And the joy of planning this one-I wanted everything to be so perfect.”

“It would have been, Mom,” Henry tried to assure her. He then began fiddling with his bow tie. He was a handsome man, but with shaggy dark hair and more than a few days of stubble, he did not seem comfortable in formal wear.

Charlotte nudged her mother. “Jeff just walked in.”

Sandra stole a glance and then quickly turned away. “With Meghan, of course.” Her tone was reproachful. “I know I pushed for this, Laurie, but now that we’re here, I have no idea how to act. I truly believe one or both of them is responsible for Amanda’s disappearance. I wanted them to be here, but I didn’t think it would be this hard to be in the same room with them.”

Laurie placed her hand gently on Sandra’s arm. “Just do what comes naturally, Sandra. You don’t even have to speak with them if you don’t want to.” The beauty of reality television was letting the cameras capture human behavior, completely unrehearsed and unscripted.

“Wow,” Charlotte exclaimed. “Kate looks terrific. She hasn’t aged a day.”

Laurie turned to see a third person with Jeff and Meghan, hugging them both. She was slightly shorter than Laurie, around five-foot-four, with chin-length, bright blonde hair and round, rosy cheeks. In the old college photographs Laurie had seen, Kate had been the plain one compared to her two friends. But obviously she had put her best foot forward for an occasion like this.

“Did she bring the family?” Henry asked.

“Her mother is minding the children,” Sandra replied. “I guess a true-crime TV show isn’t the best family vacation.”

Except in my household, Laurie thought, amused. She excused herself to make her way over to the Colby crowd of participants, pausing nearby to eavesdrop. She heard Jeff tell Kate and Meghan that it was “surreal” to see his planned wedding reception with Amanda re-created.

“It’s certainly a far cry from our reception,” Meghan said. “Margaritas and take-out barbecue in our apartment was more our speed.”

Laurie couldn’t tell if she sensed resentment in Meghan’s tone. If Kate was at all suspicious of Jeff and Meghan, or disapproving of their marriage, she didn’t show it. They sounded like three old friends catching up.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Laurie said, “but I wanted to introduce myself.” Meghan never had found the time to talk to Laurie directly, and she had only spoken to Kate on the phone. Meghan seemed to withdraw as both Kate and Jeff said they were excited about the possibility of discovering new clues about Amanda’s disappearance once the show aired.

Kate suddenly turned toward the entrance. “Take a look, guys. Nick hasn’t changed a bit, but get a load of our little Austin, all grown up!”

Kate leaned in toward Laurie to fill her in on the backstory. “Nick was always a ladies’ man, even in college. Austin was Nick’s sidekick, but very much in his shadow. A complete disaster with women, he was always coming on too strong.”

“Well, I don’t know about his success in the dating market,” Laurie said, “but I doubt he’s in Nick’s shadow in all respects these days. The two of them flew down here on Austin’s private jet.”

The men were making a beeline for their old college friends.

“La dee da,” Kate exclaimed, when Austin reached them. “A private jet, I hear. Who’d have thought that the Austin we knew in college would be doing that?”

“Careful, Kate,” Austin protested good-naturedly. “I can probably dig up some old pictures from when you stayed way too long at happy hour.”

Clearly these friends were used to good-natured banter.

Laurie noticed Nick nudge his friend Austin. “Heads up,” he said. “We may have some competition for female attention at the bar tonight.”

Laurie turned to see Alex walking into the ballroom. She felt a catch in her breath. His face was slightly tanned already, and his tuxedo fit him perfectly. Laurie immediately looked down at her own dress and was glad she had splurged on it. But she wished she had put on more makeup.

“You look beautiful, as usual,” Alex said as she walked toward him.

“And of course you’re the essence of the man about town.” As she spoke, she was aware of the instant warmth from the closeness of their bodies.

The last person to arrive was Walter Pierce, the family’s patriarch. Unlike his ex-wife Sandra, he marched directly up to Jeff and greeted him with a strong handshake. He even congratulated him and Meghan on their nuptials and wished them a lifetime of happiness.

As Laurie scanned her cast of characters, she couldn’t help but notice how the dynamic changed once Walter entered. Having said his hellos to Amanda’s former fiancé and their friends, he moved directly to his family, where he remained for the rest of the night. The exchanges she had heard between Sandra and her children flowed less naturally. Every member of the Pierce family now seemed to focus on Walter. Was his flight okay? Did he like his room? Did he need another drink? Even with everything that had happened, he was still the head of the family.

Were there ever children who didn’t care what their father thought of them? Laurie wondered. Then she answered her own question. No.

After ten minutes she went over to the lead cameraman.

“I just asked the wedding party and Sandra’s parents to stand together for a group shot,” she said. “We’ll close with that.”

As they lined up and faced the camera, it was clear that this was not a typical wedding photograph. The earlier polite veneer was gone. Jeff had his arm protectively around Meghan. Tears were spilling from Sandra’s eyes. No one was even attempting to smile.

Is it possible that someone in the wedding party could have hated Amanda enough to take her life? Laurie wondered. Unless the man in that grainy surveillance video or some other random stranger was the killer, it was highly likely that one of the people staring at the camera had killed Amanda.

But which one?