SIX MONTHS LATER
MAGGIE WOKE UP ON THE FLOOR OF MARCUS’S OFFICE IN ROSE HILL, VIRGINIA. An empty bottle of Scotch rolled away as she tried to stand. Her mouth felt as though she’d been eating sandpaper, and the room smelled of body odor. The smell made her stomach lurch. She leaped to her feet and ran to the bathroom. Flipped up the toilet lid and puked and dry heaved for a half-hour.
Then she walked back to Marcus’s desk, popped two of his headache pills, and lay down on his old futon.
A ringing phone brought her out of her daze a few moments later. She answered with a rasping, “Hello?”
From the other end of the line, Andrew asked, “Maggie, where are you? You were supposed to meet me for lunch.”
She checked her watch. It was two in the afternoon. “Sorry about that. I wasn’t feeling well.”
“Brown-bag flu?”
“Who are you, my mother?”
“That sounds like something Marcus would have said. I’m worried about you. He was my best friend, but you have to accept—”
“Mind your own business. I’m going to see Ackerman later today. I’ll call you if he says anything new.”
She hung up without saying goodbye and pulled herself up to a sitting position. The room felt like it was spinning, and she saw white spots in her vision. She closed her eyes and pressed a palm to her forehead. After a moment, she regained focus and stared down at the case files that littered the floor of the office.
Maggie grabbed up one of the files and started reading. Nearly every inch of the floor and desk were covered by the files. All of them organized according to her own system by the type of lead and then alphabetically. She had taken down Marcus’s movie memorabilia and replaced them with whiteboards and maps. She had charted the disappearances of every missing person within fifty miles of Kansas City in the past two years, searching for some kind of pattern. She had contacted top geographic profilers to help create maps predicting the location of Ackerman Sr.’s home base. Nothing had proved fruitful.
She placed the case file neatly back in place atop its stack and straightened the row of files. A place for everything and everything in its place.
She checked the time again. Her meeting with Ackerman was in a few hours. She needed to get cleaned up and then undergo the CIA black site’s insane security procedures. She didn’t even know exactly where they were keeping Ackerman. All she knew was that he was at a secret site for high-value targets somewhere within an hour’s drive of DC. Every time she visited, she had to be drugged and blindfolded. Maggie had undergone the process three times now, but she still held hope that this would be the time when Ackerman would provide some insight that would blow the case wide open.
She had to maintain hope. The alternative was unthinkable.