The Last Thing He Told Me

“Not likely. But… there is the possibility that something else is going on,” he says.

“Like what?”

“Like worse things that he’s guilty of,” he says.

“Helpful, Jake,” I say.

“Look, I’m not going to sugarcoat this. If Owen isn’t running from The Shop, he is probably running from what The Shop might reveal about him. The question is what that might be…” He pauses. “I have a private investigator, a good one. I’ll ask him to do some digging. But I’m going to need you to email me Owen’s entire history. Anything you know. Where he went to school, where he grew up. And dates. Everything. Where and when his daughter was born.”

I hear Jake start to bite on his pen. No one else in the world would decipher that is what he is doing, his secret habit. The one less-than-confident thing Jake does. But I can picture it as if I were sitting right there, staring at his mauled pen cap. It’s a terrible thing to know everything about someone long after you want to.

“And do this for me. Keep your phone near you in case I need to get in touch. But don’t answer for any numbers you don’t recognize.”

I think of Grady saying Owen threw his phone away—that he threw away the phone with the only number for him I’d recognize.

“What if it’s Owen?”

“Owen’s not calling right now,” he says. “You know that.”

“I don’t know that.”

“I think you do.”

I don’t say anything. Even though I suspect he’s right, I’m not going to tell Jake he is. I’m not going to betray Owen in that way. Or Bailey.

“And you need to figure out why he ran, something more specific than he’s trying to protect his kid…” he says. “And you better figure it out quickly. The FBI isn’t going to ask nicely for long.”

My head starts to spin, thinking about how unkindly the FBI has been asking already.

“Are you still there?” he says.

“I’m here.”

“Just… try to stay calm. You know more than you think you do. You know how to get through this.”

It’s enough to make me cry, the way he says it—sweetly, assuredly—Jake’s version of a deep kindness.

“But in the future,” he says, “don’t say someone is innocent, okay? Say he’s not guilty, if you have to say something. But saying someone’s innocent makes you sound like an idiot. Especially when most people are guilty as fuck.”

And then there’s that.

Six Weeks Ago

“We should take a vacation,” Owen said. “We’re overdue.”

It was midnight. We were lying in bed, his hand cupping mine. He was resting it on his chest, on his heart.

“You should come with me to Austin,” I said. “Or would that not count?”

“Austin?” he said.

“I have the woodturners symposium I told you about. We could turn it into a getaway. Spend a couple of days in Texas Hill Country…”

“It’s in Austin? You didn’t tell me it was in Austin…”

Then he nodded, like he was considering it, considering joining me—except I felt something shift in him. I felt something shut down in his body.

“What’s wrong?” I said.