“That depends,” said Jeff.
“On what?”
“On what he has to say for himself. On what he’s hiding. By the way, I do love the way that you said ‘when.’?”
Tracy thought for a moment. It would be helpful to pick Jeff’s brains, not just on finding Hunter but on getting him to tell them the truth. Having a partner to work with would make things a lot easier. But if Jeff was prepared to risk everything to help her, to play a double game with his British paymasters, she owed it to him to be honest about her own involvement.
Taking a deep breath, she said, “There’s something I need to tell you.”
Slowly, and without once making eye contact, she told him the story he’d already heard from Jamie MacIntosh. About Althea requesting that Tracy be brought onto the CIA team, mentioning her by name. About a woman fitting Althea’s description tampering with Blake’s truck before it ran off the road, and later showing up at the hospital where the doctors had battled to save Nick.
“If it’s true,” Tracy finished, twisting her napkin round and round in her hands, “if she really did murder Nicholas, then it happened because of me. It’s my fault he died.”
Jeff gripped Tracy by the shoulders. “No it is not. It is not your fault, Tracy. Look at me. You can’t think like that.”
“But she knew me! She knows me! She wanted me to be a part of this, and when I refused to do it, Nick died.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. Not on its own. You’re putting two and two together and making twenty.”
“Do you have any idea who she could be, Jeff?” Tracy asked him desperately. “Any idea how she knows me? What she wants with me?”
“No,” Jeff said. “I don’t. But I’d lay good money that Hunter Drexel does. And when we find him that’ll be the first question we ask. OK?”
Tracy nodded, grateful. “OK.”
“He’s already left Paris,” Jeff said.
“How do you know?”
Tracy suspected as much, but she was surprised to hear Jeff confirm it.
For the last five days Tracy had been unable to get any answer from Sally Faiers. Sally’s phone was off and she’d stopped opening her emails, which was very unusual. Sally had mentioned to Tracy a month ago that she was working on something—a story—but she’d been very cagey about what it was. Could her silence be connected with that?
Tracy suspected not. That Hunter Drexel had made a move, and that Sally Faiers might be swept up in it, keeping his secrets once again. But she had no hard evidence.
Did Jeff?
“Here.”
Scrolling through pictures on his iPhone, Jeff showed Tracy a string of grainy images. They showed a slim, blond man at a gas station, getting into a beat-up Renault Clio with a pretty young girl. A young girl who was definitely not Sally Faiers.
“That’s him?” Tracy squinted at the man in the picture. The resolution was terrible.
“We think so.”
“And the girl?”
“The car’s registered to an Hélène Faubourg. Twenty-three years old, art student from Paris. No known links to Group 99. None of her friends have seen her since the Montmartre shooting. Car was dumped a few miles from the Belgian border. No leads since.”
“OK,” said Tracy, waving to the waiter for the bill and smiling at Jeff for the first time. “So I guess we’re going to Belgium.”
“Not we. You.”
“But I thought you said . . .”
“We can’t make it too obvious we’re collaborating,” Jeff said. “Not unless we want the spooks getting suspicious. Say what you like about Frank Dorrien, but he’s not stupid.”
No, Tracy thought, he’s not.