***
Tess knocked on Logan’s front door. She was about to put into action steps one and two of her plan with Molly. Step one was to tell Logan about her past. Everything.
Step two was slightly more complicated. Molly said that knowing your enemy was more important than knowing your friends. They didn’t talk about how she knew this, but Tess was happy to go along with Molly’s superior knowledge.
So as well as telling Logan who she used to be, she was supposed to be finding out about his friend, the reporter from Seattle.
Logan opened the door. Tess stared at the casual trousers and cotton shirt he had on. He’d had a shave, maybe a shower. He didn’t look like a man settling in for a relaxing evening at home. He looked like a man about to go on a date.
“I didn’t mean…” Tess closed her mouth and tried again. “I hope you didn’t change your plans for me.”
Logan frowned, then looked down at his clothes. “I’m going out later. I’m glad you called. I wanted to see you.”
“You did?”
Logan held the door wider. “Yeah. Come in. Make yourself at home.”
Tess looked around the living room. Nothing had changed since she’d last been here and met his sister. It was only a few weeks ago, but it felt like a lifetime.
“Have a seat on the sofa.” He glanced at her laptop and her backpack. “It looks like you’ve come here to study.”
Tess left the laptop on his coffee table and her backpack on the floor. “It’s not studying, exactly. More like background research.” She wiped her hands down her jeans; then started to undo the zipper on her pack.
“Do you want a drink? I’ve got coffee and hot chocolate. Or tea. Mom’s arriving tomorrow and she likes a cup of tea.”
Tess shook her head. “I’m okay.”
Logan sat on the edge of one of the chairs. “What did you want to see me about?”
Tess took a deep breath and pulled the magazines out. She left them face down on the table. She’d thought about what she was going to tell him for most of the afternoon. She should have written it down, made notes or something.
“I wanted to tell you about me. About what I was doing before I came to Bozeman.”
Logan looked confused. “You weren’t a model?”
Tess turned her laptop on. Her hands were shaking so much that she had to type her password in twice before she could log in. “I was a model. Do you know what type of model I was?”
Logan’s eyes widened.
“No,” Tess squeaked. “I wasn’t that type of model.”
“What types of models are there?”
This was going to be harder than Tess thought. “I earned a lot of money. I worked in Milan, Tokyo, New York, and Paris. I met Molly when I was on assignment in Greece and again in Ireland.”
He still didn’t look as though he appreciated just how much money she’d earned. “I brought you some pictures.”
Logan’s eyebrows shot up. “I get that you were a model. You don’t need to prove…” He looked at the cover of the magazine that Tess had left on his knees. “That’s you?”
Tess nodded. Logan was holding the most successful Vogue cover shot she’d ever done. Combined with the images inside, it had propelled the designer of the clothes she’d been wearing into super stardom.
She opened the magazine to the other shots and watched Logan’s face as he slowly turned the pages. He looked up at her, then back down at the photos.
She wasn’t going to make excuses for the woman in the magazine or the real woman in front of him. She’d gained a little weight. Okay, maybe a lot, but the photo had been taken nearly six years ago and all she’d eaten was salad. And she might have a few more wrinkles, but she used cleanser, toner, and moisturizer morning and night, and she wouldn’t do plastic surgery.
He smiled at her. “You look better now.”
Tess’ mouth dropped open.
“What else have you got?”
Logan looked as though he was enjoying her show and tell, as if it didn’t come as a surprise to him at all. She pulled out the rest of the magazines. He flicked through the pages of Marie Claire, Elle, and Harper’s Bazaar as if they were children’s picture books. She was almost looking forward to seeing his face when he saw her Victoria’s Secret runway clip.
“I spent ten years modeling.”
“Looks like it.”
Tess felt like jabbing him in the ribs. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“No need to get all defensive. I’m just saying.”
“Well, you can quit talking and look at this.” Tess opened a file and set the laptop on the table.
The Victoria’s Secret show started and Logan coughed. “Are you doing this to torture me or prove a point?” His eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw the designer collection she was modeling. There was more material in the angel wings attached to her back than the lace demi bra and v-string panty she was wearing.
Logan closed the lid on her laptop. He looked hot and bothered and so cute that Tess nearly smiled. Until she remembered what else she had to tell him.
“What do you think about what I’ve shown you so far?” she asked.
“Do you still have any of that lingerie?”
Tess threw a cushion at his head. “I’m trying to make a point.”
“I wish you’d hurry up. You’re torturing me.”
“I was a model. People recognized me.” She opened the laptop again and Logan closed his eyes.
“I’m not watching the Victoria’s Secret show unless you tell me why you’re here.”
“You can be so weird, sometimes. This has got nothing to do with lingerie. I want to show you a picture of my friend, Evie.”
Logan opened his eyes. “Has she got clothes on?”
Tess opened another folder and double clicked on a photo she’d taken of Evie. “This is my friend. We were in Italy.”
Evie was standing on the beach, laughing at the camera. She had a pair of sandals in one hand and a huge sun hat in the other. She looked carefree and happy, so different to the person she was to become.
“We’d been modeling for about three years when I took this photo. She met Andrew Gibson about two years later. He’d been newly elected as a senator. She thought it was amazing. The girl who’d grown up in Michigan moving in the same circle as the President of the United States. Except he was married, and when she saw him in public he pretended he didn’t know her.”
“Not good.”
“It got worse.” Tess opened another photo. It was still hard to look at it without reliving the last time she’d seen her friend. “This was Evie a month before she died.”
Logan didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. The incredibly thin woman staring at the camera hardly looked like the same young girl in the previous photo.
“She died of a drug overdose?”
Tess nodded. She opened another photo. “Meet Senator Gibson. I can’t prove anything, but he supplied Evie with cocaine. He killed her and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.”
“How did you know it was him?”
“Evie told me. She didn’t want to get him into trouble. She thought he loved her, but he loved his wife and children more.”
“Did you tell the police?”
Tess nodded. She’d told them more than once, pleaded with them to at least investigate what she was saying. But they wanted more evidence. As soon as Senator Gibson’s New York lawyers found out about her, they’d shut her story down. His public relations firm had done the rest.
She opened her backpack and pulled out a folder. “These are the newspaper clippings after Evie died. I don’t look at them anymore.”
Logan opened the folder and read some of the stories. “You made the New York Times.”
He sounded impressed. “It wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.” That particular article had lost her a lucrative cosmetic contract. “I stopped modeling not long after that article came out.”
“Why are you showing me this now?”
“You don’t you look surprised.”
Logan sat back in his chair.
“You knew, didn’t you?”
“Not all of it. After I saw you wearing the bridesmaids’ dresses in your apartment, I went online and did some research of my own. I couldn’t find a model called Tess Williams, but I did find Evie. After more checking, I found a photo of Evie standing beside another model called Theresa Daniels. She looked remarkably like you.”
“Daniels was my mom’s maiden name.”
“You had a high-profile career and an even higher fall from grace. I’m sorry.”
“What for?” Tess took the folder out of his hands and slid it into her backpack.
“For Evie. It must have been hard losing her. And for you. It can’t have been easy going through what happened after she died.”
“I didn’t know she’d died until I got back from Milan. I missed her funeral.” She zipped her backpack together and put her laptop in its case. An unopened envelope fell off the table and landed on the floor. She picked it up and handed it to Logan. “I was angry with her for taking drugs. She’d put so much faith in her slimeball boyfriend that she couldn’t see what was happening. It didn’t matter what I said. He always twisted everything so he looked squeaky-clean.”
Logan stared at the envelope before putting it back on the table. “So that’s why you don’t want your face in any of the photos Molly took. You’re worried the senator will start another smear campaign.”
“I know he will. He told me if I ever mentioned Evie’s name again he’d destroy me. Which kind of leads me to the other reason I’m here tonight.”
“Jilly?”
“Is there anything you don’t know?”
Logan’s gaze sharpened. “It was a guess. I wanted to talk to you about her.”
Tess didn’t know if she wanted to hear about Logan’s relationship with the journalist. But she’d promised Molly she’d find out as much information as she could. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Logan and his friend had looked as though they were having a meeting. But they hadn’t. They’d looked as though they were catching up on old times.
Logan watched her carefully. “I dated Jilly for a couple of months a few years ago. It didn’t work out.”
Tess let his words sink in. They weren’t dating. They were friends. Friendship was good. “What type of reporter is she?”
“Lifestyle. Home decor, celebrities, fashion.”
Tess bit her bottom lip.
“Exactly.”
“Did she recognize me?”
Logan sighed. “Not right away, but I’m pretty sure she would have uncovered some information by the time we have dinner tonight.”
“What are you going to tell her when she asks about me?”
“What do you want me to tell her?”
Tess didn’t want them discussing her at all. After Evie died, nothing had been the same. She’d missed her friend, her career had ended and she’d had to reinvent herself. If it hadn’t been for some careful investments she’d made, she could have easily walked away with nothing.
Logan tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair. “Would it help if I told you what else I found out?”
“What do you mean?”
“Senator Gibson’s wife left him six months ago. It was a messy divorce. She claimed he’d been having affairs for years, he claimed she was psycho. I gave his ex-wife a call a couple of days ago.”
“You did what?” Tess couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Not only did Logan know about her past, but he’d been digging into the dirt surrounding everyone else’s.
“His ex-wife was very forthcoming. Senator Gibson’s lawyers have bailed him out of other drug-related issues with his girlfriends. Most of the women he dated were models, and most of them were no older than twenty.”
“Where are they now?” Tess was horrified to think other people had gone through the same thing Evie had. The sooner Senator Gibson was arrested, the better off everyone would be.
“I don’t know. I didn’t look that far.”
Tess sent him a disbelieving stare.
“Okay, so I tried, but I hit a brick wall.” Logan looked uncomfortable under her scrutiny. “The women aren’t easy to find. It looks as though they’ve all done the same thing you did.”
Tess couldn’t blame them. It had been intimidating enough for her and she wasn’t directly involved. “Did his ex-wife have proof that he’d been supplying his girlfriends with drugs?”
Logan smiled. Except it wasn’t a friendly smile. His smile belonged on a rattlesnake just before it struck its next victim. “She did an external backup of his computer files. He doesn’t know she’s got the information.”
“Did she go to the police?”
Logan shook his head. “Not yet. She wants some of the women to come forward and tell their stories. It would add impact to the information she’s got and create a political nightmare.”
“She doesn’t want him in prison?”
“She wants to destroy his career. The way she can do that is to discredit him. If it lands him in prison, it’s a bonus. She knows who a couple of the women are, but no one wants to talk.”
Tess sighed. “Sounds familiar.”
“Too familiar. And that’s where he made his first mistake.”
She didn’t like where Logan was going with his reasoning. “First mistake?”
“He kept following the same pattern. We need to stop him from destroying someone else’s life.”
“No we don’t. If his ex-wife has got information about him, she needs to go to the police. I’m not going to have anything to do with him again.”
“No one’s asking you to get involved. All we need to do is use Evie’s story.”
Tess shook her head. “Evie’s dead. There’s no way her family will say anything. It will bring back too many memories.”
“Memories or not, it’s the only way we can stop him.”
A few years ago, Tess would have jumped at the chance of making Senator Gibson accountable for Evie’s death. But not now. She didn’t have fame and fortune to lose, she had a new life. No one in Bozeman cared what she looked like or what she earned. They cared about who she was.
She didn’t want to give that up. What Logan was suggesting could end everything she’d worked hard for. “Evie died three years ago. I’m not getting involved again. I don’t want you saying anything to your reporter friend.”
Logan looked at her without any expression on his face.
“Logan?”
“Fine. I won’t tell her anything. But how do you think the senator’s ever going to be punished if everyone refuses to talk?”
Tess picked up her backpack. “Sometimes what you have is more important than where you’ve been. Nothing will bring Evie back. I lost everything I thought was important when I told the truth. I’m not going there again. I’ve got to go.”
“Are you sure you won’t change your mind?”
“Positive.”
Logan followed her to the front door. “You know this could be a big story, don’t you?”
Tess felt a heavy weight press down on her shoulders. “I know. Enjoy your dinner date.”
Logan opened the door and Tess stepped out into the cool night air. Whatever happened from this point forward was in his hands.
Tess trusted him to do what was right. Whether he lived up to her trust was another story entirely.