“I’m still new to how this works, so in the meantime, I’m telling you about the money,” I say. “It’s under my kitchen sink. I don’t want anything to do with it.”

He is quiet. “Well, I appreciate that, it’s better that I take it than that they find it,” he says. “I can have someone in our San Francisco office come out and get it.”

I look out past Lady Bird Lake, at Austin’s downtown, its gentle buildings, the trees letting through the morning light. Grady is probably in one of those buildings already, starting his day. Grady is closer than I suddenly want him to be.

“Now’s not a good time.”

“Why not?”

Everything in my body tells me to tell him the truth. We are in Austin. But I’m still not sure whether he is a friend or a foe. Or both. Maybe everyone is a little bit of both, Owen included.

“I need to get some work done before Bailey gets up,” I say. “And I’ve been thinking… maybe I should take Bailey somewhere else until this all calms down.”

“Like where?”

I think of Jake’s offer. I think of New York.

“I’m not sure,” I say. “But we don’t have to be in Sausalito, do we? I mean, we don’t have to stay there for any legal reason, correct?”

“Not officially, but it won’t look good,” he says. Then Grady pauses. He pauses as if hearing something.

“Wait. Why did you just say ‘there’?”

“What?”

“You said, we don’t have to stay there. Talking about your house, talking about Sausalito. If you were home, you would have said ‘here.’ We don’t have to stay here.”

I don’t say anything.

“Hannah, I’m sending one of my colleagues over to check on you,” he says.

“I’ll put on some coffee,” I say.

“This isn’t a joke,” he says.

“I don’t think it is.”

“So then where are you?” Grady says.

If Grady wants to trace my phone call, I know he can do it. For all I know he is already trying to do it. I look out at Grady’s hometown, wondering what it’s been for my husband.

“Where are you worried I’ll be, Grady?” I say.

Then, before he can answer, I hang up the phone.

One Year Ago

“You think you can just pop in here whenever you want?” I said.

I was joking. But I was surprised that Owen snuck up on me, showing up at my workshop unannounced, in the middle of the workday. He didn’t usually do that. He spent his days at the offices in Palo Alto, sometimes heading to downtown San Francisco for a meeting. He was rarely home on a weekday, except when Bailey needed him for something.