We stood at the front door and she leaned in to give me a hug. “One thing,” she said. “Did you keep your own checking account?”

“Yes,” I said.

“That’s good,” she said. “That’s important.”

She smiled approvingly, so I didn’t add that I’d done so at Owen’s insistence. Owen was the one who wanted to keep some of our money separate for a reason he never fully explained. I assumed it had something to do with Bailey. But maybe I was wrong about that. Maybe it had to do with leaving what was mine untouched.

“I ask because they’re probably going to freeze all his assets,” Jules said. “That’s the first thing they’ll do while they’re trying to figure out where he went. What he knew. They always follow the money.”

Follow the money.

I feel a little bit queasy, even now, as I think about the duffel bag shoved under the kitchen sink, a bag full of money that Owen probably knows they can’t follow. I didn’t tell Jules about the duffel because I know what it looks like to any reasonable person. I know what it should look like to me too. It looks like Owen is guilty. Jules had already decided as much, and a mysterious bag of money would only convince her further. Why wouldn’t it? She loves Owen like a brother, but it isn’t about love. It’s about what points toward Owen’s involvement in this mess: that he’s running, that he acted suspiciously with Jules on the phone. Every single thing.

Except this. Except what I know.

Owen wouldn’t run because he is guilty. He wouldn’t leave to save himself. He wouldn’t leave to avoid prison or to avoid looking me in the eye and admitting what he’s done. He wouldn’t leave Bailey. He would never leave Bailey unless he absolutely had to. How can I be so sure of this? How can I trust myself to be sure of anything when I’m obviously biased in what I’m willing to see?

Partially it’s because I’ve spent my life needing to see. I’ve spent my life paying incredibly close attention. When my mother left for good, I didn’t see it coming. I missed it. I missed the finality of that departure. I shouldn’t have. There were so many hasty exits before that, so many nights she slipped out and left me with my grandfather without so much as a goodbye. There were so many times she didn’t come back for days, or weeks, only offering up an occasional phone call, an occasional check-in.