“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.

“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.