Authors: Erica Spindler
Tags: #Fiction, #Thrillers, #Suspense, #Romance, #Contemporary Women, #General
“Sure. But it might cost you a brownie to go.”
“You’ve got it. But only one.”
He laughed, nodded and took a bite.
“Why aren’t you married?”
He almost choked on the mouthful.
“You must have gotten that question before?”
He cleared his throat. “Only from old ladies at weddings.”
“And now, friends’ pregnant wives.”
He eyed her, amused. “Why do you want to know? You got a friend to fix me up with?”
“Maybe.” She arched an eyebrow in question.
“Right girl never came along.”
“Never?”
“There was one girl, but it didn’t work out.”
“Where’d you meet her?”
“LSU.”
She scraped the last of the melted cream from her bowl. “Why didn’t it work out?”
“Two brownies.”
She looked up.
“It’ll cost you two.”
“Deal.”
“She wasn’t interested in farm life.”
“This isn’t exactly a farm.”
“She didn’t want to live in the country and said she didn’t want to come home to a
man who smelled like a barn and had dirt under his fingernails.”
An ugly edge had crept into his voice, and Bailey realized the woman had hurt him
deeply.
He looked away. When he continued, the edge was gone. “I was an Ag student, what did
she expect?”
“What was her name?”
“Why? Do you think you might recognize her?”
She had struck a nerve, she realized, and reached across the table and touched his
hand. “Forgive me, Paul. I don’t know what’s come over me, being so nosy.”
He grimaced. “No, forgive me. After all these years, you’d think I wouldn’t be so
sensitive about it.”
“She doesn’t sound like she was a very nice person.”
“She wasn’t, I realize that now.” He looked at her hand on his, then back up at her.
“But you know how young love is.”
“Blind?” she said awkwardly, drawing her hand back.
“And hormonal.” He stood and carried his bowl to the sink. “I suppose I should get
back to the horses.”
Silence fell between them. He cleared his throat. “Can I offer you some friendly advice?”
“Sure.”
“After True left, Raine packed up everything that had been hers, everything she’d
touched that marked this as her home. But all that was left was a shell. Of this place”—he
motioned with his hand—“and of Logan. Until you. Logan’s happy again. Fill this house
up with the two of you, with your children and theirs.”
A lump of tears settled in her throat. She swallowed against them.
“Let everything else go, Bailey. All of it. Questions and doubt. What anybody else
thinks. You know what’s real. You do.”
Yes, she thought as he walked away. Once she’d recovered her lost memories, they would
move on. Focus on their marriage, their family. Everything else would take its rightful
place as nothing.
Until then, the hole was too big and too dark, filled with nothing but a red shoe.
Tuesday, April 22
3:20
P.M.
After Paul left, the quiet thundered down on Bailey. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t
stop wondering: Had the shoe she and Tony unearthed been a right, not a left?
Her memory could be wrong. It probably was. Considering the events of the past days,
why should she trust her memory? It was laughable. Even so, that shoe didn’t make
sense to her.
She brought her hand to her belly, to their baby, growing there inside her. What were
her options, right now?
Think, Bailey. Sort it out. Facts from fears.
Fact. Tony had unearthed a ladies shoe—or a pair—from the swimming hole on Abbott
Farm property.
She was afraid it had belonged to True. And if not True, one of the other young women
who had gone missing from Wholesome over the years. Why? Because Billy Ray believed
Abbott Farm was where all the bodies were buried.
She brought the heels of her hands to her eyes. Because he believed Logan was a killer.
The man was obsessed with the notion. Because he’d been in love with True.
And from that tiny seed, her fears had grown, multiplied and spiraled out of control.
Bailey pulled in a deep, steadying breath. Time to take control back. She could eliminate
one of her fears quickly, by learning True’s shoe size.
She checked her watch. The way she figured it, she had an hour, tops, before Logan
returned home. In that time, she could do a quick search of the bedroom closets and
snoop around the attic a bit. Paul said Raine had taken care of True’s things for
Logan. She could have donated them, as Bailey had her mother’s. Or, perhaps, in a
symbolic gesture, hauled them to the dump.
But maybe not. Maybe they’d gone no farther than the attic. It was worth a shot.
Bailey hurried upstairs. She would check the guest rooms first. All the spare closets.
Then, depending on what she found, she would move on to the attic.
The closets were oddly empty. As if a family didn’t live here, she thought. In a way,
she supposed one hadn’t in a long time. Paul’s description of it as a shell was uncomfortably
accurate.
Bailey flipped through the meager contents, then moved on. One of the closets held
little-girl party and special-occasion dresses. Ruffles and lace, bows and ribbon.
For some reason, gazing at those frilly little outfits brought tears to her eyes.
She imagined the joyful little girl who had worn them and wondered what had happened
to her.
But she knew. Tragedy. Loss. A broken heart.
I won’t leave him, Raine. I promise you that.
Bailey blinked against the tears, cursing her raging hormones. She had made that promise;
she hoped to God she could keep it.
The attic was next. It was a walk-in, Logan had pointed to it that first day, on her
tour of the house. Light filtered through the one window, falling over the cluttered
interior, highlighting some objects and leaving others in shadow. She found the light
switch to the right of the door and flipped it up. Fluorescent light spilled evenly
over everything.
So many boxes, she thought. Which would they be in?
Recent, so not as dusty. Stacked together. Most probably toward the front, certainly
not buried. Marked “True’s Things” or nothing at all. Like an unmarked grave.
Stop it, Bailey. Get busy.
She started with the cartons closest to the door and made her way deeper into the
space. The farther she got from the door, the dustier it became. She sneezed several
times; her throat began to tickle. Near the window, she stopped at the sound of tires
on the gravel drive. She tiptoed to it, though she didn’t know why, and peered down.
Logan, home already. Pulling into the garage. Climbing out of the Porsche, going around
to the passenger side. No. She’d just begun—
But then she realized, she had done this before. With her mind’s eye she saw herself.
Frantically going through every box, every dresser drawer. Just the way she had today.
The same day she had gone to retrieve the shoe, only to find it gone. The day that
had changed everything.
Nothing. She’d found nothing of True’s that day, and she would find nothing now.
“Bailey!”
She quickly, quietly closed the attic door and hurried down the hall to the top of
the stairs. “Up here!” she called back.
He appeared at the bottom of the stairs, looked up at her. “You’re flushed. Are you
all right?”
“Fine.” She forced a sleepy smile and stretched. “I was napping.”
A small part of her died at the lie. She prayed that one day, when she told him and
explained why, he would forgive her.
“It smells delicious down here.”
“The brownies. How about I come down and fix you one?”
He smiled. “I’d like that.”
“Give me just a minute.”
She ran to the bedroom, pulled the coverlet back, then scrunched the pillow. From
there, she darted to the bathroom, washed her hands, splashed her face and brushed
her hair, trying to clean the dust off her.
That done, she went to meet him in the kitchen. “Everything go all right with your
meeting?”
“Fine.” He bent and kissed her. “Fears allayed, financing solidly in place.”
“Good.” She crossed to the pan of brownies, mind racing for an inconspicuous way to
ask him True’s shoe size even as she acknowledged there wasn’t one. “Ice cream?”
“I’ll go with your recommendation.”
He sounded amused, even lighthearted. As if there were nothing wrong. As if nothing
had changed between them.
As far as he was concerned, all had been resolved.
“You’re not having one?” he asked as she set the plate in front of him, then took
a seat.
“I already did. With Paul.”
“Paul?” He took a bite of the ice cream and pastry, then rolled his eyes. “Really
good.”
“Glad you think so. He came up to see if I needed something from the market, then
confessed to being a complete brownie-hound.” She glanced up at him. “He was telling
me about a girl he dated at LSU.”
“How did that come up?”
“I asked him why he wasn’t married.”
Logan laughed. “Poor Paul.”
Bailey ignored that. “She broke his heart. Did you meet her?”
“I did. She seemed nice enough.”
“That’s not the impression I got.”
“Really?”
“She broke it off with him because she didn’t want to be married to a guy who smelled
like a barn.”
“He never told me that, but it makes sense. When they started dating he was in vet
school, studying to be a large-animal vet. He was almost done when he chucked it.
Said he wanted to work with horses every day and came to run the farm.”
She frowned. “I wonder why he didn’t tell you? You’re his closest friend.”
“All that sharing isn’t a guy thing. Besides, Paul’s extremely private. Always has
been. Truthfully, I’m sort of blown away that he revealed as much as he did to you.”
… ’til it’s all blown away …
“The girl Paul dated, what was her name? Do you remember?”
“If my memory serves, her name was Cassie.” He scooped up the last of the brownie.
“You seem awfully interested in Paul.”
“He’s a big part of your life. Our life here.” He didn’t comment and she went on.
“What about his family? He told me a little, but not that much.”
“Almost as big a mess as mine.” She cocked an eyebrow and he smiled.
“Okay, that was an exaggeration. It was just him and his mom. Don’t know much about
his dad, never met him. He cut out on them when Paul was really young.”
“We have that in common,” she said. “I wonder why he never mentioned it?”
“Maybe because the similarity stops there. Unlike your mom, his was angry. And bitter.
She took all that out on Paul. I wasn’t over there much, but she wasn’t … kind.”
“That’s why he loved your mom so much, because she was.”
He nodded. “And that’s why he took it so hard when she died.”
“That’s so sad.”
“Don’t let on I told you all this, he’s a proud guy.” He stood and carried his bowl
to the sink, rinsed it, then looked back at her, expression arch. “I’m beginning to
think you’re a little too interested in the men around here.”
“Men? What are you talking about?”
“Last week it was August?”
She frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Asking about his family, if he’d ever been married, where he came from.”
“When was that? The day of the accident?”
“It was. That morning.” His smile faded. “Up out of the blue, you asked if he dated
much, if he’d ever been married.”
“I wonder why?”
“Because you’re nosy?”
She returned his smile, simultaneously acknowledging it felt like more. Because of
the timing.
“Have you talked to Raine today?” she asked, changing the subject.
“No. But I suppose I’d better.”
“I thought I might walk over and check on her.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Take her a brownie or two. Do you think she’d like that?”
“I do. But you know Raine, she’ll behave badly. Maybe I should come along?”
“I can’t be scared of her forever. Besides, I’m sure you have things to do.”
“I do. Paul wanted to go over the show budget. Make certain you have your cell phone.
Just in case.”
“Of what? She tries to kill me?”
But he didn’t laugh and Bailey wondered if maybe she should be afraid of the unstable
Raine.
Tuesday, April 22
4:55
P.M.
Raine answered the door in her pajamas. She looked a wreck—face pale, hair sticking
out every which way, mascara smudges under her eyes. Bailey’s first thought was that
the woman was ill.
Then she invited her in, slurring her words. Wobbling as she turned and headed back
inside.
She wasn’t sick, Bailey realized. She was loaded.
Bailey followed her, shutting the door behind them. It was the first time she’d been
inside Raine’s home; it was an eclectic and energetic mix of styles and art, country
and contemporary.
Here, Bailey saw only a hint of the studio’s creative chaos, the pillow and afghan
bunched up on the comfy-looking couch, magazines spilled over the coffee table and
onto the floor, a few pairs of shoes, a coffee mug and a couple of glasses.
Raine went straight to the couch, plopped down onto it.
“I’ve brought you a treat.”
“More of Logan’s good wine?”
“Brownies. I made them this afternoon and thought—”
“Funeral’s t’morrow.” She dragged the blanket onto her lap.
“Yes,” Bailey said, setting the plate on the coffee table.
“Making brownies.” Raine peered over at the foil-covered plate. “I wonder what it’s
like.”
“What’s that?”
“Being happy.”
Bailey laced her fingers together, uncertain what to say. “Is there anything I can
do to help you, Raine?”
“I’m so tired.”
“I know. I’m sorry for all your loss.”