Then I tap in Grady’s cell phone number, as opposed to calling him at the US Marshals office, an extra layer of protection, even though Grady Bradford is the one US marshal Owen trusted. The one who, over time, I’ve come to trust too. There’s no trusting anyone completely, though—not at this moment.
Grady picks up on the first ring, like he’s been waiting. Because he has.
“Is Owen okay?” I ask.
“Where are you, Hannah?”
“You first, Grady.”
I’m turning up the volume on the television, moving through the house quickly and closing the electric blinds.
I’m focused on that, on closing the blinds, and on what I think Grady is going to say, when I get my answer—or I get part of my answer—coming from the television news reporter. Nicholas Bell, infamous criminal defense lawyer, has died.
I think I must have heard wrong, my back to the television screen.
But I turn quickly, and there it is, Nicholas’s face on the news. A slightly younger Nicholas dressed in a suit, standing outside court, microphones bouncing up against his face. The chyron parroting the news anchor, screaming the finality, the words in bold on the bottom of the screen.
NICHOLAS BELL, LAWYER FOR THE ORGANIZATION CRIME SYNDICATE, PRONOUNCED DEAD AT TEXAS HILL COUNTRY HOME
“Holy shit,” I say.
My breath leaves my chest, my eyes drilling into the screen.
“Nicholas is dead?”
“He is,” he says. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you that. He died in his sleep early this morning.”
My questions start to come out hot and quick. “How, Grady? What happened?”
“He was out at the lake. They think it was a heart attack. But I’m going to head out to the lake this afternoon, try to get the details in person. It’s a real tiny office out there, obviously. Just the coroner, not even an assistant, at least not one who I can reach. Can’t get any real information on the phone.”
I try to center myself, tears filling my eyes. A tightness pressing in hard on my ribs.
Nicholas is gone. Nicholas who, over these last five years, has evolved from someone that I feared to a person that I deeply trust. The person who I’ve come to trust most, at least when it comes to Bailey.
How can I begin to explain that evolution between us? Despite allthe ways I initially bucked against it, it was impossible for me not to move toward Nicholas. It was impossible, on the simplest level, because of how Nicholas was—and the kindness he showed, over and over again, to Bailey.
It wasn’t just that Nicholas showed up for Bailey for the proud-grandparent highlight reel—for her prom pictures and graduation and her musical opening nights. It was that Nicholas wanted (more than anything) to be there for the rest of it. The good things and the hard things too. Nicholas insisted on being there for everything. When Bailey got a concussion on her senior high school class trip to the Arches in Moab, Nicholas got on a plane as fast as I did, walking into that small Utah hospital within minutes of me. I remember the feel of his hand on my shoulder as I turned around to find him there, one of many reminders that I wasn’t in it alone.
When Bailey was doing the intensive summer training institute at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, her house was ransacked and robbed. That time, Nicholas beat me to Massachusetts, providing a safe haven for Bailey and her roommates at a local hotel. He offered me that same small squeeze of my shoulder when I walked into the hotel room, a silent acknowledgment that he intended to be someone I could count on.
Again and again, Nicholas proved that when it came to the person who mattered more to me than anything in the world, I had someone to help hold her.
Which is why, over time, he became my first phone call when anything went wrong with Bailey. When things went right with her too. Nicholas earned that with his commitment to her. He earned Bailey’s desire to spend holidays together and birthdays and college vacations. And, in the process, he earned the same thing from me.
After all, the easiest path to loving someone is when you share the most important thing together. Bailey was our most important thing. And Nicholas loved her in the same unmitigated, unapologetic way that I did. He loved her in the way that only your family can. Over time, it felt like he and I started to love each other that way too.
And now, like that, he’s gone.
The heat rises up, a seizing taking hold in my chest, in my lungs. The impossible and permanent truth.
I’m suddenly without him.
“This isn’t good, Hannah,” Grady says. “Everything has changed.”
“What does that mean?”
“The organization isn’t honoring the deal you two made. You and Nicholas. That you and Bailey would be safe.”
