Nathan entrusted Gillian to search for his missing daughter

Nathan’s request that Gillian search for his missing daughters gives a personal urgency to the work that surrounds her in the novel. His ex-wife has taken the girls out of the country, and neither Nathan nor his private investigator can find them; the plea turns the broader practice of locating missing people into a question of family separation and helplessness.

The Request and Its Circumstances

Nathan makes the appeal over a meal, after recognizing how Gillian has managed to let another person see that she was concerned without openly saying so. He finishes an enchilada and takes a drink of soda before explaining that his ex-wife left the country with their daughters six months earlier. He has been unable to find them, and a private investigator has also come up empty. He asks Gillian to take the case, moving from personal disclosure to a direct request for her help.

Gillian’s Work and Methods

The request sits within a network of missing-person investigations rather than an isolated act of assistance. Gillian works with Jake Donovan, a former police officer who became a private investigator; after meeting Gillian, he changed the direction of his work. Together they focus largely on missing people, especially children, and have established a foundation for that purpose. Donations from people they have helped provide funds for the work, allowing it to serve people who could not afford private investigation.

That support matters in the novel’s treatment of financial barriers to searching. Emma explains that she hired an investigator during the first week after Paige disappeared, but could not afford to keep him working. Barrett had died without life insurance, while business costs and the mortgage left little money at the end of the month. Linc presents Gillian and Jake’s foundation as an alternative to a search limited by a client’s ability to pay: the effort is funded by donations and described as a good cause.

A Wider Investigative Pattern

The work surrounding Gillian’s investigations combines different sources of information and different forms of inquiry. In Paige’s case, Gillian speaks with Craig Jamison and then contacts the detective assigned to the disappearance. The detective says that investigators had examined whether Barrett’s death and Paige’s disappearance were connected, but found no link. Gillian nevertheless senses that he is withholding information, and, while carrying Paige’s picture and necklace, receives a strong impression that San Diego matters. Her impression supplies a lead, not a verified explanation; Emma cannot recall any connection to the city.

Jake contributes a separate investigative skill set. He accesses Paige’s phone records and finds that phone use stopped on the day she disappeared. He also wants to interview some of her friends. Linc’s pursuit of Tim Levine shows another, more confrontational side of the search: he tails Levine at Gillian’s direction and demands a detailed account of how he knew Paige. Levine eventually admits that Paige had said she could no longer face Emma. These methods—official inquiries, records, interviews, psychic impressions, and direct pressure—show how the foundation’s work operates alongside, rather than simply replacing, conventional investigation.

Significance and Limits

Nathan’s appeal makes the consequences of failed searches concrete: six months have passed, the children are abroad, and the available investigator has found no answer. The excerpt records Gillian being asked to take the case, not what she discovers or whether the daughters are found. Its significance lies instead in the request’s place within the novel’s larger pattern: Gillian’s work is presented as a response to separation that can outlast ordinary resources, while each investigation still depends on uncertain leads and incomplete information.