The Last Thing He Told Me

“What do you mean?”

“They all think I know why my father is doing whatever he’s doing,” she says. “Like he told me over breakfast that he was planning to steal half a billion dollars and disappear.”

“We don’t know that your father had anything to do with that,” I say.

“No, we just know he isn’t here.”

She’s correct about that. Owen isn’t here. For all we know, he could be anywhere. It brings me back to what Grady Bradford said offhandedly to me that morning—the information he inadvertently gave me when he was trying to convince me I should talk to him, that he was on our side. He offered his phone number. He offered the phone number to his branch office. It had an area code I didn’t recognize. 512. I reach into my back pocket, and pull out the napkin from Fred’s. Two numbers on it—both of which start with 512. No address.

I reach for my cell phone on the tea table and call the office number, my heart racing as it starts to ring, as the automatic operator answers, telling me I have reached the U.S Marshals’ office.

The Western Texas branch of the U.S. Marshals’ office. Located in Austin, Texas.

Grady Bradford works out of the Austin office. Why is a U.S. marshal from Texas the one who shows up at my door? Especially a marshal who, if I believe O’Mackey and Naomi, has no authorization over the investigation? And if he does have authorization, why? What has Owen done that Bradford would be somehow involved in this? What does Texas have to do with any of this?

“Bailey,” I say, “did you and your father ever spend any time in Austin?”

“Austin, as in Texas? No.”

“Think about it for a second. Did you ever pass through Austin on the way to somewhere else? Maybe before you guys moved to Sausalito. When you were still living in Seattle…”

“So when I was like… four years old?”

“I realize it’s a long shot.”

She looks up, searching her brain for a day or a moment she’s long forgotten that all of a sudden she is being told is a little too important to forget. She looks upset that she can’t find it. And upsetting her is the last thing I want.

“Why are you asking me anyway?” she says.

“There was a U.S. marshal here earlier from Austin,” I say. “I was just thinking that maybe he was here because of some tie your father has to the city.”

“To Austin?”

“Yes,” I say.

She pauses, considers, reaching for something.

“Maybe,” she says. “A long time ago… It’s possible I was there for a wedding. When I was really little. I mean, I’m pretty sure I was a flower girl because they made me pose for all these photos. And I think someone told me we were in Austin.”

“How sure are you?”

“Not sure,” she says. “As not sure as you can get.”

“Well what do you remember about the wedding?” I ask, trying to narrow down the window.

“I don’t know… all I remember is we were all there.”

“So your mother too?” I say.

“I think so, yeah. But the part I remember best I don’t think she was with us for. My dad and I left the church and went on a walk, and he brought me to the football stadium. There was a game going on. I’d never seen anything like it. This enormous stadium. All lit up. Everything was orange.”

“Orange?” I say.

“Orange lights, orange uniforms. I loved orange, I was obsessed with Garfield, so you know… that’s what I remember. My father pointing to the colors and saying, it’s like Garfield.”

“And you think you were at a church?”

“Yeah, a church. Either in Texas or nowhere near Texas,” she says.