She squeezes my hand, tightly, gives me a smile. But she doesn’t look at all like we are on the same page, which is when I realize she isn’t telling me whatever it is that is beneath that look. She isn’t saying the worst of it.

“I know that look,” I say.

She shakes her head. “It’s nothing,” she says.

“Tell me, Jules.”

“The thing is, and I can’t believe it myself exactly, but he wasn’t surprised,” she says. “He wasn’t surprised when I told him about the raid.”

“I’m not following you.”

“I learned this early on from my father. Sources can’t hide it when they know something. They forget to ask the obvious questions they’d want to know, if they were as in the dark as you were. Like, the questions you just asked me about what exactly happened…”

I stare at her, waiting for the rest, as something starts shifting in my head. I look through the glass at Bailey. She is lying against Bobby’s chest, her hand on his stomach, her eyes closed.

Protect her.

“The thing is, if Owen didn’t know anything about the fraud, he would have wanted more information from me. He would have needed a lot more information about what was going on at The Shop. He’d have said something like, Slow down, Jules. Who do they think is guilty? Does it look like Avett spearheaded the fraud alone or is the corruption more widespread? What does it look like happened, how much has been stolen? But he didn’t want to know more. Not about any of it.”

“What did he want to know?” I say.

“How long he had to get out,” she says.

Twenty-Four Hours Earlier

Owen and I sat on the dock, eating Thai food straight from the take-out containers. Drinking ice cold beer.

He was in a sweatshirt and jeans, bare feet. There was barely a sliver of moon, the Northern California night chilly and wet, but Owen wasn’t cold at all. I, on the other hand, was wrapped in a blanket, two pairs of socks, puffy boots.

We were sharing a papaya salad and spicy lime curry. Owen was tearing up, the heat from the chilies going straight to his eyes.

I stifled a laugh. “If you can’t hack it,” I said, “we can order the curry mild next time.”

“Oh, I can hack it,” he said. “If you can hack it, I can hack it…”

He stuffed his mouth with another bite, his face turning red as he struggled to swallow. He reached for his beer and guzzled it down.

“See?” he said.

“I do,” I said.

Then I leaned in to kiss him.

After I pulled back, he smiled at me, touched my cheek.

“What do you think? Can I get under that blanket with you?” he asked.

“Always.”