Finding Bailey: A Lake Tahoe Romantic Suspense Novel

by Dana Mason

  “Hello, hi,” Bailey said, not sure where to start. “I’m Bailey. I’m looking for Patrick Morton.”

  “Um, he’s not here.” The woman gave her a strange look, as if she wasn’t sure what to think.

  Bailey tried to smile through the tension. “I’m his niece. Can you tell me when he’ll return?”

  “Oh…you’re Bailey Morton?” she said, holding out her hand in surprise.

  “Yes, sorry, I should have said that first.”

  “No, I’m sorry. I’m Anna, Pat’s daughter, and your cousin.”

  “Oh, wow, hi,” Bailey said again, feeling a little nervous.

  “Come in.” Anna held the door for them. They entered to the glorious feel of air conditioning and the smell of fresh lilies. Bailey took in the large foyer and the expanse of shiny hardwood floors and smiled. The house was welcoming and bright, which was exactly what she needed.

  “This is my friend Ryan Walker. Sorry we didn’t call first.”

  “That’s okay. I guess I should’ve called you. I’m so sorry about your mother.”

  “Thank you,” Bailey said, lowering her eyes. “Does your father live here with you?”

  “Um, well…he did.”

  “Did?” Bailey asked.

  “Yes, he…uh…he left to attend your mother’s funeral and never returned.” Anna’s smile turned into a frown.

  “What?” Bailey said, her hand jumping to her chest. “He never returned home? I don’t understand. Have you heard from him?”

  “Yeah, he’s called.” She shrugged and said, “He’s decided to tour the country, whatever that means. He’s been kicking around, you know.” She brushed a hand at them. “A little restless since he retired a few months ago. I guess he’s found something to keep him busy. He bought a motor coach in California, and he’s been living in it since, driving around.” Her eyes lowered, and she said, “He’s sent me a couple of postcards, mostly from California and Nevada.”

  “Wow. I’m a little surprised,” Bailey said. “He never mentioned anything when he was in South Lake Tahoe. I thought he was returning home.”

  “It was a big surprise for me, too.” Anna placed her hand on her forehead. “Oh, God. I hope you didn’t come all this way to see him.”

  “Well, yes…”

  “Oh. I’m sorry, but I wish you would have called first to save yourself the trip,” Anna said. She gestured to the hall beyond the foyer. “Can I make you two some lunch?”

  “We wouldn’t want to intrude,” Ryan said, taking a step toward the door.

  “No, please. It’s just sandwiches, but there’s plenty. I’d love to catch up.”

  Bailey said, “I’d love to talk for a while, too.”

  “Then stay. Lunch is the least I can do.”

  “I’ve actually tried calling a few times,” Bailey said, following Anna to the kitchen. “But I just get his voicemail.” Bailey pulled out her phone and showed Anna the number she’d been calling. “Is this the correct number?”

  Anna glanced over at Bailey’s phone and nodded. “Yes, that’s the landline to his private office here at home. Of course, he hasn’t been here, so that’s a dead end. Nobody else would answer that phone.”

  “I thought he might have been avoiding my calls on purpose. I wasn’t even sure he would see me if he knew why we were coming.”

  “Bailey, of course he would. Why wouldn’t he?” She pointed toward a line of barstools on the opposite side of a long kitchen island then opened the refrigerator.

  “I don’t know.” Bailey and Ryan both slid onto barstools across from where Anna was placing the bread and condiments for sandwiches. “I’m researching my birth.”

  Anna scrunched up her eyebrows. “Your birth? I don’t understand.”

  “You didn’t know I was adopted?”

  “Oh, no.” Her eyes grew wide. “Oh, wow, I had no idea.”

  “Your father’s been writing letters to my mother about it. I wanted to talk to him to see if he knew more.”

  Anna removed lunchmeat and cheese from the fridge. “I knew he wrote to her. He was worried about her failing health. You know, your dad, Ernie, was his favorite brother. He really looked up to him. Dad took his death hard. He wanted to keep in touch with your mom in case she ever needed anything.”

  “Well, I need something now, and I hope he’s willing to help me.”

  She set the food down and gave Bailey a grave look. “Bailey, honestly, I have no way of reaching him. He doesn’t carry a cell phone, and he won’t give me an itinerary, so I’m forced to wait for him to contact me.” She cleared her throat. “Might be a while before you get what you need from him.”

  Bailey felt like crying now.

  “Anna, do you know if your dad kept the letters from Helen?” Ryan asked.

  “I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t feel comfortable looking through his things. It’s not fair to invade his privacy when he’s not here.”

  Ryan waved off her apology. “No, of course not. We wouldn’t ask you to do anything that makes you uncomfortable.”

  After lunch, they left Anna’s house with no more information than they had before they’d arrived. “I can’t believe it, Ryan.”

  “How convenient that he decided to ‘tour America’ after your mother’s funeral.”

  “I don’t know what to think now.” She threw her hands out. “He acted so normal when we had dinner.”

  “That’s probably because he quickly realized that you didn’t know anything about whatever he’s hiding.” Ryan opened her car door, shutting it after she slid into the passenger seat.

  When he was belted into the driver’s seat and starting the car, she said, “Apparently, my mom decided to keep the secret.”

  “Well, that depends on what the secret actually is. She didn’t bother destroying the news clippings and scrapbooks. She obviously wanted you to find them.”

  “Maybe one doesn’t have anything to do with the other.”

  Ryan shrugged. “Maybe, but it’s clear the secret they’re keeping has something to do with you and your family.”

  She glanced at him before typing the next address into the maps app on her phone. “Next stop, Aunt Lucy’s?”

  “Do you think there’s any chance she has any information about this?”

  Bailey hit the start button and said, “I have no idea, but I won’t get my hopes up.”

  “Would you rather wait until tomorrow to talk to her? You looked wiped.”

  She chuckled. “Gee, thanks. You look great, too.”

  He gave her a crooked smile that made her heart skip a beat. “You know what I mean.”

  “Ryan, I hope you know how much I appreciate what you’re doing.”

  “I know,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’ll need a favor one day.”

  She grinned affectionately at him. “I think we should get Lucy over with.”

  “Works for me.”

  When they arrived, Bailey looked at the house and felt a sense of dread. Lucy was her mother’s twin sister. She wasn’t sure how she would feel seeing her, nor did she know how similar they were. Bailey had only met Lucy a handful of times, and it was years ago.

  When Ryan pulled the keys out, she laid her hand on his. “Ryan.” He stiffened again at her touch, but at least he didn’t pull away. “I have to tell you something.”

  He glanced at their hands and said, “What?”

  “Lucy is my mother’s twin sister. I don’t remember how similar they look, but I thought I should warn you.”

  “Thanks. I’m prepared. Are you?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  Ryan met her eyes. “You always have a choice.”

  “No, I owe it to Mom to at least talk to her.”

  “Let’s get it over with, then,” he said, jerking the handle to get out of the car.

  The yard was in disrepair. The lawn had been cut but was dry from the lack of water and the hot weather. The house looked clean, but o
ld and in need of a paint job. She wondered if Lucy had someone to help her around the house. Bailey had always been there to help her mother, and if she couldn’t, Ryan and Vince could always fix things for her.

  When the door opened, Bailey and Ryan both held their breath, and at the sight of Lucy, let it out slowly.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, squinting at the sun.

  “Aunt Lucy, hi, I’m Bailey.”

  Lucy felt for the glasses around her neck then slid them on, taking a closer look. After a moment, she grinned and said, “Oh my, Bailey Grace, look at you.”

  Bailey smiled and thought, oh my, Aunt Lucy, look at you. Her silver hair was cut in a short bob, her cheeks rosy red, and the lines on her face deep. Much deeper than her mother’s had been. Lucy was hunched over, leaning on a cane, a cigarette poking out from between her fingers, the smoke drifting up to Bailey’s nose. The tip of the cigarette shook so badly, Bailey was afraid the ash would drop to the carpet and catch fire.

  There was a hint of her mother behind the dark circles under her eyes, but not enough in Bailey’s opinion. Besides her diabetes, Helen had been the picture of health. She always ate right and exercised, and she never smoked.

  “Aunt Lucy, how are you?”

  “Fine,” she croaked, the word causing a coughing fit that made Bailey worry she might go into a spasm and collapse. Her face turned redder, and her eyes bulged out, dark purple veins in her neck popping out as if they wanted to break free. Bailey and Ryan gave her a minute to catch her breath.

  She opened the door for them. “Lucy, this is my friend Ryan.”

  “Oh, yes.” She cleared her throat. “I’ve heard of you, young man. Helen always had nice things to say about you. You’re the neighbor boy with the guitar, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Helen taught me how to play.” He smiled and looked down at his feet.

  “Well, come in and sit down. I want to hear how you’re doing and what brings you to this God-forsaken city.”

  Bailey chuckled and said, “We’re hoping to get some answers about my birth.”

  “And how in the hell do you plan to do that when nobody knows anything about your birth?”

  She was right out there, wasn’t she? Bailey smiled at Ryan. “I was hoping someone might know something.”

  “Like what?” she asked indignantly. “You were found in the yard. What else is there to know?”

  “I want to know why, and I want to know who left me there.”

  She gave Bailey a dismissive wave. “Waste of time, if you ask me, but I guess we all have our crosses to bear, don’t we?”

  Bailey sat on an old, moth-eaten sofa and looked around at the house. It was tidy, but not clean. She could see the dust and a layer of nicotine grime covering every surface. The windows were dingy and clouded, making Bailey’s eyes water at the sight. It smelled, too—reeked actually—from the smoke.

  Lucy sat across from them in an old, green velour rocking chair with little burn marks over the arms. “Let’s see, Helen called me in the middle of the night, nearly hysterical. She screamed into the phone, ‘We found a baby. Can you believe it, sis? We found a baby in the yard, as if delivered from God Himself.’” Lucy took a drag on her cigarette. “Hell, I didn’t even know what she was talking about.”

  Bailey swallowed hard and leaned back against the sofa cushions. “Delivered from God?” she repeated.

  “Yeah, well, not that long ago, your mother believed in God. She lost her way once she went out to California, but we were raised to be good Christian girls.”

  “Helen believed in God,” Ryan said, and if Lucy didn’t hear the defensive tone, it hadn’t gone unnoticed by Bailey.

  “She just didn’t believe in organized religion. She didn’t believe in the structure of the church,” Bailey said.

  “How can you call yourself a Christian if you don’t go to church?”

  “Easy,” Ryan said.

  Bailey held up a hand to stop them both. She could feel Ryan’s anger building. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Anyway,” Lucy said. “I rushed over there and, sure enough, there you were. Pretty little thing, with rosy cheeks and a ton of dark hair.” She smiled and said, “Ernie was beside himself. He was pale as a ghost, all hyped up like he was on drugs or something. I told Helen that, but she said it was just adrenaline.” She took another drag, the ash dropping from the end of her cigarette onto the arm of the chair. “So Helen said she wanted to adopt you, and they let her. The entire town got behind the movement. I never seen anything like it.”

  “What do you mean?” Ryan asked.

  “Helen was a diabetic. Some people coulda said she can’t take care of a baby. The judge coulda said no, but everyone in town showed up that day to plead to the judge. Everyone wanted Bailey to stay a Morton. It just seemed right.”

  “With that much support, why did my parents want to move away?” Bailey asked.

  “They didn’t want you to grow up with everyone in town looking on. Helen knew the first time she did something they didn’t like, they might try to take you away. Before the adoption went through, you were considered the community’s baby. The town thought you belonged to them. They wanted the best for you, and Helen was afraid of any criticism.”

  “Did my mother ever speculate about where I might’ve come from?”

  “Never. She just always said you were meant to be hers. She finally got the baby she’d prayed for.”

  “Why didn’t she just get pregnant?” Ryan asked.

  “She couldn’t. She was diabetic. Her doctors didn’t think she could live through a pregnancy. It woulda been too dangerous for her and the baby. Bailey here was her blessing.”

  They sat quietly for a few minutes, taking in the information. Lucy went into another coughing fit for a moment, and Bailey thought she’d pass out from lack of oxygen.

  She stopped and pointed her cigarette to the right. “You were named for the street you were found on. Right there.”

  “It’s around here?” Ryan asked, sitting up quickly.

  “Yeah, right around the corner. The house is still there. Used to be a field across the street. Now it’s an elementary school.”

  Bailey and Ryan looked at each other. “Do you want to check it out?” he asked. She nodded and looked back at her aunt. “Do you mind if we go for a walk?”

  Her face crinkled up into a weird smile. “No, you go on. I don’t get around much, so I’ll wait here. Just go up the street and make a right. It’s on the corner of Bailey and State Street.”

  Bailey and Ryan stepped outside and took a simultaneous deep breath. “I hate to be rude,” he said, eyeing Lucy’s house sideways as they headed up the street. “But it’s wholly unfair that she’s outlived Helen.”

  Bailey snickered at him, then gave him a stern look. “Shame on you.”

  They turned the corner, and Bailey stopped walking to look at the street sign. Sure enough, that was her name up there. “Bailey Drive,” she whispered.

  “You sure you want to do this?”

  She nodded and took another deep breath. “If my parents hadn’t moved to South Lake Tahoe, I would’ve grown up in this neighborhood.”

  “Instead, you grew up in the house next to mine.”

  She turned to look at him. “I’m so glad we moved.”

  He held a hand out for her. She looked at it then linked her fingers with his, forcing a fake smile. “I can do this.”

  “I know. So, what are you waiting for?”

  They turned and walked toward State Street, hand in hand, and Bailey gained more relief from touching him than she could have ever felt from anything else. For the first time in days, she felt like they might just get past what happened on the boat after all. But she couldn’t ignore how good it felt just to touch him. She shook off that thought and surged ahead to her old house.

  “I vaguely remember this,” she said, staring at the house. “I remember the field across the street.”

  He turned towar
d the school then back to the house before pulling her to the side yard. “It was right around here. I remember from one of the pictures in the newspaper article.”

  The bushes were gone. Now a picket fence bordered the house. It looked like a perfect, little dollhouse, the white shutters gleaming under the sun. Everything was freshly painted, and pots full of flowers hung from the eves.

  “Makes sense, too,” Ryan said, waving his finger at the school. “If all that was an empty field, nobody would’ve seen anything.”

  Bailey felt a pit open up in her stomach as she stared at the side yard. That was where someone who should have loved her had left her to die. Cold, heartless—and to their own child. And if it wasn’t a parent that left her, why wasn’t anyone looking for her? “Ryan, if it was a mistake, if this was a huge misunderstanding, wouldn’t someone be looking for me?”

  He squeezed her hand. “I would think so.”

  “If someone was looking for me, wouldn’t they have found me by now? Wouldn’t they have found me before we moved to Tahoe?” Her throat grew tight, and her voice came out thick.

  “Bailey, you okay?”

  It took everything she had to keep from crying. After several deep breaths, she willed herself to get past the urge.

  Ryan pulled their linked hands to his chest, then wrapped his other arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “It’s okay. We can leave if you want.”

  She rested her head on his chest and let go of her tears. She wanted so badly to stop, but with him holding her, she couldn’t fight it.

  Ryan rubbed her back and whispered, “It’s okay to cry, Bay. It’s okay to feel bad. And it’s okay to let your friends help you through this.”

  She shook her head and squeezed his hand as hard as she could. It wasn’t okay to fall apart in the middle of the street.

  “Yes,” he said louder this time, more insistent. “Don’t fucking be a baby and stop crying.”

  She snorted through her tears, laughing at him. “You’re so stupid.”

  “God, you’re such a brat. When’re you going to learn to cry like a girl?”