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Summary: Chapters 27–30
Chapter 27: The Never Dry
On the way to the Never Dry, Hannah searches for Katherine on the internet but her name is too common to yield useful results. As they arrive, Hannah explains that she’ll be entering the bar alone, in order to assess its safety before Bailey joins her. Grumbling, Bailey assents. As she walks in, Hannah sees Katherine’s picture. She meets the owner, Charlie, who lets Hannah stay even though the bar is not yet open. As they chat, Hannah tries to extract information about his family from Charlie, who becomes especially guarded when she mentions his father. She lies that the bar looks familiar from a previous visit to Austin and, gesturing to the pictures, asks if Katherine served her. Annoyed by Hannah’s probing questions, Charlie says that would have been impossible, because the woman in the pictures is his dead sister. Using yet another ruse, Hannah shows a picture of Owen to Charlie, who bursts into anger. He not only throws her phone but also jumps over the bar to confront her. At that moment, Bailey bursts into the bar. A startled Charlie recognizes her and calls her Kristin. He begs them to stay and talk, but they dash out the door.
Chapter 28: Careful What You Wish For
Crowded streets make it hard for Hannah and Bailey to move as a large group of people have gathered to see the bats’ nightly flight. Even though she was frightened, Hannah doubts that Charlie was going to hurt them, yet is startled nonetheless when she spies him running down the street searching the crowd. Remembering being called Kristin previously, Bailey asks Hannah if she believes that Katherine is her mother. When Hannah admits that yes, she does, Bailey wonders why Owen would lie to her about such a thing. As Bailey puzzles through these unanswerable questions, Hannah focuses on reaching the safety of their room and getting Bailey out of Austin.
Chapter 29: Eighteen Months Ago
During her cross-country move to California, Hannah asks Owen about Olivia, his first wife. Owen shares a story about some tigers in a zoo that obsessed Olivia, a story that allows him to assert that Hannah would have loved her. Hannah reveals to him her deep fear that she does not know how to be part of a functional family, and is relieved when Owen reassures her that they have made the right decision. Her memory ends with Hannah’s assertion that she trusts him.
Chapter 30: The Good Lawyer
Hannah informs Bailey that they must leave, shutting down all objections with the assertion that they are no longer safe in Austin. After texting Jake with a request that his investigator research Katherine, Charlie, and Kristin, Hannah remembers the bar’s newspaper clippings about a Nicholas Bell. Because the name is familiar, she searches online to learn more—and is terrified by what she finds. Nicholas was a prominent and promising lawyer who eventually became an attorney for dangerous drug dealers. His daughter was murdered, probably by his dangerous associates, as a message to him. After her death, the daughter’s husband testified against Nicholas at trial. The testimony was instrumental to Nicholas’s conviction but, after he went to prison, the husband and his young daughter disappeared. With horror, Hannah realizes that Nicholas’s son-in-law, Ethan Young, is Owen and that his granddaughter is Kristin Young, now Bailey Michaels. As she looks up, she realizes that Bailey is no longer in their room. As she runs to look for her, she stumbles upon Grady, who informs her she has created a mess.
Analysis
Hannah’s visit to the Never Dry is a pivotal moment in the narrative, as the search for Owen moves into increasingly unknown territory for her but progressively more familiar ground for Bailey. Hannah feels ill at ease in the Never Dry, knowing she does not belong and recognizing that she has no idea what potential danger lurks there. Hannah’s anxiety partially stems from being an adult who can more readily recognize potential danger than can a relatively sheltered teenager. However, Hannah’s uncertainty juxtaposed with Bailey’s growing confidence and determination denotes a key change from their arrival in Austin. Before, Bailey questions Hannah’s insistence on the logic for visiting and seems unconvinced they will learn anything new. In this section, Bailey’s insistence on carrying through with the investigation indicates she is indeed growing into an independent adult and striving to create her own sense of identity after learning her father has lied for years about who they really are.
The bats that fly over Austin are familiar to both tourists and residents of the city, and they help to situate the narrative firmly in its local context. They also serve to impede Hannah and Bailey, as their flight sparks wonder in the surrounding crowd. The bat flight allows Hannah and Bailey to hide from Charlie, but it also reveals to the other bystanders that the two frightened women are out of place. Until this point, Hannah and Bailey have benefited from the assumption that they are sightseers, but being surrounded by actual tourists and locals marks them as significantly different. Hannah and Bailey are tense, confused, and in a hurry, contrasting sharply with the crowds’ anticipation. Though the bats themselves are not nefarious, their sudden emergence in conjunction with Charlie’s ongoing search for them further signals the potentially more sinister and dangerous turn in the nature of the women’s journey.
The pacing of the novel dramatically increases in these chapters. Whereas earlier Hannah and Bailey had waded through various facts and clues that often seemed to lead nowhere, now the real story comes into focus as Hannah quickly realizes what has actually been happening. Hannah’s faith in Owen seems vindicated in that moment, but she has no time to savor it. She now realizes that not only did she lead Bailey into grave danger, but she has also lost track of her stepdaughter. This rapid pacing is consistent with the narrative conventions of detective narratives and thrillers. The uncertainty surrounding Owen drives much of the narrative’s tension yet, ironically, for Hannah the mystery’s resolution heightens her anxiety as she finally gains clarity about the peril Owen was trying to avoid.
This section finally introduces the novel’s primary antagonist, Nicholas Bell, the good lawyer of the thirtieth chapter’s title. The title is an ironic one, since he emerges as anything but a morally good lawyer, though he is clearly talented at his profession. This moment is the first time the book depicts a single character with an unqualified judgment of good and evil. Previously, the reality of what characters can judge is murky, such as how to feel about Owen or whether to trust Grady. With Nicholas as the primary antagonist, though, the stakes for Hannah and Bailey become clearer, and the potential danger to them much more apparent. He may be Bailey’s biological grandfather, but he is also a man with dangerous criminal ties and a solid motive to hate Owen. Since the book emphasizes the complexity of its characters, Nicholas eventually emerges with more nuanced layers than he initially appears to have, but the danger he can pose for Hannah and Bailey is nonetheless crucial.
