San Francisco is a threshold location in Hannah’s story: she travels there to begin a shared life with Owen and Bailey, while a later reference to an office in the city places it within the efforts to handle money Owen left behind. The city connects the promise of a new home with the consequences of the secrets surrounding Owen.

Arrival and a New Household

Eighteen months before the later events, Hannah and Owen fly one-way from New York to San Francisco. The Shop has paid for first-class tickets for both of them while Owen is in New York on business connected to the company’s planned IPO. He has also stayed to help Hannah move out of the city, packing her apartment and studio with her over the preceding days.

On arrival, Hannah is to move into the home Owen shares with Bailey. She understands the move as the beginning of a family life that will soon include marriage: the home belonging to Owen and Bailey is to become hers as well. San Francisco thus marks not simply a change of address, but Hannah’s entry into an existing father-daughter household and the future she expects to build with them.

A City in the Background of Owen’s Past

In Hannah’s recollection of what Owen told her about his life, San Francisco is not the endpoint of his earlier moves. His account runs from Newton, Massachusetts, through Princeton University and Seattle, and then to Sausalito with his daughter. The distinction matters: the remembered flight to San Francisco belongs to Hannah’s move to join Owen, whereas the story Owen gave her about his own earlier life placed him elsewhere in California.

Later Practical Connection

After Owen disappears, Hannah tells Grady that the money Owen left for Bailey is under her kitchen sink. She does not want it discovered during a search or used against her, and says she wants nothing to do with it. Grady responds that someone from his San Francisco office can come to retrieve it. The city therefore reappears as a point of practical reach in the investigation’s aftermath, this time associated not with the hopeful start of a shared home but with the handling of money that could expose or endanger Hannah and Bailey.