by Laura Dave
I think of the two of us in bed, Owen struggling with whether to tell me—Owen wanting to tell me the entire truth of his past. Maybe Grady’s warning stopped him. Maybe Grady’s warning stopped Owen and me from being in a position to handle this together.
“Is this your way of telling me I should blame you instead of him?” I say. “Because I’m happy to do that.”
“This is my way of telling you we all have secrets we don’t share,” he says. “Kind of like your lawyer friend Jake? He told me that you guys were engaged once upon a time.”
“That’s not a secret,” I say. “Owen knew all about Jake.”
“And how do you think he’d feel about you involving him in this?” he says.
I was running out of choices, I want to say. But I know it’s a fool’s errand to argue with him. Grady is intent on putting me on the defensive, as if that will make it easier for him to pry something out of me—not exactly a secret, more like my will. My will to do anything but listen to what he thinks we should do now.
“Why did Owen run, Grady?” I ask.
“He had to,” he says.
“What does that mean?”
“How many photographs have you seen of Avett in the news this week? The media would be all over Owen too. His picture would be everywhere and they’d find him again. Nicholas’s employers. Even though he looks different than he did, he doesn’t look that different. He couldn’t risk that kind of exposure. He had to get out of there before that happened,” he says. “Before he blew up Bailey’s life.”
I take that in. It makes me understand in a different way why there was no time to tell me anything—why there was no time to do anything but go.
“He knew he would have been brought in,” he says. “And when he was, he would’ve been fingerprinted, just like Jordan Maverick was this afternoon. And that would reveal who he actually was, game over.”
“So they think Owen’s guilty?” I say. “Naomi, the FBI, whoever else?”
“No. They think he has answers they need, that’s a different thing,” he says. “But if you’re asking me if Owen was a willing participant in the fraud? I would say not likely.”
“What’s more likely?”
“That Avett knew about Owen.”
I meet his eyes.
“Not any of the specifics, Owen never would have told him, but he knew he hired someone who came out of nowhere. No references to speak of, no ties to the tech world. Owen said at the time that Avett just wanted the best coder he could find, but I think Avett was looking for an angle. He wanted someone he could control, if it turned out he needed that control. And it turned out he did.”
“You think Owen knew what was happening at The Shop but he couldn’t stop it?” I say. “That he stayed there hoping he could fix it, get the software operational, before he got caught in the crosshairs.”
“I do,” he says.
“That’s a pretty specific guess,” I say.
“I know your husband pretty specifically,” he says. “And he’s been watching his back for such a long time that he knew if The Shop scandal touched him, he’d have to disappear all over again. Bailey would have to start over. And this time, of course, she’d have to be told the history. Not ideal to say the least…” He pauses. “Let alone what you would’ve had to give up, assuming you chose to go with them.”
“Assuming I chose to go?”
“Well, you couldn’t really hide out as a woodturner. Even a furniture designer. Whatever you call yourself. You would have to give up everything. Your job, your livelihood. I’m sure he didn’t want that for you.”
I flash to it—one of my early dates with Owen. He asked me what I would do if I hadn’t become a woodturner. And I told him that it was probably because of my grandfather—maybe it was because I associated woodturning with the only stability I’d ever had—but it was all I’d ever wanted to do. I had never really imagined doing anything else.
“He didn’t think I’d choose to go with them, did he?” I say, more to myself than to him.
“That doesn’t matter now. I’ve managed to tamp it down, to keep your friends at the FBI at bay…” he says. “But I won’t be able to pull rank much longer unless you guys are officially being protected.”
“Meaning WITSEC?”
“Yes, meaning WITSEC.”
I don’t say anything, trying to take in the weight of that. I can’t begin to fathom being a protected person. What will that look like? My only experience with anything close is what I’ve seen in the movies—Harrison Ford hanging out with the Amish in Witness, Steve Martin sneaking out of town to get the good spaghetti in My Blue Heaven. Both of them depressed and lost. Then I think of what Jake said. How in reality it’s nowhere near as good as that.
“So Bailey will have to start over?” I say. “New identity? New name? All over again?”
“Yes. And I’d take starting over for her,” he says. “I’ll take it for her father too as opposed to what’s happening now.”
I try to process that. Bailey no longer Bailey. Everything she has worked so hard for—her schooling, her grades, her theater, herself—it will be erased. Will she even be allowed to perform in musicals anymore, or will that be a tell? A way to lead people to Owen. The new student at a random school in Iowa starring in the school musical. Will Grady say that’s another way they can track them? That instead of pursuing her old interests, she has to take up fencing or hockey or just completely stay under the radar. Any way you shake it out, it certainly means Bailey will be asked to stop being Bailey—at the exact moment she is becoming singularly, inimitably herself. It feels like a staggering proposition—to give up your life when you’re a sixteen-year-old. It’s a different position than when you were just a toddler. It’s a different proposition when you’re forty.
But still. I know she would pay that price to be with her father. We would both gladly pay that price, again and again, if it meant we could all be together.
I try to find comfort in that. Except there is something else gnawing at me—something Grady is skirting around that isn’t sitting right—something that I can’t hold in my hands just yet.
“Here’s what you’ve got to understand,” he says. “Nicholas Bell is a bad man. Even Owen didn’t want to accept how bad of a man he was, not for a long time, probably because Kate was loyal to her father. And Owen was loyal to Kate, and to Charlie, who Owen was quite close to, as well. They believed their father was a good man with some questionable clients. And they convinced Owen of that. They convinced him that Nicholas was a defense attorney, doing his job. No illegal activity of his own. They convinced him because they loved their father. They thought he was a good father, a good husband. He was a good father, a good husband. They weren’t wrong. He is just other things too.”
“Like what?”
“Like complicit in murder. And extortion. And drug trafficking,” he says. “Like completely and totally unrepentant for how many lives he helped ruin. Like how many people whose entire fucking world he helped destroy.”
I try not to show it on my face, how that gets to me.
“These men that Nicholas worked for are ruthless,” he says. “And unforgiving. There’s no telling what kind of leverage they would use to get Owen to turn himself in.”
“They could go after Bailey?” I say. “That’s what you’re saying? That they’d go after Bailey to get to Owen?”
“I’m saying, unless we move her quickly, it’s a possibility.”
That stops me, even in the heat of this. What Grady’s insinuating. Bailey being in danger. Bailey, who is wandering the streets of Austin alone, potentially already in danger.
“The point is, Nicholas won’t stop them,” he says. “He couldn’t stop them even if he wanted to. That’s why Owen had to get Bailey out. He knew Nick’s hands weren’t clean in any of this. And he used that information to hurt the organization. Do you understand that?”
“Maybe you should say it slower,” I say.
&
nbsp; “Nicholas wasn’t always dirty, but at some point he started passing messages for leadership, from lieutenants in prison to leadership outside of prison. Messages that couldn’t be sent another way except through a lawyer. And these weren’t innocent messages. These were messages like who needs to be punished, like who needs to be killed. Can you imagine knowingly passing along a message that would result in a man and his wife being killed and their two kids being left without parents?”
“And where does Owen come in?”
“Owen helped Nicholas set up an encryption system that Nicholas ultimately used to send these messages, to record these messages when they needed to be recorded,” he says. “After Kate was killed, Owen hacked into the system and turned everything over to us. All the emails, all the correspondence… Nicholas served more than six years in prison for conspiracy to commit. Which we were able to prove directly from those files. You don’t betray Nicholas Bell like that and come back from it.”
This is when it hits me—the piece that has been gnawing at me, the piece that Grady hasn’t been addressing.
“So why didn’t he come to you then?” I say.
“Excuse me?”
“Why didn’t Owen come straight to you?” I say. “If the only way this ends well, if the only way to truly keep Bailey safe now is for her to be in witness protection, for Owen to be in witness protection, then when everything in The Shop blew up, why didn’t Owen reach out to you? Why didn’t he show up at your door and ask you to move us?”
“You’ll have to ask Owen that.”
“I’m asking you,” I say. “What happened with the leak last time, Grady? Did you guys nip it in the bud or was Bailey’s life compromised?”
“What does that have to do with what’s happening now?”
“Everything. If what happened made my husband think you can’t keep Bailey safe now, it has everything to do with what’s happening now,” I say.
“The bottom line is that WITSEC is the best option that Owen and Bailey have for staying safe,” he says. “Period.”
He says this without apology, but I can see that my question got to him. Because he can’t deny it. If Owen were really certain that Grady could keep Bailey safe, that he could keep all of us safe, he would be here with us now. As opposed to wherever he is.
“Look, let’s not get sidetracked here,” he says. “What you need to do now is help me figure out why Bailey left the hotel room.”
“I don’t know why,” I say.
“Wager a guess,” he says.
“I think she didn’t want to leave Austin,” I say.
I don’t add the details. She probably didn’t want to go yet, not when she was so close to finding answers of her own—answers to questions about her past, answers Owen left me ill-equipped to even begin to deal with. It calms me somewhat to believe this is the reason, to believe she is alone somewhere but safe, searching for answers she doesn’t trust anyone else to find for her. I should recognize that trait in someone. I have it myself.
“Why do you think she wants to stay in Austin?” he says.
At the moment I tell him the only piece of truth I know. “Sometimes you can sense it,” I say.
“Sense what?” he says.
“When it’s all up to you.”
* * *
Grady gets called into a meeting and a different U.S. marshal, Sylvia Hernandez, leads me down the hall and into a conference room, where she says I can make a phone call—as though the call isn’t being taped or traced or whatever else they do here to make sure they know everything you do. Before you even do it.
Sylvia sits outside the door and I pick up the phone. I call my best friend.
“I’ve been trying to reach you for hours,” Jules says when she picks up. “Are you guys okay?”
I sit down at the long conference room table, holding my head in my hand, trying not to fall apart. Even though it feels like the moment to fall apart, when I am safe to—Jules there to catch me.
“Where are you?” she says. “I just got a crazy call from Jake, screaming about how your husband is putting you in danger. Can’t say I miss that guy.”
“Yeah, well, Jake is Jake,” I say. “He’s just trying to help. In his incredibly unhelpful way.”
“What’s going on with Owen? He didn’t turn himself in, did he?” she says.
“Not exactly.”
“What exactly?” she said. But she says it softly. Which is also her way of saying I don’t need to explain right now.
“Bailey is missing,” I say.
“What?” she says.
“She took off. She left the hotel room. And we can’t find her.”
“She’s sixteen.”
“I know that, Jules. Why do you think I’m so scared?”
“No, I’m saying, she’s sixteen. Sometimes disappearing for a bit is what you need to do. I’m sure she’s fine.”
“It’s not as simple as that,” I say. “Have you heard the name Nicholas Bell?”
“Should I have?”
“He’s Owen’s former father-in-law.”
She is silent, something coming to her. “Wait, you don’t mean Nicholas Bell… like, the Nicholas Bell? The lawyer?”
“Yes, that’s him. What do you know about him?”
“Not a lot. I mean… I remember reading in the papers when he was released from prison a couple of years ago. I think he was in there for assault or murder or something. He was Owen’s father-in-law?” she says. “I don’t believe it.”
“Jules, Owen’s in big trouble. And I don’t think there’s anything I can do to stop it.”
She is quiet, thoughtful. I can feel her trying to add up some of the pieces that I’m not helping her see.
“We’ll stop it,” she says. “I promise you. First we’ll get you and Bailey home. Then we can figure out how.”
My heart clutches in my chest. This is what she has always done—what we have done for each other. And this is why I can’t breathe suddenly. Bailey is wandering the streets of this strange city. And even when we find her—and I have to believe they’ll find her soon—Grady just informed me that I’m not going home. Not ever.
“Did I lose you?” she says.
“Not yet,” I say. “Where did you say you were?”
“I’m home,” she says. “And I got it open.”
The way she says it is loaded. And I realize she is talking about the safe, the small safe inside the piggy bank.
“You did?”
“Yep,” she says. “Max found a safecracker who lives in downtown San Francisco, and we opened it about an hour ago. His name is Marty and he is about ninety-seven years old. It’s insane what this guy can do with a safe. He listened to the machine for five minutes and opened it that way. Stupid little piggy bank, made of steel.”
“What’s inside?”
She pauses. “A will. The final will, for Owen Michaels né Ethan Young. Do you want me to tell you what it says?”
I think about who else is listening. If Jules starts to read, I think of who else will be listening to Owen’s will—not the will I pulled up on his laptop computer, but the will that the other will alluded to, as if in a secret message to me.
Owen’s real will, his more complete will. Ethan’s will.
“Jules, there are probably people listening to this call, so I think we should stick to a few things, okay?”
“Of course.”
“What does it say about Bailey’s guardians?”
“That you’re her primary guardian,” she says. “In case of Owen’s death, but also in case of his inability to care for her himself.”
Owen prepared for this. Maybe not exactly this, but something like this. He prepared for it in a way that Bailey would get to be with me—that he wanted Bailey with me. At what point did he trust me enough to do that? At what point did he decide that being with me was what was best for her? It breaks something wide open in me to know that he got there, that he thought I could do it. Except now she
is missing, somewhere in this city. And I allowed that to happen too.
“Does he mention any other names?” I say.
“Yes. There are different rules based on whether you can’t care for her or based on Bailey’s age,” she says.
As she reads, I listen to her carefully, taking notes, writing down the names I recognize. But really, I’m listening for just one name—one person who I am trying to figure out whether to trust, whether Owen trusts, despite any and all evidence that he shouldn’t. When I hear it, when she says Charlie Smith, I stop writing. I tell her I need to go.
“Be careful,” she says.
This instead of goodbye, instead of her usual “I love you.” Considering the circumstances, considering what I need to figure out how to do now, it’s the same thing.
I stand up and look out the conference room windows. It has started raining, Austin nightlife active below, despite it. People walk the streets with umbrellas, heading to dinner and shows, debating about a nightcap or a late movie. Or deciding they’ve had enough, that the rain is getting harder, and they want to go home. Those are the lucky ones.
I turn toward the glass door. U.S. Marshal Sylvia sits on the other side. She is looking at her phone, either disinterested in me or busy with something more important than her babysitting assignment. Perhaps she is busy with the one thing I know about too well. Finding Owen. Finding Bailey.
I’m about to walk into the hall and demand a status update, when I see Grady walking down the hall.
He knocks on the door as he opens it, and smiles at me—a softer Grady, who seems to have thawed somewhat.
“They have her,” he says. “They have Bailey. She’s safe.”
I let out a breath, tears filling my eyes. “Oh, thank goodness. Where is she?”
“Up at campus, they’re bringing her back here,” he says. “Can we talk for a minute before they do? I just think it’s really important that we are on the same page with her about what the plan is going to be.”
