Page 89 of Gone Before Goodbye
“There were people,” she says. “Reliable people.”
“Right then. I mean, sure. It’s why that last theory is ridiculous.”
“So what’s your third theory, Charles?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?”
“Not to me.”
“If Ragoravich found out what Marc had done, he would kill him, of course. And just to make sure the lesson stuck, Oleg would probably kill anyone and everyone close to him. Especially you, Maggie.Best-case scenario: Marc would have to look over his shoulder the rest of his life.”
“Did you tell Marc this? I mean, when you recruited him.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You know why.”
“Because you didn’t give a shit about him. You cared about your case.”
“Yes,” he says calmly. “I put him in an untenable situation—after he put himself in one. But there was a way out. For you, at least. If Marc ended up ‘dying’”—he makes quote marks with his fingers—“in a refugee camp in Tunisia, then, well, you’d both be in the clear.”
Maggie feels the cold down to her bones. “You’re saying Marc faked his own death?”
“No, I’m saying thatdidn’thappen. I’m saying it’s a ridiculous—”
“That he, what, found another body that got hacked up there. That he pretended it was his, bought off whoever ran the DNA test. And now, what, he’s in hiding?”
“I’m saying the theory is ridiculous.”
“But that’s Theory Three?”
“Yes.”
“And to follow it through, Trace, what, ran off and hid—and now he is meeting up with Marc? And what’s the plan after that, Charles?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “Theory Three, I admit, is pretty weak.”
“It is,” Maggie says.
“But one thing is true either way.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re very close to Trace.”
“Yes.”
“You’ve known him a long time.”
She nods. “We served together in combat.”
“Whatever theory you believe—One, Two, or Three—Trace Packer is missing. So my question is, How far would you go to find him?”
“As far as I have to,” Maggie says.
He nods, slaps his legs, stands. “When you’re strong enough—”
