In the two years since we’ve last spoken, he hasn’t made a change to his greeting, even though it comes off as smug. He likes that it comes off as smug. That is why he does it. He thinks it’s a good thing—smugness, intimidation—considering what he does for a living. He is a litigator at a Wall Street law firm, on track to being one of their youngest senior partners. He isn’t a criminal lawyer, but he is a great lawyer, as he would be the first to tell you. I’m just hoping that Jake’s type of hubris will help me now.

“Hi there,” I say.

He doesn’t ask who it is. He knows who it is, even after all this time. He also knows something is really wrong for me to be calling him.

“Where are you?” he says. “Are you in New York?”

When I called Jake to tell him I was getting married, he said that one day I’d show up back home ready to be together again. He believed that. And apparently he thinks today is that day.

“Sausalito.” I pause, dreading the words I don’t want to say. “I could use your help, Jake. I think I need a lawyer…”

“So… you’re getting divorced?”

It’s all I can do not to hang up the phone. Jake can’t help himself. Even though he was relieved when I called off the wedding, even though he married someone else four months later (and shortly thereafter divorced her), he liked to play the victim in our relationship. Jake held on to the narrative that because of my history, I was too scared to truly let him in—that I thought he’d leave me like my parents did. He never understood that I wasn’t scared of someone leaving me. I was scared that the wrong person would stay.

“Jake, my husband’s the reason I’m calling you,” I say. “He’s in trouble.”

“What did he do?” he says.

It’s the best I can hope for from him so I proceed to tell him the whole story, starting with some background information about Owen’s work, the investigation into The Shop and Owen’s bizarre disappearance, walking him through the dual visits from Grady Bradford and the FBI, and how the FBI didn’t know about Grady. I move him through how no one seems to know anything about where Owen is, or what he is planning next—least of all Bailey and me.

“And the daughter… she’s with you?” he says.

“Bailey, yes. She’s with me. Which is probably the last place she wants to be.”

“So he left her too?”

I don’t answer him.

“What’s her full name?” he says.