I had saved him when he was ten, then kept an eye on him after dropping him off with his grandparents. I suggested he see a therapist, told them to contact me for any emergency, physical or financial, and they had appreciated my concern. But the truth of the matter was, their daughter had been killed because of their son-in-law Ronan’s work. As mine was technically the same, they really didn’t want me involved in Owen’s life. It made sense, and I didn’t begrudge them their choice. The hard, cold facts were that I could not have been a parent or guardian to Owen. I was entrenched in my life with Army Intelligence and had no time for anything else. I certainly couldn’t have taken care of a traumatized ten-year-old boy.
Eight years later, when I got the call from his grandmother that Owen was in trouble—terrible, life-altering trouble—I was there immediately. I’d been surprised to find FBI agents at the jail in St. Paul, Minnesota. Owen Moss was a wanted hacker, and he was going to jail for twenty years at the very least. They were trying to prove more of the crimes they suspected him of, hoping to put him away even longer. But I had enough clout not to let them.
After that, with some guidance, Owen had turned into a well-rounded, smart young man. He got a master’s degree from MIT in Computational Science and Engineering, and he was funny, tender-hearted, could quote poetry, and his head was full of so many facts, I always told him he’d be a winner on Jeopardy! He was fluent in five languages—I was most impressed with the Japanese, having tried and failed myself many times. He had a TikTok with four or five million followers who religiously watched his videos about different kinds of tech. Owen would break down everything from video games and consoles to spy cameras and computer hardware. Since we had amazing gadgets we used almost daily, he was always showing people how things worked.
His Instagram was devoted to his second-favorite interest, which was travel. The account was full of his trips, where he traveled to and the economical way he’d done it, as well as the people he met and the kindness he received. There was food, and off-the-path hidden gems, and so many glorious pictures of sunsets and castles and cottages lost in the woods. He was simply a wonderful man, and more than that, he was fun. He was an extrovert, and there was no possible way that anyone could say no to Owen Moss. He could talk about anime and Wicca, the stock market, education, different law-enforcement agencies, conspiracies he truly believed in, the possibility of alien life, and computer coding. Owen could talk for days about how he could make a computer sing. That, of course, led to hacking, which was what we’d been arguing about.
Last December, he’d hacked into the DEA database because he’d been looking into a person of interest a client of ours had come in contact with, and whom we had reason to look into ourselves when Owen realized that everything about the guy had seemed far too easily accessible. His whole life had been out there waiting for anyone to find. Normally, that meant it was a cover, and as soon as Owen started digging, he was proven right. The problem became that when he saw he’d reached a firewall, instead of letting me know so I could have a conversation with someone in my extensive network of friends, he blasted right on through. Getting a frantic, spitting-nails phone call from an old friend who was now the principal deputy administrator of the DEA was not fun. The fact that she could have sent federal marshals to take Owen into custody and put him in jail for the rest of his life but didn’t, in deference to me, was damn nice of her. And once I explained that one of her guys was missing, her volume had lowered. But that didn’t mean Owen wasn’t on a watch list now. All the federal agencies knew who he was, and though I suspected he was slowly getting rid of the notices that referred to him by name, I had not questioned him about it.
If I was being honest, I wasn’t questioning him because every time we talked, it blew up. I had no idea why, but communicating with him lately was like walking through a minefield. We would sit together, and I’d be telling him about something and asking him about his day, when a comment would set him off and he’d go silent on me. Worse, he’d get up and retreat to his room, and I’d be left alone.
I thought, perhaps, that sharing space with me was the problem. He was a man, I was a man, and we were basically roommates. Maybe he didn’t want to be here. Maybe he needed his own space, his own house. Just because he called our home home didn’t mean he wanted to be here anymore. And I understood, I did. He couldn’t very well have an orgy in the living room while I was having pizza and beer and watching Netflix. There were milestones he was missing by living with me, and perhaps he resented me for that. But whenever I broached the subject of him getting his own place, that would set him off too. There was no winning. And then the situation came up with the hacking of the DEA, and suddenly I was just as mad as he was. It had become the subject everything came back to.
But now, being cut off from him, in the dark as to where he was, was driving me nuts. He knew better. He knew I had an issue with him being alone out in the world. I could not lose him. I could not fail his parents. Not again.
I dozed off and on all night, sitting on my usual end of the sectional in the living room, but the following morning, when he still wasn’t home, I broke down and called Margaret Tomlin, Owen’s best friend since his first semester at MIT. She picked up on the second ring.
“Hi, Mr. Colter, what’s shakin’?”
I had always liked her. She was a child of nature, her parents both practicing witches, organic farmers, and holistic healers. “Maggie,” I greeted her warmly. “I was wondering if you’ve heard from Owen.”
“No, sir, I’m sorry, but we’re both buried in this project for Aaron Sutter, so I don’t expect to see him until tomorrow. He’s probably at the main office downtown if you want to call there.”
Checking up on Owen at work would get me promptly murdered, so that was not even a remote possibility. I was supposed to go to Paris to oversee a spy exchange for my friend Mikhail, a supposed Russian attaché, but I was hesitant to go without having everything ironed out with Owen. Plus, I was staying there even after my business with Mikhail, as I had jobs there to oversee.
Maggie went on, “It’s so exciting! Mr. Sutter picked the two of us to go to Thailand to oversee the infrastructure of his newest property.”
“Meaning?”
“We’re on our way to Bangkok as soon as we finish looking over the final blueprints and schematics, and we finished yesterday,” she announced happily. “And once we get to Thailand, we’re vettin’ the vendors. Mr. Sutter likes to hire local as long as they can handle the job. I can’t wait!” she squealed. “We’re going on his private jet with the security team.”
“And this is when?”
“In the next couple of days.”
Basically Owen was leaving a day after me, so whatever was going to be ironed out wouldn’t be happening until we both returned home. It was disappointing. I didn’t like to leave things unsaid between us. “Okay, thanks so much, Maggie.”
She sighed deeply. “Are you guys fighting again?”
“Is that what he told you?”
“No,” she said, her tone sad, “but it seems like every other day lately.”
I remained quiet, unsure how to respond, and I was supposed to be the older, wiser person in this scenario.