“I believe the same thing Logan does.” He hit a rut, causing Bailey to come off her seat. She grabbed the dash for support.
“Sorry about that,” he muttered. “She was having an affair and left him. It all adds up.”
“But it doesn’t. Not the way everyone loved her.”
“I don’t understand.”
“No one saw it coming. No one … saw that in her.”
He hit another rut; it tossed her against him. She scooted away. “It’s been since True, hasn’t it? That Logan’s been unable to sleep.”
He glanced at her, then back at the path. “You should ask him, Bailey.”
“I know, but he—” She looked down at her hands and absently rubbed away a rusty-looking smudge on her fingers. “It’s hard. When I ask things that … he shuts me out.”
He didn’t respond and she reached over and touched his sleeve. “Please. I could really use a friend.”
His expression softened and he stopped the cart. “No. His insomnia started when his mother died, it’s gotten much worse since True. She was the most … wonderful woman. Kind. Funny. Pretty. She was good to me.”
Bailey frowned, confused. “True?”
He looked surprised. “What?”
“You’re talking about True? She was good to you?”
He shook his head. “Sorry. I was talking about Logan’s mother. Elisabeth.”
Her name sounded like a prayer on his lips. Obviously, she had been very important to him. “Growing up, I spent more time here than at home. It was she who encouraged my love of horses.”
He looked away, then back at her. “Everything was different after she died. Everyone was different.”
“When did you suspect that Logan’s dad, you know—”
“Killed her? We all knew he did it. The four of us, right away from the moment we learned she wasn’t onboard.”
“But you didn’t … say anything? To anyone?”
“Logan did, finally.”
“He told me the two of you testified against him.”
“We just relayed what we saw and heard that weekend.”
“I can’t imagine how difficult that must have been.”
“No, you can’t.” He glanced apologetically at her, as if sorry for how sharp that sounded. “Then Roane hung himself. He was so sensitive. So easily … influenced. He was despondent the day he did it.”
“You talked to him?”
“I did. I was maybe the last. He’d never recovered from his mother’s death. The court validating what he knew, what we all knew, only made it worse.”
He was silent a moment. “Logan was the one who found him.”
“Oh, my God.” She paused, hurting for her husband. “He didn’t tell me that. Just that he had hung himself in the old barn.”
“Not the main barn. The hay barn. We don’t use it anymore.”
Bailey thought making that distinction was important to Paul, though she didn’t get why. “He blames himself,” she said. “I wish I could take that away. I don’t know how.”
“You can’t. He was the big brother. He feels like he should have somehow known … That’s who he is, Bailey.”
That’s why he blamed himself for his mother, too.
It only made her love him more.
“Thank you, Paul, for telling me.”
“You’re welcome.” He started the cart and they eased forward. “This is a very sad family you’ve married into.”
He rounded the curve and the house’s secondary gates came into sight. Moments later, he pulled to a stop at the courtyard gate. She climbed out, then looked back. “What about you, Paul? Why do you stay?”
“Because they’re my family, too.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Tuesday, April 22
4:20 A.M.
She watched as Paul turned the cart and headed back the way he had come, then ducked inside. “Logan” she called softly. He didn’t reply; but she did a quick search of the downstairs anyway, before heading up.
Where was he? It was almost dawn. She crossed to the balcony doors, opened them and stepped through. The moonlight seemed brighter from above than it had below. She gazed out, past the courtyard wall, to the woods, to where she had seen Henry that day, picturing him.
But as she did, the memory of him there on the path shifted and changed. A memory from another time. Logan. Heading away. Carrying something. A stick … No, a shovel.
Her knees went weak. She remembered. The next morning her stomach had been fluttery. Logan had been sweet, felt her head to see if she had a temp.
Then he’d called off their hike out to the pond. He had to go into the city. A problem with a property on the Westbank, Algiers Point.
So she had gone without him. As she had feared, the shoe was gone. The stick she’d dug it out with had been there, the debris from around it. She’d searched the area, thinking maybe an animal had dragged it away.
No shoe, no spot of red anywhere.
She recalled telling herself it didn’t mean anything, even as a tingling sensation had moved over her. She’d felt light-headed. Queasy.
He had gone for the shoe. So she couldn’t take it to Billy Ray.
“Bailey?”
Startled, she whirled around, nearly slipping on the damp tile. She grabbed the railing for support. Logan, in the doorway.
He started toward her. “What’s wrong?”
“Where were you?”
“Bailey?”
“Don’t come any closer.” She pressed herself back against the rail. “Where were you?”
“My God … what’s happened—I woke up and was worried about Raine. I went to check on her.”
“It’s the middle of the night.”
“I don’t sleep well. And I knew if I didn’t check on her, I wouldn’t get back to sleep.”
“Why didn’t you tell me another woman’s gone missing?”
“What?” He frowned. “Who told you that?”
“I went looking for you.” Her voice broke. “I couldn’t find you. Paul hadn’t seen you, either.”
“You saw Paul? This late?”
“At the barn. Doing laundry.”
“I’m sorry I frightened you,” he said. “I didn’t want to wake you, so I just left.”
Henry and Elisabeth had been having an affair. So Logan’s dad had killed her. True had been having an affair, so Logan killed her.
Like father like son.
“What happened to the red shoe?”