All Dressed in White Read Free Page A

despite her laughing protests that the water was too cold.
    Her thoughts were interrupted by a tap on the office door, followed by Grace carrying a tray containing two cups of coffee and some of the pastries Laurie had purchased from Bouchon. Laurie smiled at Grace, noticing that she had opted to offer her favorite—the almond croissant—as a choice for Mrs. Pierce.
    “Can I get you anything else?” Grace wasn’t exactly traditional, but in the ways that mattered, she had good old-fashioned manners.
    “No, dear, but thank you.” Sandra Pierce managed to smile.
    Once Grace left, Laurie turned to Sandra. “I can’t say that I’ve heard anything about your daughter’s disappearance any time recently.”
    “Neither have I and that’s the problem. Even when she first went missing we suspected that the police were only going through the motions. There was no sign of a struggle in Amanda’s room. No reports of anything unusual happening on the resort property. And the Grand Victoria—that’s where the wedding was to take place—couldn’t be any safer. I could see the police looking at their watchesand their cell phones as though Amanda was bound to turn up back home in New York, confessing to cold feet.”
    Laurie wondered if Sandra’s perceptions about the police investigation might be biased. Even from the limited television snippets she had seen at the time, Laurie recalled seeing teams of volunteers searching the resort property for any sign of the missing bride. “As I remember, there was a considerable effort to find her,” she said. “It was on the national news for weeks.”
    “Oh sure, they checked off all the boxes of what they’re supposed to do when someone disappears,” Sandra said, her tone bitter. “And we were also out there in front of the cameras every day pleading for the public to help us find her.”
    “And who was the we?” Laurie walked to her desk to retrieve a notepad. She could already feel herself getting pulled into Sandra’s story.
    “My husband, Walter. Or ex-husband now, but Amanda’s father. And her fiancé, Jeff Hunter. Really the whole wedding party was involved: my other children, Charlotte and Henry; two of Amanda’s college friends, Meghan and Kate; and then two of Jeff’s college friends, Nick and Austin. We handed out fliers all over the local area. At first, the search was focused on the resort property. Then we moved out from there. It tore my heart to see them searching isolated areas, canals, construction sites, and swamps around the coastline. After a month, they stopped looking entirely.”
    “Sandra, I don’t get it. Why did they call her the Runaway Bride? I could understand the police suspecting cold feet for a few hours or maybe even a day or two. But surely as time passed they must have shared your concern. What made them think your daughter would just take off on her own?”
    Laurie could tell Sandra was reluctant to answer, so she pushed further. “You said there was no struggle in her room. Was hersuitcase missing? Her purse?” Those were the kinds of facts police used to distinguish between runaways and foul play. It was hard to run without money or identification, she thought.
    “No,” Sandra said quickly. “There seems to be only one thing missing from her wallet, her driver’s license. All of her clothes, her purse, her makeup, her credit cards, her cell phone—all of them were in her room. In the evening she often carried just a tiny purse with her room card, a compact, and lip gloss. That was never found. She could easily have slipped the license into it if she was planning to use the car. She and Jeff had rented a car at the airport. As far as we know, Amanda was the last one to use it when she and the girls went shopping that morning. There is a self-parking section on the grounds of the hotel. And that’s where they kept it.”
    Or, Laurie thought, she took her license and some cash and met somebody. Laurie now understood why so