The First Wife (13 page)

Both Trista and Amanda had gone missing after having been out partying. Neither arrived
home after. The following day, their unlocked vehicles had been found, keys in the
ignition, purses, wallets and I.D.’s in them. No sign of a struggle.

Billy Ray’s note:
“Obviously the women knew and trusted their abductor. They went willingly—up to a
point.”

Bailey saw where he was going with this. Logan had a connection to all the women.
They would have trusted him. Enough to climb into his car. Or get close enough to
be pulled in.

Bailey then focused on True. Here, Billy Ray had more information than anywhere else:
photographs, notations, some looked lovingly, painstakingly written, others scribbled
in a frenzy.

He’d followed True, Bailey realized. There were photos he wouldn’t have had access
to otherwise. Inappropriate. Obsessive.

Hands shaking, Bailey checked her phone. Nearly twenty minutes had passed.
How was that possible?
She reset the timer, adding eight more minutes.

On either end of his diagram, Billy had included other information. On the one, the
tragedies that had befallen the Abbott family, starting with his mother’s drowning.
She read each, the scribbled notations: “
Logan was on the boat that night
”; “
Logan was the one who came forward about his father
”; “
he was the one who found Roane
.”

Clearly, Billy Ray was somehow convinced that Logan had orchestrated each tragedy,
a dark force destroying all their lives.

Flimsy. Overreaching. Even she, untrained in investigative techniques, could see that.
The musings of a man with an agenda. A man desperate to believe his own agenda.

Relief swept over her. Tears stung her eyes. Nothing, it was all … nothing. Logan
had lost so much. Mother and father. Brother. His wife. Then he’d had to suffer suspicions
and accusation.

Even from her. Unspoken but loud and clear anyway.

Bailey glanced at the timer, saw she had only a couple of minutes if she wanted to
get out without confronting Billy Ray, and hurried to the opposite end of the diagram.

Three women’s names. A photograph beside each. All three had gone missing in the years
between Trista Hook and Amanda LaPier. One in Jacksonville, Florida, one in Houston,
Texas, and the last, Atlanta, Georgia. All three with a brief connection to Louisiana:
one a stint as a bartender in the French Quarter, two had attended LSU.

That was it. No other information about them or their abductions. If in reality they
even had been. She only had this, Billy Ray’s written ravings, to go by.

Grasping at straws, she told herself. Trying anything to pin these abominations on
her husband—going so far as to access law enforcement databases for like crimes. For
all she knew, these women had been recovered, or a suspect apprehended.

She should follow up. Bailey dug a pen and a scrap of paper out of her purse, jotted
the three names on the paper and slipped it into her pocket.

From outside she heard the slam of a car door.
Billy Ray, returning. Three minutes early.

Bailey didn’t want to be here, in this room, with him. She slung her purse strap on
her shoulder and hurried to the front porch. He looked anxious. And hopeful. For a
moment, Bailey felt sorry for him, then reminded herself of his vendetta against her
husband.

“Well?” he said. She didn’t respond; he searched her expression. “You see now, don’t
you?”

“No, Billy Ray, I don’t. At least not what you want me to see.”

“You’re lying, I can tell. I see how upset you are.”

“For a moment, I was. For a moment, I doubted him. But only a moment.”

“You’re blind to what he really is. Because of his looks. And money. Because of his—”

“No,” she said softly, “you’re the one who’s blinded. I’m going home now, Billy Ray.”

“No.” He caught her arm. “Not until you tell me the truth.”

His voice rose slightly. His grip on her arm hurt. She kept her own voice low, soothing.
“I think you’ve been told the truth before. You don’t have anything substantial here.
It’s circumstantial, wishful thinking. I’m sorry.”

His fingers tightened on her arm. “I’m not going to stop.”

“Let me go, Billy Ray. You’re hurting me.”

“I know I’m right. It’s so obvious.”

“Only to you.” She covered his hand with hers, gave it a gentle squeeze, then removed
it from her arm. “Logan loved True. He didn’t hurt her.”

“She was afraid of him.”

“You’re grasping at straws. No one else saw that.”

“I saw it in her eyes. Her posture. She radiated it. I saw because I was witness to
the same thing all my life.”

“Your mother and father.”

“And the whole world thought they were a happy couple, too. My dad the greatest guy
in the world. But I knew better. I saw what no one else did. I don’t know why she
stayed with him.”

He said the last almost to himself, and Bailey wondered whether he was talking about
his mother or True. Even as compassion washed over her, she acknowledged that it didn’t
matter. Logan was just who she thought he was, the man she had fallen in love with.

“I’m so sorry, Billy Ray.”

“I don’t need your pity.” An angry red stained his cheeks. “Yours, my uncle’s or anyone
else’s! I’m right about this. These women were murdered.”

“Maybe so, but not by my husband.”

Bailey turned and walked away. He called after her. “The bodies are there. Buried
on Abbott Farm. Why won’t he—”

She reached the SUV, unlocked the door.

“—allow a search of the property? What’s—”

She slid inside, started the engine.

“—he hiding?”

Nothing, she thought. He was hiding nothing. Lips curving into a smile, she headed
home.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“Okay, Tony,” Bailey said, tugging on her rain boots—shrimp boots they called them
down here, which always made her laugh. “Almost ready. Are you?” He barked once, ran
in a circle, stopped, then barked once again. She laughed. “I’ll take that as a yes.
Let’s do this.”

She slipped into her hooded windbreaker and headed outside. The sky had finally cleared,
and the wet world glistened in the sunlight. Bailey had discovered it rained a lot
in South Louisiana. Dramatic thunderstorms, sudden showers and all-day soakers. Or
three-day soakers, like this one had been. She couldn’t wait to get some fresh air
and exercise.

Obviously, Tony felt the same way. He’d been racing around the house, getting into
one thing after another; a war with a down pillow—the pillow had lost—a game of hide-and-seek
with every shoe in her closet and an imaginary grand prix, in which the course was
a perfect loop through the dining and living room, kitchen and front hall.

It had ceased to be amusing after the first two hours.

Now, time for some fresh air and exercise. She wasn’t sure who needed it more—her
or the dog.

A hike to Henry’s, she had decided. She patted the jacket’s inside pocket to make
certain the candy bars were there—Henry’s favorite, Baby Ruth.

He’d been home from the hospital nearly two weeks, growing stronger every day. Stephanie
had stayed with him at first, then she and Bailey had shared daily check-ins. In the
process they had become fast friends.

Bailey stuck to the path. She’d expected it to be wet, but not this soupy. Now she
understood the boots. When Logan had proudly handed them to her, she hadn’t gotten
it. She sure did now.

Logan
. She smiled, thinking of him. She hadn’t told him about going to Billy Ray’s, not
about his dry erase board, none of it. He would be hurt by what he’d perceive as her
doubt and furious at Billy Ray. They didn’t need all that; things were good. They
were good.

Tony, obviously, found the conditions to be very much to his liking. The wetter, the
muddier, the better. He ran ahead, then barreled off the path and through the underbrush
after his imaginary prey, then circled back looking like a four-legged swamp creature.
Bailey laughed and wondered what Henry would think, showing up with his dog in this
condition—although she suspected he had seen the dog this way many times before.

Bailey stopped suddenly, realizing she hadn’t seen Tony in several minutes. “Tony!”
she called. “C’mon, boy!”

Instead of the telltale crunching of the underbrush, he barked. Once, then twice.
She called him to come again. This time he responded with frenzied, continual barking.

She glanced ahead. The moisture had begun to seep through her jacket and jeans, chilling
her. Henry’s cabin wasn’t that much farther, located in a clearing. Here the sun barely
peeked through the forest canopy, but there it would be bright and warm.

Tony knew where he lived. Of course he did. He was a dog, not a child, and traveled
these woods almost every day. She was the one who would get lost if she wandered,
not him. Even as she told herself to stick to the path, she went in search of the
dog.

Something didn’t feel right to her. She’d made this trip a dozen times before, and
never once had Tony run off and refused to come when called. Maybe Tony was hurt?

Bailey caught her bottom lip between her teeth. Or maybe it was Henry? Maybe Henry
had been out walking, fallen and been incapacitated?

Or Tony was just being a crazy puppy and had discovered a new trick?

Muttering an oath, she struck off in search of the dog, following the sound of his
barking.

The forest played games with her, leading her one way, then another. Just when she
realized she was hopelessly lost, the woods opened into a small clearing with a pond.

She stopped, surprised. Logan hadn’t mentioned a pond on the property and she could
see that in better weather it would be a pretty spot. Secluded and shady, with grassy
areas perfect for picnics or sunning. She wondered if as kids, he and his sibs had
used it as a swimming hole.

Tony was on the far side of it, apparently digging a route to China from a Louisiana
swimming hole.

“Tony!” she called sharply. “Come!”

This time he didn’t even acknowledge her existence. As annoyed with herself as with
him for being in this predicament, Bailey looked over her shoulder. Obviously, the
dog could find his way to Henry’s, but could she?

Doubtful she could, she scanned the ground around the swollen pond. She really had
no desire to trek around it, but she wasn’t leaving without Tony. The little shit
had to help her find her way out of here.

She picked her way to him, choosing her steps carefully. She envisioned slipping and
falling in or twisting an ankle. How long before Logan would come searching for her?
And how would he find her way out here?

She reached the far side of the pond, managing to avoid both scenarios. Tony paid
no attention to her, intent on digging up whatever treasure he’d uncovered.

Something red, she saw as she neared him. Candy apple red. Hardly a color indigenous
to the area ever, let alone at this time of year. Bailey frowned. What was it?

She squatted by Tony. “Let me see what that is, buddy. That’s right,” she said, grabbing
his collar and pulling him back.

The toe of a shoe, she saw. Peeking out from the embankment. A lady’s shoe, with a
peekaboo toe.

The hair at the back of her neck prickled. With the sensation, a metallic taste filled
her mouth. How had it gotten out here, buried in the muck?

Bailey swallowed hard. She was being an idiot. It was probably a sandal. Undoubtedly
this pretty little pond was known to all the locals, and she’d bet it was popular
with young people. Someone had left it behind.

Simple.

So, why didn’t it feel simple?

Bailey released Tony, stood and went searching for a sturdy stick. She found one and
returned to the dog who had apparently decided it would be much more entertaining
to watch her. He sat on his haunches, as if patiently waiting for her to retrieve
his
prize.

She knelt and the wet seeped through her jeans. Using the stick, she started digging
out the shoe.

Not a sandal, she realized. A high-heeled pump.

Bailey sat back and stared at it, heart beating fast, mind whirling.

Two women missing from Wholesome. Some people thought True had brought that number
to three.

And now, here on Logan’s property, she had found this candy apple red, high-heeled
shoe. In a place she could think of no logical reason for it to be.

What else could be buried by the pretty, little swimming hole?

Fear coiled inside her, stealing her breath. Any notion of staying calm and collected
evaporated.

Get out of here, Bailey. Now.

She jumped to her feet, slipped on the wet grass, then scrambled back up. She swung
around and stopped, a sound of terror on her lips. A figure in the wooded area beyond
the clearing. Watching her.

Had he seen her unearth the shoe? she wondered. What if it was his handiwork, something
he didn’t want revealed to anyone?

Two women, missing from Wholesome.

And True had made three.

PART TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Saturday, April 19

5:25
A.M.

Bailey opened her eyes. The light stung. Her head throbbed. It all came crashing back.
The hospital. Bits and pieces of conversations. Her husband.

She turned her head, wincing at how much that hurt. Her gaze settled on him. She said
his name.

“Logan.”

He stirred, opened his eyes and looked at her. She said his name again and he made
a sound. Broken, and raw. In the next moment, he was clutching her hand, kissing it.
“I was so afraid … I thought … I thought I’d lost you.”

She tried to smile, but couldn’t. “What’s … wrong … with me?”

“Now that you’re awake, nothing. You took a fall and bumped your head. That’s all.”