In that moment, she realized that her sister-in-law had needed her company in a way Bailey didn’t—and never would. Because she was strong. Stronger than she had ever given herself credit for.
Bailey armed herself with her newfound strength as she shut—and locked—the bedroom door behind her. She hurried to her nightstand where she kept a journal.
She uncapped the pen and flipped it open to the first clean page. She jotted: Six items. All having belonged to a female.
Seven, if she counted the shoe.
No, Bailey decided. Not the shoe. Henry had included it, not the killer.
The killer. It could be anyone. Even Henry. He’d been in possession of the box. The shoe and other items. Wouldn’t the police find that suspicious?
She knew better. Sweet, simple Henry was no killer.
Neither was Logan.
She drew in a deep calming breath and carefully noted the six items in the journal.
Hair clip.
Bracelet.
N insignia necklace.
Key fob.
High school ring. She closed her eyes on the last, working to recall every detail of the ring. Covington High. Covington, a big city compared to Wholesome, about twenty minutes due south. Class of 2010.
What about a name? Or initials? She searched her memory, then made a sound of frustration. If she had looked to see if the band had been engraved, she didn’t remember. Yet, anyway.
She wrote: “Engraved?”
Bailey then turned her thoughts to the key fob. LSU. The state’s flagship university. Boasted a top-ten SEC football team, the Tigers. Bailey hadn’t lived in the area long, but it hadn’t taken long to understand folks around here were pretty much Tiger-obsessed. Which meant that owning one of these fobs didn’t necessarily mean the woman had been a student.
Although it could. Which left her pretty much nowhere.
Bailey tapped the pen on the journal page. What did she know of the women who had gone missing? She recalled that day at Faye’s; the newspaper spread out on the table in front of her, headline shouting:
Second Woman Disappears from Wholesome
A brown-haired young woman. Abby something. No, that wasn’t right. Amanda. Yes, Amanda LaPier.
She wrote the name down, then searched her memory for the other. It popped into her head. Trista Hook. Four years ago.
Now, Dixie Jenkins. The one Logan was accused of— She couldn’t finish the thought and made note of both names.
Bailey studied her notes. Three missing women. Not counting True. Six items in the box. She frowned and wrote: “Would a killer take more than one souvenir per victim?”
Amanda, Trista and Dixie. No, not Dixie. She’d been abducted after Bailey’s accident and Henry had given her the box before.
Bailey made a note and drew a line through the woman’s name. That meant, excluding True, only two women had gone missing. Neither with the first initial N. Had either of them attended Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge? Bailey wrote a reminder to get online and find out.
Six items in the box. Six trophies.
But only two missing women.
It didn’t make sense. Unless she was wrong about the box. Maybe, like the shoe, they were simply items Henry had collected over the years, cleaned up and stored in an old box he’d found in one of the barns or the garage.
They had nothing to do with the missing women or with Logan.
L.W.A. May 2, 1988.
But incredibly damning. If the police had the box, they would think the same thing she had. Of course they would.
Maybe they had. Maybe that was why Logan had been arrested?
She rubbed her arms, chilled. Billy Ray claimed Abbott Farm was where the bodies were buried.
Billy Ray. His display board. Not two women. Not even three or four.
With True, six? Or seven? More?
She pressed the heels of her hands to her head. Why couldn’t she remember?
“Bailey?” Raine tapped on the door. “Your phone rang, so I answered for you. It’s Logan’s lawyer.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Wednesday, April 23
3:45 P.M.
Billy Ray stood back and let the sheriff’s boys do their thing. They’d allowed him a place in viewing, which sat just fine with him. He supposed he could be pissed. It’d started out as his jurisdiction, his case. He’d made nailing Abbott his mission in life.
Precisely the reason he needed to step back. Watch and make notes from the distance of the viewing room. Abbott’s lawyer, Terry King, was one of the best and Billy Ray hadn’t made a secret about his agenda. Nothing skewed a jury faster than a claim of prejudicial law enforcement.
Billy Ray refocused on the video monitor. King had just arrived; the fun was about to begin. Abbott looked smaller in his jail jumpsuit, not so high-and-mighty. But if he was worried, he didn’t show it.
Billy Ray smiled grimly. Before this was over, Abbott would sweat. And Billy Ray couldn’t wait to see it.
In the interview room, Rumsfeld began. “Mr. Abbott, you’ve had adequate time to confer with your attorney?”
“I have.”
The attorney stepped in. “My client has assured me you have the wrong man. The Saturday in question, he was nowhere near Wholesome or The Landing.”
“Where were you, Mr. Abbott?”
“With my wife at Saint Tammany Hospital. She had a riding accident and was in a coma.”
“When Detective Carlson and I questioned you yesterday at your home, you indicated you left the hospital for a short time.”
“That’s right.”
“However, you weren’t certain of the time.”
“That’s correct.” He folded his hands on the table in front of him. Nary a tremor, Billy Ray noted.
“You said—” Rumsfeld glanced at his notes, although Billy Ray knew that was simply a ruse. The detective knew exactly the time Abbott claimed to have been out of the hospital. “—really late. Two, maybe three in the morning.”
“I said I wasn’t certain, but that it’d been very late. That’s correct.”
“Why, Mr. Abbott? It seems odd to me, to be so unaware of time.”
“Have you spent much time in a hospital, Detective?”
“Thankfully, no.”