The Cassandra Sanction. Scott Mariani

took another draw on the cigarette and blew smoke. ‘That’s what you believe, or what you want to believe?’

      ‘It’s neither. It’s what I know.’

      Ben shrugged. ‘Fine. Then let’s take that as our bottom line. She’s alive, and she’s scared and in danger.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Then consider this alternative scenario,’ Ben said. ‘Maybe she didn’t need the money to pay off someone else. Maybe she needed it for herself. We could be getting this all wrong. Imagine the situation from another angle.’

      Raul blinked. ‘What other angle?’

      ‘Stalkers are cowards. They’re also delusional enough to believe that they might actually have a chance of scoring with the person they’re obsessed about. If some creep was hanging around, it’s more than likely he’d have been making a nuisance of himself for a while. Typically, these types of people will try to insinuate themselves into the victim’s life in all kinds of ways before all the rejections, warnings, and finally court exclusion orders, cause them to build up enough rage and resentment to resort to anything as drastic as abduction. If he found out her private email address, he might have bombarded her with messages. Or written her letters. The police found nothing like that. Now, that could mean they weren’t looking thoroughly enough, or it could actually mean they were right. There’s no evidence that she was being stalked. None at all, just like we have no body. The only thing driving that idea is your fear that some nutjob is holding your sister captive in a cellar somewhere.’

      ‘What are you trying to say?’

      ‘Go where the evidence points,’ Ben said. ‘Take the stalker out of the equation. What if there is no kidnapper? What if she was just running from something, or someone, who had her so scared that she faked her own suicide?’

      ‘Like what? Like who?’

      ‘I don’t know. But that would explain why she couldn’t withdraw cash from the bank. Like you said, money’s not on a suicidal person’s priority list. You can’t take it with you. And twenty thousand euros isn’t exactly a fortune, especially not by Catalina’s standards. But for someone on the run, someone scared and desperate, someone who’s mentally switched to survival mode and thinking only in the short term, it’s plenty to be getting on with.’

      All kinds of thoughts and emotions were playing behind Raul’s eyes, which were jacked wide open and staring into the middle distance.

      ‘If she’s alive, she didn’t just drop off the face of the planet,’ Ben said. ‘Where would she go? Where would you go?’

      Raul shook his head.

      ‘I know where I’d go,’ Ben said. ‘To ground, somewhere wild and remote where nobody could find me. Where I could stay hidden for as long as necessary to figure out my options and decide on my next move. I could live in a dugout burrow in the woods if I had to. I’d be able to make a habitable shelter in a cave, hunt my own food, live on nothing, disappear so completely that not even a professional could ever track me down. Because that’s who I am, and that’s what I was trained to do. But I’m not Catalina. You know her better than anyone. So think.’

      Raul was silent for a long minute. Then a dawning light appeared in his eyes and the tension seemed to drop from his face.

      ‘There’s one place she could have gone,’ he said.