Willa Ashford—Corey Baxter

Willa Ashford and Corey Baxter are long-standing friends whose bond is forged around Colleen Sherman, Corey’s fiancée and Willa’s closest friend. After Colleen vanishes, Willa becomes one of Corey’s supports through grief and public suspicion. That history makes their later rupture especially stark: Corey first seeks a future with Willa, then condemns her for moving forward, and is ultimately revealed to have tried to kill her. His claim that he acted for Colleen cannot restore the friendship; Colleen herself rejects the imagined future he says he was trying to save.

Friendship in Colleen’s Shadow

Corey and Colleen had known each other for years, and when she disappeared from their boat, suspicion quickly fell on Corey as her boyfriend. The available evidence did not establish his guilt: marina video showed both leaving that morning, the boat’s GPS placed it only as far as the location where Corey was found, and he had called for help. The Coast Guard pinpointed him there; although he refused to leave, he was taken to hospital and treated for a severe concussion. Detectives scrutinized his life, arrested him, then released him for lack of physical evidence. Online speculation also failed to connect him to Colleen’s disappearance, but the suspicion and rumors wrecked him.

Willa believed Corey’s distress was sincere. She had been his support during the ordeal, and she rejected the possibility that he had harmed Colleen, even as others suggested he might have knocked her unconscious or thrown her overboard. The uncertain circumstances left space for suspicion, but Willa’s personal knowledge of Corey shaped her judgment: she remembered a grieving man, not a killer. She also knew that the disappearance had consequences beyond the investigation. Because Colleen’s body was never found, her life-insurance funds could not be collected until she was legally declared dead, a process that would take seven years. Willa, not Corey, was Colleen’s beneficiary; the inheritance included Colleen’s condominium. Willa had been in Chicago giving a charity speech when the disappearance happened and flew home as soon as she heard, giving her an airtight alibi when suspicion briefly turned toward her.

Support, Rejection, and Resentment

A year after Colleen was gone, Corey tried to pursue a relationship with Willa. She did not share his feelings and told him so. He did not hound or pester her, and she believed he had accepted her answer. By the time she returned to town, he had taken a coaching position in San Francisco and was staying at Drew Black’s apartment. Willa hoped he might find a renewed sense of purpose and happiness; Colleen’s death, as she understood it, had nearly destroyed him.

Their old closeness resurfaces in conflict when Corey objects to Willa’s return to volleyball, treating her decision as disloyal to Colleen’s memory. Willa points out the double standard: Corey had pursued her and, by his own admission, did not intend to remain celibate or give up the possibility of marriage. She insists that Colleen would want her to be happy and continue living. Corey pauses, then apologizes and acknowledges that Colleen would not have wanted Willa to stop playing. He remembers Willa as Colleen’s best friend and family, and admits that he had sometimes thought Colleen loved Willa more than she loved him. The exchange briefly restores the compassionate terms of their friendship, but it does not reveal the full extent of his possessiveness or the threat behind it.

The Friendship Breaks

After Drew’s death, Willa encounters Corey at his apartment complex, where emergency vehicles and police officers gather. He runs to her and clings to her, sobbing; Willa, by contrast, feels unable to cry. Drew had injured Anja Johansen and caused extensive harm, and Willa cannot separate that destruction from the loss of the friend she once knew. Corey says he returned from a run, found Drew hanging inside the apartment, and did not read the rest of Drew’s confession letter because he was focused on making sure Willa was safe. At this point, his distress and his appeal not to be left alone still draw some sympathy from Colt Fontaine, who recognizes that Corey has endured two profound losses. Willa nevertheless refuses to remain with him: Drew had tried to kill her, and she cannot forgive that.

The apparent account collapses later, when Corey pushes past police officers during the confrontation at Serenidad. Oskar Latu identifies him as the man responsible for the attacks on Willa. Willa then recognizes Corey as the person who had tried to kill her back home, a conclusion Colt reaches as well. The revelation transforms the earlier friendship scenes: the grief, the appeal to Willa’s loyalty, and the confession letter can no longer be read simply as evidence of an innocent man devastated by loss.

Exposure and Final Rupture

Corey does not deny trying to remove Willa. He says Oskar sent him a picture of Colleen and threatened to kill her if Corey did not get rid of Willa; in exchange, Oskar supposedly would release Colleen so Corey and she could be together again. Corey presents his actions as a rescue, insisting that he had to save Colleen. His account includes repeated attempts to warn Willa away, a rifle learned from his father, and his surprise when she answered her phone after he thought he had shot her. When setting the house on fire also failed to reach her, he describes it as a last hope. His own explanation makes clear that the earlier pursuit of Willa had not been an uncomplicated response to loneliness: his imagined reunion with Colleen had become a justification for eliminating her best friend.

Willa also identifies Corey as the author of Drew’s confession letter and accuses him of killing Drew and blaming his former best friend. Corey says Drew discovered the picture from Oskar and was going to tell Willa, putting Colleen in danger. He claims he had no choice, but then turns responsibility back on Willa, arguing that if she had quit, no one would have been hurt. His shifting defense exposes the gulf between his professed devotion and his willingness to destroy the people Colleen and Willa loved. Colleen rejects his idea that they could be together again and tells him that she would never have wanted him to kill Willa—or anyone else—for her. The relationship ends not with a negotiated separation but with Willa’s trust definitively broken: Corey’s claimed love for Colleen has made him a danger to Willa, Drew, and the very person he says he meant to save.