Page 99 of Gone Before Goodbye
“A little, yeah.”
“So?”
“So I need to follow this through, Porkchop.”
“No, you don’t,” Porkchop says. Then: “Okay, what can I do?”
“They have a theory,” she says. “This CIA guy. His name is Charles Lockwood.”
“We’ll look into him.”
Again with the “we.”
“He told me not to contact anyone from home,” Maggie continues. “That it could be dangerous for you.”
“It’s handled. We’re safe. What’s the CIA guy’s theory?”
There’s a commotion outside. Maggie lowers the phone for a second. Then she hears a man shout in English. “What did you do with my goddamn phone?”
No time to stall, Maggie realizes. So she just dives in. “That Marc is still alive.”
From outside in the bar, she hears the voice of a placating woman: “Calm down, Arty. We’ll find it.”
“I’m not calming down! What did you do with my phone?”
Maggie puts the phone near her ear. “I don’t have much time, Porkchop.”
“We know that theory can’t be true,” Porkchop says.
His voice is almost too steady, but she still hears the slight hitch of Porkchop fighting back the choke.
“Maggie?”
“I’m here.”
“Marc was hacked up in North Africa. They’re lying to you. They’re trying to manipulate you.”
Porkchop’s words make her heart sink.
“Maggie?”
“They believe it’s possible.”
“Doesn’t matter what they believe.”
“They think maybe Marc faked his death,” she says, speaking fast now. “A violent Russian oligarch named Oleg Ragoravich was using WorldCures to launder money. Marc became an informant—”
“Maggie—”
“Ragoravich found out. That’s the theory. His people would have killed Marc—and me and probably you too. So Marc faked his own death—”
“Maggie—”
“To escape him.”
“And, what, he never told us?”
“Yes. To keep us safe.”
