“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.
She turned, expecting to see Kate.
Even though the person wasn’t Kate, she began to smile. But as he came toward her, she realized that something was off. She’d known him for years, but this was an expression she’d never seen on his face before. She’d read somewhere that pregnant women develop a type of sixth sense to protect their unborn children from danger. Somehow she just knew. And he wasn’t supposed to be here.
If this gut feeling turned out to be right, there was no way she could get past him and back to the hotel. He was blocking her path on this narrow pier. Pretending to be unconcerned, she waved and then started to call 911. But he was walking toward her too quickly. She could never place the call in time. And if she were right, he would never let her keep her phone. It could be used to track down her location.
On impulse, she changed plans. She slipped her phone gently between two wood slats of the pier. A crossbeam beneath the boards held it in place. She had to hope he wouldn’t notice it there.
She stood up, deciding that she had a better chance of fighting back on her feet.
“Hey there,” she said, praying with every fiber of her being that her instincts were wrong.
Then she saw the gun. There was no way to fight. She placed one hand protectively on her belly as he guided her along the pier and then shoved her onto the yacht. As she felt a sharp prick in the side of her neck, she prayed that someone would connect the dots between her phone and what was happening to her.
And then everything went black.
67
Jeff was pushing the elevator button as fast as he could. He never should have let Meghan run off like that. He should have chased her from the room and blocked the hallway if necessary.
The car seemed to descend impossibly slowly as he replayed their argument in his head. How could he have screamed at her that way? He had even accused her of not feeling anything about Amanda’s death. He had been cruel. He knew Meghan didn’t show her emotions the way most people did.
When the elevator doors parted, he rushed through the lobby, searching for any sign of her. I never should have doubted her, even for a second, was the drumbeat in his head. He, of all people, knew how hurtful it was to be suspected of harming Amanda. But how could Meghan possibly have run off this way? He had texted and called her repeatedly, and she wasn’t responding. She has to know how terrified I’d be, he thought.
Jeff felt as though he was reliving a nightmare as he retraced all the same steps he’d taken when they first realized Amanda was missing. The pools. The shops. The promenade. No, he vowed silently, I won’t let this happen again.
As he searched for his wife in all the same places he’d looked for Amanda, he realized how much the two women had in common, but only superficially. They were both smart and perfectionists, but their personalities were so different.
Jeff and Amanda had been together at just the right point in their lives for their relationship to make sense. When she was ill, she needed someone loyal and kind. And Jeff, who was struggling to figure out where a nice, easygoing guy like himself fit into the legal profession, sometimes needed a push from Amanda to be more assertive. Unlike Amanda, though, Meghan always accepted him just the way he was. She had never asked him to change, not even once. He was truly in love with her. They were meant to be together, not just at one phase of life, but forever.
How in the world could she leave me worrying this way? he wondered. He tried her cell again. No answer. Knowing Meghan, she had her phone on vibrate and might not even hear it.
As he was about to disconnect the call, an alert popped up on his screen inviting him to connect to one of the available wireless connections. He got an idea. Meghan always ran a “hotspot” from her cell phone because she didn’t trust the security of hotel servers for her confidential client information. He was fairly certain that the range of a hotspot was about one hundred and fifty feet. If he kept searching for the name of her signal-“MeghanInBrooklyn”-he might be able to find her.