“Logan didn’t know?”
“No. It’s been eating me alive. I feel so … responsible.” She sighed. “I got True, why Logan fell in love with her, why she fell in love with him. What drew them together. But not you.”
“Wow. Thanks.”
“No, not for the reason you’re thinking. They were attracted to each other because of the darkness.”
Raine swore and grabbed a Kleenex. Pressed it to her eyes. When she looked up, Bailey saw that her eyes were red. “I promised myself I wouldn’t cry.”
“I’ve been promising myself that a lot. You see how well it works.”
Raine grimaced. “True and I became friends. Best friends. Her mother was crazy. A total schizo. Heard voices, the whole bit. In and out of hospitals.”
“August told me she was bipolar.”
“That was the story True told everyone. You know, one mental illness is so much more acceptable than another.”
Bailey heard the sarcasm in her voice, but didn’t comment.
Raine shredded the tissue. “True was terrified of passing the crazy on.”
“I don’t understand.”
“She was pregnant, Bailey.”
“Oh, my God.”
“She’d lied to Logan. When they met. Told him she couldn’t have children.”
“But she didn’t use protection?”
“An IUD.”
Bailey digested that information. “She wasn’t cheating on him.”
“No.”
“And the credit card charges to that hotel?”
“A doctor over there. Where no one knew her.”
“And the money she withdrew?”
“To have the abortion.”
Bailey laid a hand protectively on her own belly. “But ten thousand? That’s a lot of money.”
“I don’t know, I can only guess. She had to pay cash for it. And afterward, she meant to have her tubes tied. And Logan would never know.”
“But she must have known he’d see the withdrawal.”
“No. It was her account. And if he somehow did, she was going to tell him she sent it to her mother.”
So many lies. Bailey thought of her own; they turned her stomach. “What happened?”
“I drove her to have it done. The hotel room in Metairie is where she spent the night. She was bleeding. And despondent.”
“When she left, why didn’t you tell the police the truth? Why didn’t you tell Logan?”
“Think about it. It would have made him look more guilty, not less.”
“I don’t understand.”
“A husband finds out his wife aborted their baby, flies into a rage and—”
“Kills her.” Bailey released a broken breath. “But to allow him to believe his wife was cheating hurt him so much.”
“More than knowing she killed his baby?”
“You were afraid,” Bailey said, suddenly understanding more of Raine’s motivation. “That you’d lose Logan. That he would hate you for helping her.”
Tears welled in Raine’s eyes. “I’ve hated myself ever since, what would make him any different?”
“Didn’t you try to talk to her? Convince her not to do it?”
“Of course I did!” She looked away, then back. “I begged her. Logan loved her. He would be so happy about the baby, he’d forgive her lie about being unable to conceive. Anything but … that.”
“An abortion.”
“Yes.”
True hadn’t been having an affair.
She’d had an abortion. But why leave?
Bailey asked Raine that question and her sister-in-law looked down at her lap, pieces of shredded tissue across it. “I always thought she was so scared he’d find out somehow, that she chickened out and ran away.”
Bailey leaned forward. “That doesn’t make any sense to me.”
“Maybe she felt so guilty, she couldn’t face him?”
Bailey shook her head. “None of this makes sense. Run off, like that? Like she’d become a victim, like the other women? Was she that mean?”
“True wasn’t mean. She was fragile. Maybe she staged it that way so Logan wouldn’t come looking for her? Or she didn’t even make the connection, you know. Just left.”
“Plus, she would’ve had to have help.”
“What do you mean?”
“Her vehicle. They found it out by the old Miller place. The abandoned barn, middle of nowhere. She couldn’t have just walked away.”
“I’m thinking she called a friend from her past, arranged for them to pick her up. I know it’s weird, but I knew her. Her state of mind was so fragile and she seemed lost and … scared.”
A headache began at the base of Bailey’s skull. She absently massaged the spot. “I think True’s dead. Somebody killed her. You know it, too. In your heart.”
“Not Logan,” Raine whispered, voice cracking.
“No, not Logan. Someone else.”
Henry. In a box.
A box.
“Then who?”
A small wooden box. Henry beaming at her. A gift. For her.
“Bailey? What’s wrong?”
“At the funeral today, before I got sick…” She stopped, the image flooded her mind.
Henry lifting the lid, proudly showing her— “Oh, my God.” She looked at Raine but saw Henry instead.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Wednesday, April 23
3:00 P.M.
The memory rushed over her, like the wind that had been whipping through her open SUV windows. Carrie Underwood on the radio, Bailey singing along. Dr. Saunders had confirmed what she had suspected—she and Logan were having a baby!
She couldn’t wait to tell Logan. He would be as overjoyed as she was. This made all the worries and concerns of the past days seem small and insignificant.
Everything Logan had told her was the truth. The red shoe had ended up out at the pond for exactly the reason he said. Tony had gone back and retrieved his prize, of course he had. That’s what dogs did. Dig up bones, then bury them again.
She couldn’t wait to see his joy about the baby, to share hers. They were going to be parents.
Her fairy tale would have a happy ending.