Page 108 of Gone Before Goodbye

“So you accompanied Marc and Trace on that last mission,”

Maggie says to her.

“Yes. I knew the area. I speak all the dialects.”

“So what happened?”

“We got overrun. A surprise attack. Just like you heard. It was a slaughter. Trace and I tried getting people to safety. We were mostlysuccessful. But Marc”—she stops, shakes her head—“he was so brave. Just like you heard. He insisted we go without him. He stayed behind, tried to save more. But still…”

Nadia stops.

“Still what?”

“The situation was dangerous, sure, but the invaders let the medical staff live.”

Maggie swallows. “Except for Marc.”

“Yes,” Nadia says. “He’s the only one they killed.”

“You have a theory why?”

Nadia nods. “I think someone sold Marc out.”

She lifts her head to look at Maggie now. Nadia’s eyes are on fire, hot with anger, full of hostility even.

“And I think that someone was you, Maggie.”

Maggie doesn’t even know how to respond to Nadia’s words, so she goes with the most obvious:

“You think I had something to do with my husband’s murder?”

Nadia stays quiet for a beat, but for Maggie, the pieces are slowly starting to, if not come together, at least fall out of the box and onto the table.

“Is that why you asked specifically for me to do your surgery? You wanted to get me alone. At that house. All those weird conversations, Oleg’s ball, the hints something was wrong. And then, boom, the tattoo.” How had Maggie not seen it? “You were trying to mess with my mind.”

Nadia finally speaks. “Yes.”

“You were hoping—Jesus, what were you hoping for?”

“That you’d slip up,” Nadia says. “That you’d reveal the truth.”

“The truth that I, what? That I would…” She can’t even say it.

Nadia doesn’t reply.

“Why the hell would you think I had something to do with…?” Maggie still can’t articulate the thought.

Killing Marc?

Nadia stands as though she’s about to leave.Uh-uh, no way, Maggie thinks. She blocks her path.

“You don’t just lay down an accusation like that and walk away.”

“I’m not walking away.”

“What then?”

Nothing from Nadia.