“They don’t seem to be,” I say. “But that’s a good question…”
I open the finder and select date modified.
And I click on the album Owen created first. The photo album that he labeledSausalito.
The album has several photographs in it. Some of them are of our floating home and the docks, some of young Bailey and Owen racing down those docks, some are of Owen’s closest friend, Carl, and his wife, Patty. Carl and Patty who—despite their long friendship with Owen, or maybe because of it—weren’t exactly kind to me after Owen disappeared.
Several of the photographs seem to include Carl and Patty, which seems odd. One of the photographs even includes Carl and his brother, Daniel. Owen standing between them, the three of them laughing.
“Why would he want us to have all these photos of Carl and Patty?” Bailey asks, confused.
“I was wondering the same,” I say.
I zero in on the photograph of Owen with Carl and Daniel. I zero in on Owen’s face, and I know there is a reason. If there are photographs of Carl and his family, there is of course a reason he is sharing them with me.
Because Owen isn’t just giving me photographs. Owen is giving me messages. Private messages that only I can decipher. Just in case the flash drive gets intercepted. Just in case it gets into hands that aren’t mine. I take another glance at the last photograph—the one with Carl’s brother. Carl’s arm wrapped lovingly around Owen’s shoulder.
Then I look at the clock on the top of the laptop. The time is ticking down, ticking down in a way that’s making me anxious.
Two minutes. We have two minutes before we should be out of here. Two minutes before I need to start getting us to where we are going next—before we start putting distance between us and our last known address. Our last known city. And the people who are looking for us here. They’ll be looking for us everywhere we have ever been. My studio, Bailey’s boss’s office. Our friends’ houses. They’ll crawl the airports—LAX and Burbank and Long Beach. All public transportation hubs. Anywhere that gives us an easy exit to somewhere else.
Owen’s text races to the forefront of my mind:Get out of the house.
I slam the laptop shut.
“We’re out of time,” I say. “We’ve got to go.”
“What about the photographs? Shouldn’t we keep going through them?”
“That’s why you’re driving,” I say. “I’ll do it on the way. I have a lot of things to do on the way.”
“On the way to where?” Bailey calls out.
I open the passenger-side door, start to get in.
“Anywhere but here.”
The 101 Is Never Pretty
One of the first things I did when I moved to Los Angeles—and set up my new studio—was put in cameras.
I installed security cameras at Bailey’s apartment and my Santa Monica home and throughout my work studio: monitoring the perimeter of the properties, especially surrounding my studio.
While Bailey drives, I open my backpack. I pull out a new burner phone and a new tablet. I power up the tablet and the sole application, which links to the camera feeds.
I pull up all fifteen feeds—the videos of all three properties springing to life.
Bailey’s apartment is quiet, empty. That is the least surprising. The security measures to even get into the building (locked keypad, day doorman, live-in super) make it harder to organically infiltrate. My house is empty too. No one milling around.
But my work studio is a different story. There are two men walking around in the backyard. One of them is peering into the back window.
Both of them are in SoCalGas uniforms. The guy peering in the window looks a little like the guy who was at my door earlier this morning, but I’m not sure.
I zoom in and take screenshots of their faces, screenshots of their movement.
Then I forward the photographs to my only neighbor in thatsmall, isolated cul-de-sac. I forward her the photographs with nothing written in the text.
My neighbor knows what to do if she ever gets photographs of my property from a number she doesn’t recognize. She knows to call the police and tell them that people are trespassing. She knows to lock her doors.
