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“This is such a goddamn mess,” Larry said. “My life’s work is spiraling down the drain.”
It shouldn’t have surprised Annette that Larry Chadwick’s political ambitions blinded him to the fact that a girl was missing. Or that he considered the potential derailment of his Supreme Court nomination more a tragedy than the disappearance of a twenty-two-year-old college student. He was, after all, a politician.
“Will you please tell the president to give this thing some time? Ask him to wait just another week. Allow the police to at least start an investigation before we dump my nomination.”
Annette thought for a moment before slowly nodding.
“Okay. I’ll ask him for a week,” she said.
A week gave her time to find answers to questions the president would surely want answered. It gave Annette time to figure out if she should tell her boss to confidently back Larry Chadwick, or cut his losses and avoid a political tsunami.
CHAPTER 40
Washington, D.C. Friday, April 28, 2023 1:35 p.m.
ON FRIDAY AFTERNOON, A FEW HOURS AFTER SHE LEFT JACQUELINE Jordan’s office, Alex sat in the back booth of a diner in Georgetown. She stirred her coffee, a filtered brew served from a round glass pot that had likely held several previous brews that day. Her first sip proved as awful as she anticipated. She had to suffer only a few more sips before Matthew Claymore walked through the front door. He took a seat in the booth across from her.
“How’d your meeting with the police go?” Alex asked.
Matthew’s first formal meeting with the police had taken place earlier that morning.
“Fine, I guess. Ms. Jordan did a lot of the talking and she had . . . I guess you gave her all the work we did together, because every time one of the detectives asked me about where I’d been over the weekend, she offered proof. Thanks for doing all that for me.”
“That’s what you pay us for. But in case something has happened to Laura, we’re going to need a lot more than a timeline.”
“Like what?”
“I need to know more about the story Laura was working on. The longer Laura stays missing, the more the police are going to look for answers. And the more they look, the more likely it is they’ll find what they’re looking for, whether it exists or not.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Just trust me. I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I’ve had my own unpleasant experience with a police investigation. You’re already on their radar. You’re ahead of the game because you’ve secured good—really good—legal representation. But the police have a theory of what happened to Laura, and it’s safe to say you’re part of that theory. We can’t sit back and wait for them to create a narrative. We need to go on the offense by offering our own theory of what might have happened to Laura.”
“Even though I told them, and showed them, where I was all weekend?”
“It doesn’t matter, Matthew. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. It doesn’t matter that you’re innocent. There are blank hours in your weekend. The hours when you were sleeping. And since you were alone during those hours, the police and the detectives will use them to fit their narrative. They’ll say you spent that time—those hours when no one can account for your movements—abducting Laura and hiding her body.”
“Jesus! We don’t even know if anything’s happened to her.”
“I’m just explaining how the police and detectives work. My job is to keep you in front of the storm that may be coming. In order to do that, I need your help.”
A waitress approached and splashed coffee into Alex’s mug.
“Can I get you anything, hon?”
“A Coke, please,” Matthew said.
After the waitress left, Matthew looked at Alex. “My parents told me to do whatever Ms. Jordan said, so I will. I’ll give you whatever you need. If I can.”
“Good. Let’s start with a few questions. Were you and Laura exclusive?”
“Like, were we seeing other people?”
“Yes.”
“No. We were pretty serious.”
“How long had you been together?”
