Laura Dave: The Last Thing He Told Me

“What do you say?” he says. “I was thinking we could take a walk.”

“Why would I take a walk with you?”

“It’s a nice day,” he says. “And I got you this.”

He reaches under my rocking bench and pulls out another cup of coffee, piping hot, fresh from Fred’s. EXTRA SUGAR and SHOT OF CINNAMON are written on the side of the cup in large black letters. He hasn’t just brought me a cup of coffee. He’s brought me a cup of coffee just the way I take it.

I breathe the coffee in, take my first sip. It’s the first bit of pleasure since this whole mess started.

“How do you know how I take my coffee?” I say.

“A waiter named Benj helped me out. He said you and Owen get coffees from him on the weekend. Yours with cinnamon, Owen’s black.”

“This is bribery.”

“Only if it doesn’t work,” he says. “Otherwise it’s a cup of coffee.”

I look at him and take another sip.

“Sunny side of the street?” he says.

We leave the docks and walk toward the Path, heading toward downtown—Waldo Point Harbor peeking out at us in the distance.

“So I take it no word from Owen?” he says.

I think about our kiss goodbye by his car yesterday, slow and lingering. Owen wasn’t anxious at all, a smile on his face.

“No. I haven’t seen him since he left for work yesterday,” I say.

“And he hasn’t called?” he says.

I shake my head.

“Does he usually call from work?”

“Usually,” I say.

“But not yesterday?”

“He may have tried me, I don’t know. I went to the Ferry Building in San Francisco, and there are a bunch of dead zones between here and there, so…”

He nods, completely unsurprised, almost like he knows this already. Like he is playing way past it.

“What happened when you got back?” he says. “From the Ferry Building?”

I take a deep breath and think about it for a minute. I think about telling him the truth. But I don’t know what he will make of the information about the twelve-year-old girl and the note she gave to me, about the note Owen left for Bailey at the school. About the duffel bag of money. Until I figure it out for myself, I’m not including someone I just met.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” I say. “I made Bailey dinner, which she hated, and she went to play practice. I heard about The Shop on NPR while I was waiting for her in the school parking lot. We came home. Owen didn’t. No one slept.”

He tilts his head, takes me in, like he doesn’t believe me, entirely. I don’t judge him for that. He shouldn’t. But he seems to be willing to let it go.

“So… no call this morning, correct?” he says. “No email either?”

“No,” I say.

He pauses, as though something is just occurring to him.

“It’s a crazy thing when someone disappears, isn’t it? No explanation?” he says.

“Yes,” I say.

“And yet… you don’t seem all that mad.”

I stop walking, irritated that he thinks he knows enough about me to make a judgment call on how I feel.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize there was an appropriate way to respond when your husband’s company is raided and he disappears,” I say. “Am I doing anything else you deem inappropriate?”

He thinks about it. “Not really.”

I look down at his ring finger. No ring there. “I take it you’re not married?”

“No,” he says. “Wait… do you mean ever or currently?”

“Is it a different answer?”

He smiles. “No.”

“Well, if you were, you’d understand that I’m more worried about my husband than anything else.”

“Do you suspect foul play?”

I think of the notes Owen has left, of the money. I think of the twelve-year-old’s story of running into Owen in the school hallway, of Owen’s conversation with Jules. Owen knew where he was going. He knew he needed to get away from here. He chose to go.

“I don’t think he was taken against his will, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Not exactly.”

“So what are you asking, Grady? Exactly?”

“Grady. I like that. I’m glad we’re on a first-name basis.”

“What’s your question?”

“Here you are, left to pick up the pieces of his mess. Not to mention take care of his daughter,” he says. “That would make me mad. And you don’t seem to be that mad. Which makes me think there is something you know that you’re not telling me…”

His voice tightens. And his eyes darken until he seems like what he is—an investigator—and I’m suddenly on the other side of whatever line he draws to separate himself from the people he suspects of wrongdoing.

“If Owen told you something about where he disappeared to, about why he left, I need to know,” he says. “That’s the only way for you to protect him.”

“Is that your primary interest here? Protecting him?”

“It is. Actually.”

That does feel true, which unnerves me. It unnerves me even more than his investigator mode.

“I should get home.”

I start to move away from him, Grady Bradford keeping me a little off-balance standing so close.

“You need to get a lawyer,” he says.

I turn back toward him. “What?”

“Thing is,” he says, “you’re going to get a lot of questions about Owen, certainly until he’s around again to answer them for himself. Questions you’re under no obligation to answer. It’s easier to push them off if you tell them you have a lawyer.”

“Or I can just tell them the truth. I have no idea where Owen is. And I have nothing to hide.”

“It’s not that simple. People are going to offer you information that makes it seem like they’re on your side. And Owen’s side. They aren’t. They aren’t on anyone’s side but their own.”

“People like you?” I say.

“Exactly,” he says. “But I did make a phone call for you this morning to Thomas Shelton. He’s an old buddy of mine who works on family law for the state of California. I just wanted to make sure you’re protected in case someone comes out of the woodwork seeking temporary custody of Bailey during all of this. Thomas will pull some strings to make sure that temporary custody is granted to you.”

I let out a deep breath, unable to hide my relief. It has occurred to me that, if this goes on for too much longer, losing custody of Bailey is a possibility. She has no other family to speak of—her grandparents deceased, no close relatives. But we aren’t blood relatives. I haven’t adopted her. Couldn’t the state take her away at any time? At least until they determine where her one legal guardian is, and why he has left his kid behind?

“He has the authority to do that?” I say.

“He does. And he will.”

“Why?”

He shrugs. “Because I asked him to,” he says.

“Why would you do that for us?” I ask.

“So you’d trust me when I tell you the best thing you can do for Owen is lie low and get a lawyer,” he says. “Do you know one?”

I think of the one lawyer I know in town. I think of how little I want to talk to him, especially now.

“Unfortunately,” I say.

“Call him. Or her.”

“Him,” I say.

“Fine, call him. And lie low.”

“Do you want to say it again?” I ask.

“Nah, I’ve said it enough.”

Then something in his face changes, a smile breaking through. Investigator mode apparently behind us.

“Owen hasn’t used a credit card, not a check, nothing for twenty-four hours. And he won’t. He’s too smart, so you can stop calling his phone because I’m sure he dumped it.”

“So why did you keep asking if he called?”

“There are other phones he could have used,” he says. “Burner phones. Phones that aren’t readily traceable.”