“It has like a… historic vibe.”
She isn’t wrong. And it pulls me back to the first time I was here. So long ago—a weekend when I came to visit Jules and she was house-sitting. Before Owen. And long before I knew there was a time I’d be back here, like this.
I was walking the property with Jules, having an after-dinner glass of wine when she pointed out a gorgeous property perched on a hillside in the distance.
Do you see that vineyard to the north over there?she asked.That used to be Alfred Hitchcock’s house.
I debate sharing this with Bailey, who—if she was less on edge—would find it intriguing. Would hold it as further proof.See? Told ya. Historic.
Considering the mood she is in—a little frantic, her nails down to the stubs—I keep it to myself. I want to hold as much of this for her as I can, except what she absolutely must know for her safety.
It’s the reason for all of this, after all, for everything I’ve fought so hard for: to let Bailey be twenty-two, as unburdened as possible, the way she deserves to be. The way Owen would want her to be.
So I tell her to go inside and take a long shower, wash the day off. That I’ll clean up and meet her upstairs.
“You sure? I can help.”
“I’ve got it,” I say.
Bailey smiles, grateful. She heads inside, and I go back into the pool house kitchen and wash the silverware.
Then I take a seat at the island and pull out my laptop. There is a cordless phone on the island. There’s a landline.
I power on my laptop in case I need to take notes.
At exactly 8:55, the landline rings. I pick it up quickly.
“You made it,” Jules says.
It isn’t exactly a question, but I answer anyway.
“We did,” I say. “We’re fine.”
“Good, I’m relieved to hear it…” she says. “I’m at Frances.”
Frances. Our favorite restaurant in the Castro. The restaurant where Owen and I had our wedding dinner. This is her way of letting me know that she is calling from their kitchen phone, as planned, that no one is going to be tracing this call. Her personal phone is off-limits, her work phone at theSan Francisco Chronicletoo. But noone will be thinking to trace a restaurant phone to find where Bailey and I are.
She is on a secure line for us to talk. And, still, we are both careful. We don’t say anything specific about her friend’s boat or Bailey’s and my plan for tomorrow. I certainly don’t say anything specific about Patty and Daniel and the flash drive. How the plan looks like it’s shifting.
“I’m sorry, Hannah,” Jules says. “I’m so sorry about Nicholas.”
I feel that in my throat, like a weight, and it takes everything in me not to give in to it while Bailey is in the shower, while I can. Jules saying it out loud makes Nicholas’s death feel more immediate—the way it feels more real when the person who knows you best acknowledges something you’ve lost.
Nicholas’s face shifts forward in my mind, a spike of grief coming in fast and raw.
I clinch against it, bite it back—in part because I know what Nicholas would say, if he were here—the very thing I’m saying to myself.Get Bailey to safety.
So I push my pain down. I push it down and focus.
“What are you hearing at work?” I ask.
“That all signs point to a heart attack. Apparently, the coroner’s initial conjecture is that he died in his sleep.”
I nod as though she can see me, feeling a bit of relief to know he was sleeping. To hope that he didn’t suffer.
“So… no sign of foul play?”
“Doesn’t appear that way.”
