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!”