All Dressed in White

47

Leo 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.

He looked at the clock. It was already ten A.M. He saw a note beneath the door that joined his room to Laurie and Timmy’s. He felt his hamstrings ache as he bent down for it. At sixty-four years of age, he was in good shape but needed to stretch more. Figured I’d let you two sleep in, the note read.

Timmy was getting older. He could sleep until noon if undisturbed.

Leo walked over to the small desk in the corner, opened the laptop Laurie had bought him for his birthday, and clicked on the Internet browser. He could spend a few minutes working on his pet project before waking his grandson for a late breakfast. He used two fingers to type facebook.com into the search window. Grace was the one who was teaching him how to “cyberstalk,” as she called it. When he was on the job, gathering background information had required knocking on doors and pounding the pavement. These days, people posted their entire lives, including what they ate for breakfast, on social media.

He typed “Carly Romano” into the search window of Facebook. He read recently that it was increasingly common for families and friends to maintain pages of those who had passed, as a place for loved ones to post memories. Sure enough, he found her wall, with a posting as recent as two months ago, from a Jenna Romano: Happy Birthday, Sis. You’re still in my heart. Xoxo.

He had called the police in Waterville and confirmed that Carly’s case was still unsolved. According to the detective he spoke to, the primary suspect was her high school boyfriend back in Michigan. The two had tried a long-distance relationship during their freshman year, but Carly broke things off when she returned to campus for her sophomore year. He didn’t take the news well. But police had never been able to build a case against him.

It seemed like a good case for Laurie’s show.

Leo clicked through the photographs on Carly’s profile, searching for one of the old boyfriend. He checked the dates. He was still browsing the college years. He needed to keep scrolling back to high school.

He couldn’t help but notice that Carly looked happy and lively in every photograph. She had thick, dark hair and big brown eyes. She seemed to always be smiling. He was scanning the pictures so quickly that he almost missed it: a familiar face.

He flipped back two pages. The caption on the photograph read, “DJ Night at the Bob-In!” Carly looked straight at the camera. The man next to her in the booth had his arm around her. He was younger, Leo thought to himself, but that’s definitely him.

Younger, but familiar. He spotted him two more times in other photographs taken within a few days of this one.

He clicked over to his email and found the production schedule that Jerry had sent everyone prior to the trip. Alex was interviewing Charlotte at nine A.M. in the courtyard behind the hotel, with Kate to follow at 10:30. If he hurried, he could find Laurie on a break in between.

Leo waited until he saw Charlotte Pierce leave the set. Laurie smiled when she saw him, but then a moment of panic crossed her face. “Dad, where’s Timmy?”

“He’s fine. I woke him up and he’s in your room getting ready for breakfast.” They had lived for five years in the shadow of a killer’s threat that he would someday return to kill both Laurie and her son. That kind of fear doesn’t fade easily. “I think Alex may have been right when he said I was jumping to conclusions about Jeremy Carroll. You need to see this.” He opened his laptop screen.

Laurie’s mouth opened in surprise. “Is that-? Oh my God, it is.”

He clicked to the other two photographs. “His arm’s around her here. And check out the way he’s looking at her in this one. I think Jeff was dating Carly Romano. Amanda may not have been his first victim.”