All Dressed in White

56

Leo had just returned to his hotel room when he heard a knock at his door, followed by a familiar voice. “It’s Laurie. Dad, are you there?”

She sounded concerned. He jumped from the chair to let her in.

“Have you seen Alex and Timmy?” she asked immediately. “I can’t find them anywhere.”

“Timmy left a note saying Alex was joining him and Jerry for the water park. He used five exclamation points.”

The sight of her son’s carefully printed words on the Grand Victoria stationery only partially calmed her. “When Alex texted me saying he was going to the pool with Timmy, I thought he meant the hotel.”

Leo expected his daughter to worry once again that Timmy was getting too attached to Alex, but she changed the subject back to the case. “Dad, I can’t decide whether to take these pictures to Detective Henson.” She removed the photos from her briefcase and spread them out on the bed. Leo hadn’t had time to study them closely in the car.

“Look,” she said, pointing to a picture of Meghan glaring in the background as Jeff and Amanda posed under a poolside marble archway. “You can tell she’s in love with him, and he has no idea. And then in this final picture, it’s obvious Amanda and Meghan were fighting. Meghan never said anything about a confrontation after that one incident at the Ladyform offices.”

“You think they were arguing about Jeff?” Leo asked.

“Somehow Amanda could have learned Meghan was in love with Jeff. Maybe she even sensed it was mutual. She told Kate she had to find something out before she could go through with the wedding. This picture may have been taken when she confronted Meghan about her real feelings. I think they cut the argument short because it was time to get ready for dinner, but agreed to meet privately later. That’s probably why Amanda was heading for the parking garage. If only Jeremy had followed Amanda all the way to the car.”

“I thought you told me that Meghan and Charlotte rode up together on the elevator after Amanda said she forgot something.”

“They did, but once Meghan went to her room, she was alone. We’ll need to check with the hotel, but there must have been a way for Meghan to double back out of the hotel from her room without being seen. The camera footage is grainy. If she changed out of her dress into jeans and a baseball cap, she could have passed for a man. Plus, I was thinking about Carly Romano. If she and Jeff were dating, and Meghan was already interested in Jeff, then Meghan might have been the one to hurt Carly, too. She wanted Jeff to herself.”

At that very moment, Leo’s laptop let out a high-pitched ping from the desk in the corner. He had a new email message. He nearly ignored it, but sneaked a quick glance. It was from the Office of Student Services at Colby.

“Speaking of Carly,” he said, “I checked with the college to see if I could track down more details about her connection to Jeff. They scanned every yearbook page with Carly’s name on it.”

He opened the attachment to the new message. “I don’t see any mention of Jeff here,” he said, “but take a look at this.”

Laurie scanned the tribute to Carly in her sophomore yearbook. She was the president of the debate team. Without Carly, the club had no choice but to elect a new president. “Carly’s death was a tragedy and loss to our team and the entire Colby community. I only hope to do half the job she did.”

Beneath the quote was the smiling face of the new debate team president, Colby junior Meghan White.

As Leo’s laptop pinged with the incoming message, Jeff Hunter’s cell phone rang. It was an unexpected call from New York City. Jeff was shocked by who the caller was and what he said about Meghan.