“I don’t understand.”
“A case proving that Logan not only killed True, but is also responsible for the women who’ve gone missing.”
Bailey felt sick. “That’s crazy.”
“That’s Billy Ray. Crazy.”
“He can’t have proof Logan did that. Because he didn’t. I know he didn’t.”
Bailey heard the frantic edge in her voice and struggled to control it. “If he really did have evidence, he’d have used it a long time ago.”
“He won’t quit trying. He’s obsessed. I just … thought you should know.”
Bailey knew she should respond, thank her. Instead, she stood. “I need to be getting back to the farm.”
Stephanie reached up and grabbed her hand. “It hasn’t been easy for Logan. He takes so much on himself. Responsibility for everything from his mother’s murder to his brother’s suicide.” She shook her head. “Just love him, Bailey. That’s what he needs from you.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
For a long time after she exited the hospital, Bailey sat in her vehicle, engine running, thoughts whirling. Logan’s mother murdered? A brother who committed suicide? She pictured the boy from the photographs at Henry’s and shuddered. No wonder he didn’t speak much of the past. No wonder he was guarded to the point of secretive.
True’s desertion. Another betrayal. The horrible rumors. Being investigated by the police.
“Death follows him. It follows that family.”
Not death. Tragedy. How unfair to point at Logan that way. He was the victim, not a perpetrator. One of the victims. Raine was another. Anyone all this sadness had touched.
Her, too, now that she loved him.
Tears stung her eyes. “Just love him. That’s what he needs from you.”
Bailey rested her head against the seat back. But how did she love someone she didn’t know? Who kept so much of himself locked away?
She could be in love with him, but it wasn’t the same as love in the transformative sense, where two people became as one. Sharing everything. Leaning on each other for everything.
In sickness and in health.
Until death do us part.
The chirp-chirp of a car’s auto lock came from the car beside her. A man and a woman arriving. Bailey realized she was crying and sat up, pretending to be searching for something in her purse on the passenger-side seat.
She felt the couple’s curious gazes, and knew they probably thought someone she loved was ill. That she had been visiting. Or saying good-bye.
Maybe she should. Say good-bye. Leave Logan and Abbott Farm behind. He’d kept so much from her. Deliberately. His choice. If she stripped it down, took away all the romance, the sex and sunrises, he had deceived her. Manipulated her, stolen her right to make an informed decision about marriage to him.
Bailey wiped the tears from her cheeks. She wanted to be angry. Indignant. That would be so much more palatable than this hurt. This feeling of betrayal.
She could confront him. Demand he tell her everything, spill his guts. Or else.
She let out a long breath. She’d find no satisfaction in that. She wanted him to fully trust her. To let her in, without tears or ultimatums.
The way she had him. She had told him about her father leaving, her mother’s illness and the toll caring for her had taken. She’d shared her hopes and dreams, her fears. Before they’d left the island. Before I do. Before, before, before.
What he had shared with her would fill a teacup.
But she loved him anyway. She had tied her life to his, had chosen to believe their fairy tale. For better or worse, crazy or not.
Happily ever after.
She could believe enough for the both of them.
Bailey straightened. She wouldn’t let their love slip away. She would love him hard enough, completely enough, to burrow through his defenses.
But she needed help. Someone who knew everything about him and his past. Who understood and loved him. Two people came to mind. One whose loyalty made him tight-lipped, the other whose emotional instability made her dangerous.
But Raine loved him the way only a sister who had suffered the same blows could.
Of course, Raine. Although it might take a miracle.
Bailey punched “Home” into her GPS; the system directed her to “proceed to the highlighted route.”
Good advice, she thought. And exactly her plan. She shifted the Range Rover into gear.
*
The sun had begun its final descent as Bailey made her way up the drive to Raine’s cottage and studio. The landscape was wild and lovely, very much like the woman. Several pieces of abstract sculpture adorned the green spaces near the buildings—one of which was lyrical, with colorful pieces that caught the light and spun in the wind like pinwheels. Bailey detested the other two on sight—muscular and somehow threatening, like New Age gargoyles.
She parked in front of the two buildings. It wasn’t difficult to pick the house from the studio—the house looked like many of the cottages Bailey had seen around town, with a wide front porch and Victorian trim; the other was modern and minimalist, incongruent with the natural setting.
Lights burned inside the latter, and pasting a friendly smile on her face, she approached. Raine opened the door before Bailey knocked. She wore a painter’s apron, decorated with what looked to be a lifetime of paint; shorts and a T-shirt under the apron. Latex gloves, also smeared with paint, covered her hands.
Her eyebrows drew down into a frown. “This is a surprise.”
“Hello, Raine.” Bailey handed her the bottle of wine she had purloined from Logan’s wine closet. “I hoped we could visit.”
Raine looked at the bottle’s label, then back up at her. One corner of her mouth lifted in amusement. “You chose well. Just hope Logan doesn’t miss it.”