“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.