“If Owen told you something about where he disappeared to, about why he left, I need to know,” he says. “That’s the only way for you to protect him.”
“Is that your primary interest here? Protecting him?”
“It is. Actually.”
That does feel true, which unnerves me. It unnerves me even more than his investigator mode.
“I should get home.”
I start to move away from him, Grady Bradford keeping me a little off-balance standing so close.
“You need to get a lawyer,” he says.
I turn back toward him. “What?”
“Thing is,” he says, “you’re going to get a lot of questions about Owen, certainly until he’s around again to answer them for himself. Questions you’re under no obligation to answer. It’s easier to push them off if you tell them you have a lawyer.”
“Or I can just tell them the truth. I have no idea where Owen is. And I have nothing to hide.”
“It’s not that simple. People are going to offer you information that makes it seem like they’re on your side. And Owen’s side. They aren’t. They aren’t on anyone’s side but their own.”
“People like you?” I say.
“Exactly,” he says. “But I did make a phone call for you this morning to Thomas Shelton. He’s an old buddy of mine who works on family law for the state of California. I just wanted to make sure you’re protected in case someone comes out of the woodwork seeking temporary custody of Bailey during all of this. Thomas will pull some strings to make sure that temporary custody is granted to you.”
I let out a deep breath, unable to hide my relief. It has occurred to me that, if this goes on for too much longer, losing custody of Bailey is a possibility. She has no other family to speak of—her grandparents deceased, no close relatives. But we aren’t blood relatives. I haven’t adopted her. Couldn’t the state take her away at any time? At least until they determine where her one legal guardian is, and why he has left his kid behind?
“He has the authority to do that?” I say.
“He does. And he will.”
“Why?”
He shrugs. “Because I asked him to,” he says.
“Why would you do that for us?” I ask.
“So you’d trust me when I tell you the best thing you can do for Owen is lie low and get a lawyer,” he says. “Do you know one?”
I think of the one lawyer I know in town. I think of how little I want to talk to him, especially now.
“Unfortunately,” I say.
“Call him. Or her.”
“Him,” I say.
“Fine, call him. And lie low.”
“Do you want to say it again?” I ask.
“Nah, I’ve said it enough.”
Then something in his face changes, a smile breaking through. Investigator mode apparently behind us.
“Owen hasn’t used a credit card, not a check, nothing for twenty-four hours. And he won’t. He’s too smart, so you can stop calling his phone because I’m sure he dumped it.”
“So why did you keep asking if he called?”
“There are other phones he could have used,” he says. “Burner phones. Phones that aren’t readily traceable.”
Burner phones, paper trails. Why is Grady trying to make Owen sound like a criminal mastermind?
I start to ask him, but he presses a button on his key chain, a car across the street shining its lights, coming to life.
“I won’t keep you longer, you have enough to deal with,” he says. “But when you do hear from Owen, tell him I can help him if he lets me.”
Then he hands me a napkin from Fred’s, his name written down, GRADY BRADFORD, with two phone numbers beneath it, his numbers I presume—one of them marked cell.
“I can help you too,” he says.
I pocket the napkin as he crosses the street and gets into his car. I start to walk away, but as he turns on the engine, something occurs to me and I walk toward him.
“Wait. With which part?” I say.
He lowers his window. “With which part, what?”
“Can you help?”
“The easy part,” he says. “Getting through this.”
“What’s the hard part?”
“Owen’s not who you think he is,” he says.
Then Grady Bradford is gone.
These Are Not Your Friends
I go back into the house just long enough to grab Owen’s laptop.
I’m not going to sit there thinking about what Grady said, and all the things he seemed to leave out, which are bothering me more. How did he know so much about Owen? Maybe Avett wasn’t the only one who they’ve been following closely for the last year and change. Maybe Grady’s nice guy act—helping me with Bailey’s custody, offering advice—was so I’d slip up and tell him something Owen wouldn’t want him to know.
Did I slip up? I don’t think so, even as I go back through our conversation. But I’m not going to risk doing it in the future, not with Grady, or with anyone else. I’m going to figure out what’s going on with Owen first.
I take a left off the docks and head toward my workshop.
I need to make a stop first though at Owen’s friend’s house. It’s a stop that I’m not particularly eager to make, but if anyone will have insight into what Owen is thinking, into what I might be missing, it’s Carl.
Carl Conrad: Owen’s closest friend in Sausalito. And one of the only people on whom Owen and I disagree. Owen thinks I don’t give him a fair shake, and maybe that’s true. He’s funny and smart and totally embraced me from the minute I arrived in Sausalito. But he also habitually cheats on his wife, Patricia, and I don’t like knowing that. Owen doesn’t like knowing that either, but he says he’s able to separate it out in his mind because Carl has been such a good friend to him.
This is how Owen is. He values the first friend he made in Sausalito more than he judges him. I know that’s how my husband works.
