“What do you do for the Marshals’ office?”
He takes his badge back and stands up, the bench rocking back and forth as it loses the weight of him.
“Well, primarily, I apprehend people who are defrauding the U.S. government,” he says.
“You think my husband’s done that?”
“I think The Shop has done that. But no, I’m not convinced your husband has. Though I’d need to speak to him before I could properly assess his involvement,” he says. “Seems like he doesn’t want to have that conversation though.”
That sticks to me for some reason. It sticks to me as not the entire truth, at least not Grady’s entire truth as to what he’s doing on my dock.
“Can I see your badge again?” I say.
“512-555-5393,” he says.
“Is that your badge number?”
“That’s the phone number for my branch office,” he says. “Give a call there, if you like. They’ll confirm for you who I am. And that I just need a few minutes of your time.”
“Do I have a choice?”
He gives me a smile. “You always have a choice,” he says. “But I’d certainly appreciate if you talked to me.”
It doesn’t feel like I have a choice, at least not a good one. And I don’t know if I like him, this Grady Bradford, with his practiced drawl. But how much would I like anyone who is about to ask me a bunch of questions about Owen?
“What do you say?” he says. “I was thinking we could take a walk.”
“Why would I take a walk with you?”
“It’s a nice day,” he says. “And I got you this.”
He reaches under my rocking bench and pulls out another cup of coffee, piping hot, fresh from Fred’s. EXTRA SUGAR and SHOT OF CINNAMON are written on the side of the cup in large black letters. He hasn’t just brought me a cup of coffee. He’s brought me a cup of coffee just the way I take it.
I breathe the coffee in, take my first sip. It’s the first bit of pleasure since this whole mess started.
“How do you know how I take my coffee?” I say.
“A waiter named Benj helped me out. He said you and Owen get coffees from him on the weekend. Yours with cinnamon, Owen’s black.”
“This is bribery.”
“Only if it doesn’t work,” he says. “Otherwise it’s a cup of coffee.”
I look at him and take another sip.
“Sunny side of the street?” he says.
We leave the docks and walk toward the Path, heading toward downtown—Waldo Point Harbor peeking out at us in the distance.
“So I take it no word from Owen?” he says.
I think about our kiss goodbye by his car yesterday, slow and lingering. Owen wasn’t anxious at all, a smile on his face.
“No. I haven’t seen him since he left for work yesterday,” I say.
“And he hasn’t called?” he says.
I shake my head.
“Does he usually call from work?”
“Usually,” I say.
“But not yesterday?”
“He may have tried me, I don’t know. I went to the Ferry Building in San Francisco, and there are a bunch of dead zones between here and there, so…”
He nods, completely unsurprised, almost like he knows this already. Like he is playing way past it.
“What happened when you got back?” he says. “From the Ferry Building?”
I take a deep breath and think about it for a minute. I think about telling him the truth. But I don’t know what he will make of the information about the twelve-year-old girl and the note she gave to me, about the note Owen left for Bailey at the school. About the duffel bag of money. Until I figure it out for myself, I’m not including someone I just met.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” I say. “I made Bailey dinner, which she hated, and she went to play practice. I heard about The Shop on NPR while I was waiting for her in the school parking lot. We came home. Owen didn’t. No one slept.”
He tilts his head, takes me in, like he doesn’t believe me, entirely. I don’t judge him for that. He shouldn’t. But he seems to be willing to let it go.
“So… no call this morning, correct?” he says. “No email either?”
“No,” I say.
He pauses, as though something is just occurring to him.
“It’s a crazy thing when someone disappears, isn’t it? No explanation?” he says.
“Yes,” I say.
“And yet… you don’t seem all that mad.”
I stop walking, irritated that he thinks he knows enough about me to make a judgment call on how I feel.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize there was an appropriate way to respond when your husband’s company is raided and he disappears,” I say. “Am I doing anything else you deem inappropriate?”
He thinks about it. “Not really.”
I look down at his ring finger. No ring there. “I take it you’re not married?”
“No,” he says. “Wait… do you mean ever or currently?”
“Is it a different answer?”
He smiles. “No.”
“Well, if you were, you’d understand that I’m more worried about my husband than anything else.”
“Do you suspect foul play?”
I think of the notes Owen has left, of the money. I think of the twelve-year-old’s story of running into Owen in the school hallway, of Owen’s conversation with Jules. Owen knew where he was going. He knew he needed to get away from here. He chose to go.
“I don’t think he was taken against his will, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Not exactly.”
“So what are you asking, Grady? Exactly?”
“Grady. I like that. I’m glad we’re on a first-name basis.”
“What’s your question?”
“Here you are, left to pick up the pieces of his mess. Not to mention take care of his daughter,” he says. “That would make me mad. And you don’t seem to be that mad. Which makes me think there is something you know that you’re not telling me…”
His voice tightens. And his eyes darken until he seems like what he is—an investigator—and I’m suddenly on
