Tiffany’s back stiffened. “You didn’t invite me?”
“No, but it wasn’t because I didn’t want you there. My father hired a wedding planner who took care of everything, including the guest list. I didn’t want a big wedding, but he insisted on having a public ceremony for some of his business contacts. I gave the planner a list of some previous work colleagues and college friends. My father and Jake invited the rest.”
When she looked hurt, I added, “I hadn’t talked to you since Mom’s funeral. I just . . .”
Something cracked in my heart, oozing a thin stream of pain that stole my breath.
Her lack of contact had hurt me more than I’d realized. She’d been my Aunt Tiffany, and after my mother died, she was just one more person who’d abandoned me.
“What did Randall say at the wedding?” Marco asked. “When he announced it had been called off.”
“That the bride had gotten cold feet. He thanked everyone for attending but said there would be no wedding today.” She added, “He stressed the word today.”
That didn’t surprise me.
“Did the police contact you about her disappearance?” Marco asked. “Did they talk to any of the other guests?”
Frowning, she shook her head. “No. I never spoke to anyone about it until Randall called me.”
“What did he say?” Marco asked.
She casually rested her hand on the arm of her chair, but I got the impression it was for show. “He told me that Caroline had gone missing before the wedding, but they hadn’t alerted the authorities because of the potential bad publicity.”
“Didn’t you find that odd?” Marco asked.
She squinted at him, and wrinkles creased her forehead. So no Botox . . .
“He didn’t want it to reflect badly on Caroline. He said she’d been in a poor mental state before she left . . . that she hadn’t been thinking rationally. It was embarrassing enough to walk away from five hundred guests and a wedding that cost well over a hundred thousand dollars, so why bring national attention to her humiliation?”
“Did you agree with his plan?”
“No,” she said with a frown. “I admonished him and said if she was in a poor mental state it was all the more reason to find her quickly and get her help. He told me he’d hired private investigators to track her down. That was when he admitted they”—she shot a glance at me—“you’d had a falling-out at the rehearsal dinner. He said his first theory was that Caroline had run off, but the investigators hadn’t found any trace of her. That was why he was contacting me. He thought she might go to someone from her past.”
My heart skipped a beat, and the back of my neck felt clammy.
He’d thought right. When I’d broken down in Arkansas last summer, I’d told Rose that I was on my way to Georgia, but I hadn’t consciously thought about her. Maybe my subconscious mind had made the connection.
“What did you tell him?” Marco asked.
“That I hadn’t heard from her, of course. He begged me to tell him if I did. He seemed desperate to make things right. I repeated my suggestion that he should contact the police. People would get over the runaway bride story, and finding her and bringing her home safely was the most important thing. Then he told me they had another working theory. He said he has some powerful enemies, and he was worried she might have been kidnapped. He hadn’t contacted the police yet because he thought it might be safer for her if they didn’t involve the authorities, but he was very concerned because no ransom note had arrived. He said he had special people looking into it. People who would have a better chance of success than the proper channels.”
Had he really believed I’d been kidnapped? I was sure the Hardshaw Group had enemies who might have stolen the daughter of one of the top Hardshaw men the night before her wedding as a power play. But I doubted they would have held on to me for a month without breathing a word. In all likelihood, they probably would have killed me and then sent my father the photos . . . that or pieces of my body. I’m sure he knew that too, so when a month had passed and no one had claimed responsibility for my abduction, he’d pushed harder on the runaway theory.
“Did he say who those powerful people might be?” Marco asked, looking intrigued.
“No,” she said. “And I didn’t ask. But when you’re in a position of power and wealth like Randall Blakely, you’re bound to attract enemies.”
“Did he contact you again?” Marco asked. “Looking for his daughter?”
“No. I haven’t heard from him since. But then a month or so later, I heard he’d gone public and offered a half-million-dollar reward.” She narrowed her gaze on me. “Did you run off, Caroline?”
Marco sat up straighter. “Ms. Olson, I’d like to ask you some questions about Ms. Blakely’s mother.”
She looked caught off guard. “Mary Caroline died years ago.”
“Yes, Ms. Blakely mentioned she was in a car accident. Do you remember the details of her accident?” Marco asked.
“It was raining,” Tiffany said, looking uncomfortable. “She lost control of the car and crashed.”
“How close were you and Mary Caroline?”
“What does Mary Caroline have to do with her daughter’s disappearance?” she stammered in confusion. But the words had no sooner left her lips than her face paled. She reached over to a side table and pressed a button. “Claire? Can you please bring in some water?”
“Yes, ma’am,” a voice responded, and a woman sitting at a desk in a nearby office hopped up and disappeared down the hall.
“Do you need a moment?” Marco asked softly.
She nodded, staring at me like I was the ghost of my mother come from the grave to haunt her.
“I remember you,” I said, “but I’ll admit that I don’t remember much about you.”
“You were so young,” she said. “And you only saw me a few times a year.”
“I don’t remember seeing you at all after Mom died.”
“It wasn’t for lack of trying,” she said. “After the funeral your father said you needed time to grieve and that seeing me was too hard for you. Later, he said you didn’t want to see me at all, so eventually I stopped trying. Which was why I was so shocked to get the invitation to your wedding.”
“I never said any of that. In fact, he wouldn’t have been in a position to know how I felt.” But I wasn’t surprised my father had purposefully cut me off from someone who had been close to my mother.
A woman walked in with a tray topped with three empty glasses and a pitcher of water with cucumber, orange, and lemon slices floating amid ice cubes. She set it down on the coffee table and started filling the glasses and passing them out.
Marco immediately set his glass on the table next to him, but I took several long sips before setting my partially full glass on the coffee table in front of us.
Tiffany took her water, then turned to the woman. “Claire. Please close my door as you leave, and hold my calls.”
“Yes, Ms. Olson.”
Tiffany waited until her assistant left before speaking again.
“Randall led me to believe he was a doting father. He and Mary Caroline fought bitterly the last month or so before the accident, but he’d seemed so devoted to his daughter. He loved you,” she said in a pleading tone.