The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave (ebook reader ink .txt) 📕

“Where are you?”

“Austin.”

“Texas?” he says.

I head into the hallway, gently closing the hotel room door, careful not to wake Bailey.

“There’s a longer explanation, but essentially Bailey had memories of being in Austin when she was young. I don’t know, maybe I pushed her to think she had memories of being here. But between that and Grady Bradford showing up at my door… I thought we should come.”

“So… you’re chasing leads?”

“Apparently not well,” I say. “We’ll be on a plane home tomorrow.”

I hate hearing how those words sound. And the thought of going home to an Owen-less house is terrible. At least here I’m able to harbor the illusion that I can help bring Owen back to me, that Bailey and I, together, can do that.

“Well, look, I need to talk to you,” Jake says. “And you’re not going to like it.”

“You’re going to need to start by telling me something I will like, Jake,” I say. “Or I’m hanging up on you.”

“Your friend Grady Bradford is legitimate. Great reputation in the service. He’s one of the go-to guys in the Texas bureau. The FBI often brings him on when a suspect goes missing. And if he wants to find Owen, I’m guessing he will.”

“How is that good news?”

“I’m not sure anyone else can find him,” Jake says.

“What do you mean?”

“Owen Michaels doesn’t exist,” he says.

I almost laugh. That’s how ridiculous those words sound—ridiculous and, of course, wrong.

“I’m not saying you don’t know what you’re talking about, Jake, but I can assure you, he exists. His daughter is sleeping fifteen feet from me.”

“Let me rephrase,” he says, “your Owen Michaels doesn’t exist. Besides a birth certificate and social security number that match, for both Owen and his daughter, the rest of the details are inconsistent.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The investigator I was telling you about, and he knows what he is doing, says that no Owen Michaels exists that fits your husband’s biography. There are several Owen Michaels who grew up in Newton, Massachusetts, and a few who attended Princeton University. But the only Owen Michaels on record who grew up in Owen’s hometown and attended Princeton is seventy-eight years old and lives with his partner, Theo Silverstein, in Provincetown, out on Cape Cod.”

I’m having troubling breathing. I sit down on the hallway carpet, my back against the wall. I can feel it. A knocking in my head, a knocking in my heart. No Owen Michaels is your Owen Michaels. The words moving through me, unable to find a home.

“Should I go on?” he says.

“No thank you.”

“No Owen Michaels purchased or owned a home in Seattle, Washington, in 2006 or enrolled his daughter, Bailey, in preschool that year or had a registered income tax return anytime before 2009…”

That stops me. “That was the year he and Bailey moved to Sausalito.”

“Exactly. That’s where the record for your Owen Michaels starts. And from then on pretty much what you told me matches up. Their home, Bailey’s schooling. Owen’s work. And, of course, it was smart of him to purchase a floating home as opposed to a real house. Less of a paper trail. He doesn’t even own the land. It’s more like a rental. Harder to trace.”

I put my hands over my eyes, trying to stop the spinning in my head, trying to get steadier.

“Before they arrived in Sausalito, I haven’t found one piece of data that supports the story your husband has told you about his life. He went by another name or he went by his current name and just lied to you about every other thing. He lied about who he was.”

I don’t say anything at first. Then I manage to get out the question. “Why?” I say.

“Why would Owen change his name? The details of his life?” he asks.

I nod as though he can see me.

“I asked the investigator the same thing,” Jake says. “He says there are usually two reasons why someone changes his identity, and you’re not going to like either of them.”

“No kidding?”

“The most common reason, believe it or not, is the person has a second family somewhere. Another wife. Another child. Or children. And he’s trying to keep the two lives separate.”

“It’s not possible, Jake,” I say.

“Tell that to a client we have now, this oil magnate billionaire who has a wife in North Dakota at his family’s ranch and another in San Francisco in some mansion in Pacific Heights. Down the street from Danielle Steel. Twenty-nine years he has been with both women. Five children with one, five children with the other. And they have no idea. They think he travels a lot for work. They think he’s a great husband. We only know about his dual families because we put a will together for him… that’s going to be a fun estate reading.”

“What’s the other reason Owen might have done this?” I say.

“Assuming he doesn’t have another wife hanging out somewhere?”

“Yes. Assuming that.”

“The other reason someone creates a false identity, which is the working theory here, is that he’s involved in some sort of criminal activity,” he says. “And he ran to avoid trouble, to start a new life, to protect his family. But, almost across the board, the criminal gets in trouble again, which is his undoing.”

“So that would mean that Owen was in trouble with the law before? That he’s not only guilty of what’s happening at The Shop, but he’s guilty of something else too?”

“It would certainly explain why he ran,” Jake said. “He knew when The Shop imploded, he’d be outed. He was more worried about his past catching up to him than anything else.”

“But, by that logic, isn’t it possible he isn’t a criminal?” I say. “That he changed his name to escape someone? Someone who wanted to hurt him or maybe even hurt Bailey?”

Protect her.

“Sure, that’s possible,” he says. “But why wouldn’t he tell you that to begin with?”

I don’t have a good answer. But I need another alternative—something else to