Which was why her internal warning siren was still flashing bright red.
“Mrs. Collier?” Reggie’s head was turned in her direction. “You all right?”
Leigh had to stop her emotions from rollercoastering. Walter’s one abiding complaint about her was the very quality that made Leigh a survivor. Her personality changed depending on who was in front of her. She was sweetheart or Mom or Collier or Counselor or baby or you fucking bitch or, very occasionally, Harleigh. Everyone got a different piece of her, but nobody got the whole.
Reggie Paltz ran hot, so Leigh needed to run ice cold.
She reached into her purse to retrieve her notepad and Andrew’s case file. She clicked her pen. “I’m on limited time, Mr. Paltz. My boss wants a full rundown tomorrow afternoon. Take me through it quickly.”
“Call me Reggie.” He angled his laptop so they could both see the image on the screen: a nightclub entrance, a neon sign with a large comma followed by the word CHAMELEON. “CCTV clocked Andrew doing everything but taking a crap. I spliced it together. Took six freaking hours, but it’s Linda’s cash.”
Leigh pressed her pen to the notepaper. “I’m ready.”
He started the video. The date stamp read February 2, 2020, almost a month before the pandemic closed everything down. “The cameras are 4K, so you can see every speck of dirt on the floor. This is Andrew early on. He talked to a couple of foxes, one on the roof deck, another at the lower bar. The roof babe gave Andy her number. I tracked her down, but you don’t want her on the stand. The minute she figured out why I was talking to her, she got all up in that hashtag shit and turned into a raging bitch.”
Leigh looked down at her notepad. She had gone into autopilot as she recorded the details. She started to turn the page. Her hand stopped.
Mrs.
Her wedding ring. She had never taken it off, even after four years of separation from Walter. She let her lips part, slowly exhaled some of her stress.
“Here.” Reggie pointed to the screen, “This is when Andrew first meets Tammy Karlsen. She’s got a nice body. Face, not so much.”
Leigh ignored the casual misogyny and trained her gaze on the video. She saw Andrew sitting on a low, cushioned bench with a petite-looking woman whose back was to the camera. Her brown hair was shoulder-length. She was wearing a fitted black dress with three-quarter sleeves. She turned her head as she reached for her drink on the coffee table, laughing at something Andrew had said. In profile, Tammy Karlsen was attractive. Button nose, high cheekbones.
“Body language says it all.” Reggie tapped a key to double-time the video. “Karlsen scooches closer as the night rolls on. Around the ten -minute mark, she starts touching his hand to make a point or laugh at one of his jokes.” Reggie looked up at Leigh, saying, “I’m guessing that’s when she figured out that the Tenant stood for Tenant Automotive. Damn straight I’d be scooching close to a dude with that kind of cash.”
Leigh waited for him to continue.
Reggie tripled the speed, rushing through the video. “Eventually, Andrew’s got his arm along the back of the bench, and he starts stroking her shoulder. You can see him looking down at her tits, so it’s pretty clear he’s sending out messages and she’s receiving them one hundred percent. Around forty minutes in, she starts rubbing his thigh like a freaking stripper doing a lap dance. They went on like that for ninety-eight minutes.”
Ninety-eight minutes.
Leigh remembered Andrew using the exact same number in the parking lot. She asked, “Are you certain about the time?”
“As certain as anybody can be. All this shit can be faked down to the metadata if you know what you’re doing, but I got the raw footage from the bar, not through the prosecutor.”
“Has Andrew seen the video?”
“My guess is no way. I sent Linda a copy, but Andy’s going down that river called De Nile. Thinks this is gonna be over and he’s gonna get his life back.” Reggie fast-forwarded until he got to the spot he wanted to show her next. “So look, it’s just after midnight. Andrew walks Karlsen downstairs to the valet. He’s got his hand on her back as they go down the stairs. Then she’s holding on to his arm until they get to the valet. While they’re waiting, she leans in and he gets the hint.”
Leigh watched Andrew kiss Tammy Karlsen on the mouth. The woman’s hands wrapped around his shoulders. The space between their bodies disappeared. Leigh should’ve noted the number of seconds they held the kiss, but what had caught her attention was the look on Andrew’s face before their mouths had met.