“You don’t seem to understand what this has cost Bailey,” Ryan said. “This man broke into her house. He’s destroyed property, stolen family letters, forced us off the road, sending our car into the river in Wisconsin.” Ryan placed his hand on Bailey’s back in support. “That’s all before kidnapping her and trying to have her killed.”
“Now I understand why,” she said, standing to pace the room. “I get why. He had Nicole. He didn’t want her to find out he had an affair, but I still need to know how. How did he find out?” She sat back down and stared at Alex. “There are still huge chunks of information missing, and I won’t rest easy until I know everything.”
Alex nodded. He looked at Linda then back to Bailey. “He wasn’t only trying to keep Nicole in the dark. His motives weren’t only about keeping his affair a secret. Nicole has a substantial trust fund. A trust fund she’s only a year or so away from accessing. I’m sure money was his main objective in not only keeping your existence a secret but possibly in marrying Nicole in the first place.”
Bailey’s lips went into a large O as she whispered, “Oh, I see.” She placed her hands over her mouth and thought about that for a moment. Having Dex threaten her life over an affair was bad enough, but finding out it had more to do with money didn’t make her feel any better. “Does Nicole share this theory?”
Alex shrugged and hesitated with his answer. “I’m not sure. I’ve always suspected he had a motive for marrying her, but she never— she insisted he loved her. Honestly, I always hoped I was wrong.”
Stanley snorted at that. “No, you didn’t.”
Alex sighed and looked over at Stanley. “I’m sorry you have such a low opinion of me, son.”
“Dad, you never trust anyone we bring home.”
“Stanley,” Linda said. “This isn’t the time.”
He lifted his hands in defeat. “You’re right. Sorry, Bailey.” He smiled at her. “You want to know how he found out about you?”
She mumbled, “Yes.”
Stanley looked over at Alex, and Alex nodded his assent. “Okay.”
Stanley stood and left the room. A few moments later, he returned with a box. “Bailey, we’re not sure how he found out, but we have an idea.”
James picked up the drink tray so Stanley could set the box down on the ottoman between them.
Alex rested against the couch cushions and said, “You started seeing William about two years ago, correct?”
“I met him about eighteen months ago. In October. He came to Tahoe for a bachelor party.”
“On November 1st, every year, we celebrate your birthday.”
Bailey was not expecting to hear that. Her mouth hung open as she stared at him.
“Every year, on November 1st, we order a small birthday cake. We pull out all of your baby photos, and we talk about you. This is what we did as a family to keep you alive in our hearts.”
She placed a hand over her mouth, fighting to keep her emotions in check.
Linda opened the box and placed a baby book and photo album down in front of her.
“On that November 1st, after you’d started seeing William, we did the same thing we do every year. We pulled out your photos, we had a cake ready, we lit candles, and told stories about what we imagined your life would’ve been like if you’d been here.” Alex paused for a moment. “For some reason, Nicole decided she wanted to revive the search for you.”
Stanley chuckled and said, “You have to understand—Nicole is a crusader. When she gets an idea in her head, she can’t let it go. She won’t stop until she has answers, and she decided to take on the cause.”
“Not that we’d given up,” Alex said. “But after twenty-six years, we’d pretty much lost hope.”
“This was especially true after Alex submitted his DNA to the FBI,” Linda interrupted. “We were so hopeful, and then, for months and months, we waited to hear something, but nothing happened.”
Bailey closed her eyes and shook her head. “And that was over five years ago. I’m so sorry…”
“Don’t do that,” Alex said. “This is why I didn’t want to talk about it.” He sighed and said, “We’re not telling you this to make you feel bad. None of this was your fault.”
“Anyway,” Stanley said. “Nicole decided to become the private investigator in the family. She started interviewing people Dad went to school with. She talked to the FBI. She talked to experts about missing children cases.”
“She even hired an age progression artist.” As she said this, Linda lifted a group of photos and drawings out of the box and handed them to Bailey.
There were at least ten photos, some of them of a younger version where they must have placed her around thirteen.
“As you can see, Nicole commissioned them to do several versions. Age progression is incredibly difficult when the child is so young,” Alex said.
James laughed and said, “Nicole is now an expert on age progression and missing children searches.” His smile faded. “Not that it’s funny, but it’s just so like her. She’s so stubborn.”
Bailey flipped through the different photos. Some of them looked nothing like her, but others were pretty similar. Some with lighter colored hair and rearranged features with a mixture of some that looked more like Alex. But she and Ryan both gasped at the same photo. It was so eerily similar. Not an exact match to her, but so, so close. She looked up, and they were all staring at her. “This is really strange.”
“Isn’t it, though?” Stanley said.
“Needless to say, if you were seeing William when this photo was created, he had to have noticed. Especially since Nicole was so dedicated to the search and getting answers,” Linda said.
Bailey leaned back against the cushions, now feeling a little nauseous. She remembered the New Year’s weekend she’d spent with Dex. He had suddenly become so curious about her and her family. She
