Gone Before Goodbye

Chapter Fifteen

Dubai

The Dubai heat starts in your lungs.

The sun is relentless, merciless. It finds you. It beats down upon you. It’s just you and the sun. You have a personal, one-on-one relationship with the sun. There is no middleman, no filter, no cloud cover, no escape. You get the purest hit of the sun. The sun love-bombs you. It’s dry and heavy and clingy. It swarms with an all-consuming furnace-like heat. It suffocates you from within and from without. It saps your energy first, then your spirit.

Maggie had experienced this kind of desert heat too often during her military service. She’d be walking on the tarmac where she could see the squiggly waves from the heat and feel it burn her feet all the way through her combat boots. She had experienced every kind of malady from this kind of heat — dehydration, rash, headache, dizziness, fatigue — during her WorldCures missions. The cold of Russia may have been deadly and awful. But this blazing sun? Maybe worse.

Fortunately, Maggie only experienced the Dubai heat for a minute, maybe two, walking from the private plane to the sleekest-looking super-fancy sports car. A man giving off serious Viking vibes — long blond hair and a beard to match — holds the door open for her.

“Welcome,” the Viking says.

The sports car only seats two, so Maggie slips into the front seat, the blast from the powerful air-conditioning more than welcome. The Viking circles around and gets low into the driver’s side.

“Is this a Bugatti?” Maggie asks.

She doesn’t know cars, never had any interest in them, never understood those fascinated by them. Cars aren’t her baby or friend; she doesn’t think they’re cool. They get her from Point A to Point B. Period, the end. She only guesses it’s a Bugatti because it just feels like money and because Charles Lockwood had told her that she’d be staying at the new ultra-exclusive Bugatti Residences by Binghatti, which is supposed to somehow combine Binghatti luxury living (whatever that means) with, well, Bugatti luxury automotive design. Didn’t make much sense to Maggie, but not much about the innovatively decadent (yet decidedly throwback) Dubai lifestyle did.

The driver answers in American English. “It’s a Bugatti Tourbillon.”

“A Tourbillon?”

“Yes.”

“It’s really called that? A Tourbillon.”

“It is.”

Maggie frowns. “Name seems a little on-the-nose, doesn’t it?”

“Billon not billion. It’s French for ‘whirlwind.’”

“Yeah, but still.”

“Fair point,” the Viking concedes. He adjusts his sunglasses and strokes his thick beard. He hits the gas pedal and in seconds they are traveling ninety miles an hour. “This car,” he says, “cost 4.1 million dollars.”

“No way.”

“Yes way.”

“I think your voice had a typo in it,” Maggie says. “It moved the decimal point to the right a spot or two.”

The Viking likes that. “It did not. Only two hundred fifty of them will ever be manufactured.”

“Two hundred fifty Tourbillons,” Maggie says.

“Yep.”

She’s surprised Oleg Ragoravich didn’t have one in his showroom. “How old is it?”

“Old? The Tourbillon debuted this year. It’s brand spanking new.”

“Wow.”

“Nice ride, right?”

“Not 4.1-million-dollars nice.”

He grins.

“I’m Maggie McCabe, by the way.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m Bob.”

“Nice to meet you, Bob.”

“Same.”

She notices the telltale lump in his suit jacket. Bob is carrying a gun. He also has that calm, that stillness, Maggie has seen only in the best trained of soldiers.

“What can you tell me before we arrive?” she asks.

“Not a thing,” he says.

“Is Bob even your real name?”

His answer is just a smile.

Charles Lockwood had flown down with her on the private plane, but he stayed on board, explaining that he had to return immediately to Russia. The flight time was six hours. He’d spent almost all of it with her going over the “plan” — as generous a use of that term as Maggie had experienced — yet again:

“Your cover is one you’re already playing: concierge surgeon for the superrich, this time for a family in Dubai. I can’t give you their name. That’s part of the discretion. But the client is described as a ‘retail magnate.’ Here are two passports. Yours, of course. Use that. The other is made out in the name of Emily Sinclair, a pseudonym, just in case. When you arrive, they’ll give you the details on what cosmetic work they want. Your mission — man, I hate that term: I sound like I’m M in a Bond film or something. But the mission is pretty simple. We are trying to find Trace Packer.”

As the Tourbillon revs closer to the city, the famed skyscrapers of Dubai start to come into view, like shiny mirages rising from the desert sand. The site is like something out of a futuristic movie — a blend of nirvana and dystopia, which, when you think about it, can appear to be the same thing from a distance. Maggie had been to Dubai maybe a dozen times during her years in the military and with WorldCures. She and Marc had tolerated the visits, while Trace dove into the city and all its excesses.

She remembers Trace explaining the appeal to her and Marc:

“You can’t have an up without a down. You can’t have a left without a right. You can’t have good without evil...”

“Are you getting to the point?” Maggie had interrupted.

She had heard these philosophical musings from Trace many times over the years. It’s one of the things she’d most enjoyed about Trace’s company — he always said something that made her think. What they don’t tell you about serving in combat zones is that the rare spikes of adrenaline are made far more potent because of the hours of mind-numbing boredom — which, when she thinks about it now, is a lot like what Trace was saying with this no-up-without-a-down stuff.

“And,” Trace finished, with his rakish smile, “in my case, there can’t be altruism without debauchery. You two, well, you have each other. You’ll spend the night in some high-rise hotel bed with a billion-count threads and do what you should do. Me? I plan to visit a risqué nightclub and imbibe and ingest and flirt and end up with a strange beauty in my bed, one who will see my innate wonderfulness and not charge me and it’ll be passionate and romantic and even love — no, not what you two have because, well, almost no one has that — and then, poof, it’ll be gone with the morning sun.”

Maggie just sits in that memory for a moment.

Trace Packer.

From the driver’s seat, Viking Bob asks, “Are you okay?”

“Fine.”

The car makes a sharp right turn. In her head, Maggie rehearses the “plan” — again, the word deserves quote marks — remembering her first question when Charles Lockwood had told her the destination:

“Why Dubai?” she asked.

“Before I answer, I just want to remind you,” Lockwood began. “You don’t have to do this. This isn’t your fight. You don’t have to help—”

“Why Dubai?”

“Okay, fair enough. Several reasons, but I’ll start with the main one. Oleg Ragoravich’s plane is there. It left four hours after we rescued you. We don’t know who is on it, but Dubai is important to both of them.”

“Both of them?”

“Oleg and Nadia met in Dubai. Nadia was a lead, uh, hostess at Etoile Adiona. It’s an ultra-exclusive nightclub. Oleg frequents a lot of big nightclubs. Anyway, they met there. Fell in, well, whatever you fall into with these kinds of relationships. And here’s the big thing — according to our intel, Nadia was spotted there last night.”

“At Etoile Adiona?”

“Yes. You’ll be able to get in tonight. It’s been arranged. Look, people will know who you are, but in this case, it works for your cover. WorldCures had a footprint in Dubai — I don’t have to tell you that — so your past may help open doors.”

“And that’s reason number two?” Maggie asked. “The WorldCures connection?”

“Yes, but let me be more specific: Dubai was the last place Marc and Trace were seen before they left on that final humanitarian mission. I assume you know this?”

She nodded.

“Not only did they launch their final humanitarian mission from Dubai — Trace Packer went back there after Marc died. Did you know that?”

“Yes.”

“Did that surprise you? That Trace didn’t come for the funeral or something?”

There had been no funeral for Marc. Marc hadn’t believed in them. The Serpents and Saints had done a ride in missing man formation — leaving a space for where Marc’s motorcycle would have gone. Porkchop was the lead bike, of course. Maggie was on the back of the bike. She never saw Porkchop cry, not even on that day, but she could feel his shoulders heave as she pulled in close.

“No,” she said. “It didn’t surprise me. If you wanted to honor Marc, the best way would be to get back to work.”

“Okay, yeah, I guess that makes sense. So anyway, all roads lead us to Dubai. That’s why you’re going there. The plan is for you to stir things up so we can find Trace. Go to Etoile Adiona. Talk to Nadia. See if she knows where Oleg Ragoravich is. Everything here is connected. We just don’t know how. We just know there’s a lot of bad people in Dubai doing bad things.” Charles Lockwood hesitated. “Maybe you shouldn’t do this. After all, they just tried to kill you. Maybe it’s too risky—”

“Shh,” Maggie interrupted, raising her palm, “the patronizing is getting on my nerves.”

Bob the driver breaks the spell. “There’s home. Be it ever so humble.”

It does not look humble in any way, shape, or form, but of course, that’s the point. The Bugatti skyscraper looks more like modern sculpture than a residential tower. Everything is dynamic curves and fluid lines, sensual even, as though the building can’t quite stay still. It’s wrapped in a shiny metal facade, and with the desert sun reflecting off it just so, it’s as though the high-rise were both a crashing wave and a rolling sand dune.

“Hang on,” Bob says.

Bob rips up the drive. She expects a valet or maybe just parking in the front. But that’s not what happens. He veers the car down an entry bay into an underground garage. The parking spot, she notices, has glass walls on three sides. Odd. When Bob turns off the engine, Maggie reaches for the door handle, but Bob reaches across her and shakes his head.

“Not yet.”

The car, with them inside of it, starts to rise.

“It’s an elevator,” Bob tells her.

“An elevator for your car?”

He shrugs. “A Bugatti should live in the Bugatti. Every penthouse has a parking spot.”

“For your car?”

“Yes.”

“In the actual apartment?”

“Yep. It’s perfect symmetry. Integrating automotive passion with French Riviera luxury. Merging Bugatti’s automotive-inspired aesthetics with the highest standards of living.”

“You didn’t just make that up,” Maggie says.

“No, you sit around a lot in this job. There’s a brochure.”

Maggie can’t help but shake her head. The sports car rises above the city, floor upon floor, the view outside the windshield and glass door jaw-dropping, until they stop, yes, in the middle of a spectacular apartment. After Bob nods that it’s okay now, they both slide out of the Bugatti and enter the heart of the penthouse. The décor is a bit like the car — sleek, aerodynamic, stunning — but the space is all about the windows: floor-to-ceiling, very high, glass so clear you could easily walk into them. You don’t feel as though you are in a high-rise with a spectacular view. You feel at one with the view, the unassuming marble floor vanishing, as though you were floating.

Maggie stands there and flashes back to Charles’s final instruction: “You’re going to want to call your family and tell them you’re all right. Don’t. They still think you’re on your original job, so it’s not like they are unduly worried. The last thing you want to do is pull them into this by making an errant call.”

She’d promised that she wouldn’t call.

But that is a promise she has no intention of keeping.

The penthouse is silent.

“Is anyone else here?” Maggie asks.

“The family owns three floors.”

“Of course.”

“You’ll be the only one on this one.”

“Of course.”

Bob leads them to her room, which is minimalist and off-white and unassumingly decorated because again it is all about the cityscape. Every wall is done in gentle curves with no corners or harsh edges. It makes you feel as though you’re on a boat in the middle of calm seas. There is a kidney-shaped swimming pool on the expansive deck outside her window.

“The full patient medical records will be here within the hour,” Bob says. “They should provide you with all the information you need. Surgery will be scheduled for tomorrow unless there’s an issue.”

She wonders whether she will need to make up an issue to stall for time, so she can stay longer. Probably not. Charles or whoever had already informed the “retail magnate” that Maggie’s strict patient protocol was to stay at least four days post-op — and if you wanted the best, which Maggie is, you understood, accepted, and paid for that.

“Impressive, no?” Bob says.

She nods. The view reminds her of that skyline shot of Oz from the original Wizard of Oz movie. It looks enchanted, magical, make-believe — a place where fantasies come true. But if you take a second look, it also looks artificial, futuristic, slightly nightmarish. The skyscrapers sparkle and glitter and they’re all glass, almost fragile looking, so that you could imagine hurling a giant stone and watching it all crash down in shards.

“Is there a bar nearby?” she asks.

“A bar?”

“Yes.”

“As in a pub?”

“Sure.”

Bob frowns. “You want to go out for a drink?”

“Yes.”

“The day before you perform surgery?”

“I need to move around,” Maggie says. “I get antsy before a surgery.”

“You probably won’t be surprised to hear this,” Bob says, “but this tower has some pretty spectacular amenities.”

“Gasp oh gasp, label me surprised.”

Viking Bob smiles. “The penthouse has two private pools. You could get a massage or a holistic healing session or something like that. There’s a fitness center, a gym, a spa, a wellness retreat—”

“What’s the difference between a fitness center and a gym?”

“Damned if I know.”

“How about between a spa and wellness center?”

“Same answer.”

She smiles at him. “How did you get this job, Bob?”

“Served in the military. Same as you. In fact, I think we were both at Camp Arifjan.”

“And then?”

“And then I got offered a boatload of money to work here. It’s not a complicated story.”

“You like it?”

Bob shrugs. “We can make fun of the overindulgence,” he says, “but my wife and I like luxury. It’s safe, no violent crime, tax-free, good health care, high standard of living. The kids seem happy. Why? You looking to move?”

“Hard pass,” she says. “With all those amenities, I assume there’s a bar downstairs.”

“They’d never use the word ‘bar’ here. There is however a wood-paneled exclusive club that offers an upscale social setting for elite and like-minded individuals to mingle.”

“You really memorized that brochure.”

“It looks bad to be scrolling on your phone.”

“Can I go to this club?”

Bob shrugs. “Suit yourself. This isn’t a prison.”

“Kinda feels like one.”

“It does, doesn’t it? Third floor.”

He leads her to a glass elevator. There are no buttons inside. She steps in, and he says “Private club” out loud. The elevator doors close and it whisks her down. It moves fast, silently; Maggie feels a little pressure in the ears.

The private club is varnished wood and low lights. The barkeep is tall and female and looks as though she just came off a Paris runway. The premium liquor bottles behind her are lit from below, which makes them appear even more premium. The men strewn about are a variety pack, but they all look middle-aged or older. The women are, no surprise, younger, far younger, and probably use social media euphemisms like “influencer” or “fitness model.” They are, no question, hot, but extremes — their hair is either jet-black or white blonde, their skin is either darkly tanned or completely pale, and — no judgment here — they’ve all been surgically enhanced or rejuvenated, which, come to think of it, are two more euphemisms.

Maggie gets it. Dubai is a playground for the rich and their most hedonistic urges. It’s Disney World for grown-ups who don’t want to be grown-ups. It wants to be salacious and gritty, but it is hard to blend that with the baser need to be safe and comfortable. There is nothing wrong with having fun, as Charles Lockwood and Trace Packer had pointed out, as long as it’s victimless. Is this? Victimless, that is. Maggie doesn’t know. The other issue for Maggie is based on something very simple she’s observed over the years — no one looks happy the day after. It all feels a tad desperate and sad. These people are rich and successful and powerful and have everything, but it isn’t enough. That’s the problem. It is never enough. Human nature sees to that. We get used to every luxury. Even the richest men in the world, we’ve seen over the past few years, can’t be satiated, no matter how much money or power or yachts or women or offspring or hero worship or attention or whatever they have. Maggie’s parents had introduced her and Sharon to the music of Bruce Springsteen, constantly playing his vinyls on their old record player, and there was a line in the song “Badlands” that the poor man wants to be rich, the rich man wants to be king, and the king ain’t satisfied until he rules everything.

That.

At the bar — yes, it’s still a bar; dress it up, use premium liquors and crystal decanters and upscale glassware, it’s still a bar — Maggie is surprised to see more women than men. Very few of the women appear to be building residents, though perhaps that’s sexism or ageism on her part. She doesn’t know the deal, but what seems to be happening at first glance is that the young women sit at the bar. Alone. There is at least one stool empty next to them. A man approaches, chats them up for a few minutes, and then they move into a darkened booth.

Hmm, Maggie thinks. Change of plans.

She’d hoped to find a man seated alone and make her approach that way, but perhaps this is better. As she heads to the bar, she notices three men against the walls in a triangular formation, all with, yep, the black suits and sunglasses, even in this low lighting. Security. Even in here. Maggie takes a seat next to a too-young, coltish woman with a heavy foundation of makeup. The young woman — okay, can we be honest and call her a girl? — stares at her in surprise. Her fake eyelashes are oversize, like two tarantulas lying on their backs in the hot desert sun.

Maggie gives her a big smile and sticks out her hand. “Hi, I’m Maggie.”

The young woman looks suspicious but returns the shake. “Alena.”

“I need a favor, Alena.”

Alena waits, still giving off the wary.

“Can I borrow your phone?” Maggie asks.

Alena looks puzzled. Maggie wonders how fluent her English is. Then Alena says, “I don’t have one.”

“You don’t?”

“I mean, I have one, but... Are you a resident?”

“No. I’m visiting someone.”

“Oh, that explains it.”

“Explains what?”

Alena leans in closer. “They take away our phones.”

“Who does?”

“Downstairs. When we come in. You go through a screening. They take your name. They take your photograph. They do a background check. And they lock your phone in a vault.”

Odd, Maggie thinks at first, but then she realizes that it makes perfect sense. Big-time security at places like this. People pay big bucks for privacy and anonymity. Heck, Maggie doesn’t even know the names of her hosts. Naturally, they wouldn’t want any woman coming into their exclusive lair and snapping pics or uploading videos to social media.

Damn. She’d counted on finding a phone down here.

Alena puts her hand on Maggie’s arm. “Are you okay?”

The young girl’s voice is suddenly older, more mature.

“I’m fine, Alena.”

“Why do you need a phone?”

Maggie wonders how to answer that and goes for the truth. “I need to call someone at home.”

“You’re American?”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t own a phone?”

“I do. It’s complicated.”

Alena moves a little closer and whispers, “Do you need help?”

“No, I’m okay.”

“Are you sure?”

Her concern is so authentic, so touching.

“I am, Alena. How about you?”

“Oh, I’m fine.”

“Where are you from?”

“Ukraine. But I’ve been here two years now.” Then: “You really need a phone, don’t you?”

Maggie isn’t sure what to say.

“Are you in danger?”

“No.”

“But you need to make this call?”

“Yeah, I do.”

Alena nods. “Order a drink. Watch me. When I go to the ladies’ room, wait a minute and then follow me in.”

“Wait, what?”

But Alena is already up and moving toward a dark booth. The modelesque bartender saunters over and asks Maggie what she’d like to drink. Maggie asks if there’s a bourbon she’d recommend. The bartender says they have a Pappy Van Winkle 23 Year Old. Maggie is about to nod, but she has a distant memory of seeing one on display at a museum or something.

“Do you have, I don’t know, Maker’s Mark or something?”

A hand reaches over her shoulder, holding a very fancy-looking credit card. She looks to see who it is.

Viking Bob.

“Get her the Pappy Van Winkle,” he says, handing the bartender the card. “In fact, make it two.”

Maggie says, “You don’t have to—”

“Your host insists,” Bob interrupts.

“How much is it?”

“If you have to ask, you don’t belong here.”

“But I don’t belong here,” Maggie says.

“Fair point. Just be glad they ran out of the Old Rip Van Winkle 25 Year Old.”

“Why?”

“In stores it sells for fifty K a bottle.”

“Fifty thousand dollars?”

“Yep.”

“For a bottle of bourbon?”

Bob shrugs.

“Does it come with a sex act?”

He laughs. “I guess it should at that price.”

She laughs back, making the quasi-bawdy joke to keep the mood relaxed and casual so he doesn’t interfere with whatever Alena is planning. Bob has clearly been sent down from ahigh to keep an eye on her.

“On the rocks or straight up?” the bartender asks.

“Oh, you can’t put Pappy Van Winkle over ice,” Bob says.

The bartender nods, pours the drinks. They clink glasses. Maggie brings the glass to her lips. The smell is ambrosia. She tilts a sip into her mouth, leaves it on her tongue for a moment, and even with everything that’s going on, she lets the bourbon warm the back of her throat.

Oh man.

Bob smiles. “Good, right?”

“Nectar of the gods.”

Alena reappears from a dark corner.

She heads down the side of the bar, not so much as glancing toward Maggie. Maggie carefully takes another sip. She smiles at Bob while, behind him, she sees Alena stroll past one of the guards and disappear into the bathroom.

Maggie waits. She doesn’t want to rush this or do anything that might be clocked as suspicious.

Count to sixty, she tells herself. Count to sixty and then excuse yourself.

She makes it to twenty-five. That seems like enough. She takes another sip and slowly rises from her stool.

“You okay?” Bob asks.

“Yeah, fine. I’m just going to go—”

Bob suddenly clasps her forearm with a firm grip. She can feel the power in his fingers as they close talon-like around her skin.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“Just a warning.”

“Take your hand off me.”

“We know about your past.”

“Let go of me.” Then: “What are you talking about?”

“You’ve had problems,” Bob says. He releases his grip. “You had” — finger quotes — ‘issues.’”

“Why did you make quote fingers around the word ‘issues’?”

“What?”

“I had issues. It’s how I lost my medical license. It’s why I’m here. No need to put that in quotation marks.”

“So you get my concern?”

“No.”

“You had issues — and what’s the first thing you want to do when you arrive? Seek out a bar. You feel me?”

“I wouldn’t feel you with oven mitts,” she says. “My issue wasn’t alcohol.”

“Still, Maggie. Maybe you and I just have this one drink and go back up?”

So Bob had been sent down to keep an eye on her, but not in a way she’d worried about. “Sounds like a plan. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to pee.”

She heads down the bar, gives the security guard a quick half smile, and pushes open the bathroom door. Alena is waiting. She has a phone in her hand.

“Where did you get it?” Maggie asks.

“It’s one of the men’s,” Alena tells her. “He’s with my friend. We, uh, distracted him. She still is. I don’t know how much time you’ll have. Use WhatsApp. Delete the call from his recent list when you’re done and leave it on the toilet in the second stall. I’ll come back to get it.”

“Thank you,” Maggie says.

But Alena is already pushing open the door. “Hurry,” Alena says before disappearing back into the bar.

Maggie steps into the second stall. The phone is unlocked. WhatsApp is up on the screen. She holds the phone in her left hand and is about to dial a number when she realizes something.

She doesn’t remember anyone’s phone number.

She has used her mobile phone and contacts for so long that she can’t remember Sharon’s number. The house’s number, yes, that she remembers from her childhood, but when the bills started stacking up, Sharon got rid of those phones. Porkchop doesn’t have a mobile. He uses the payphone at Vipers for Bikers.

Wait, hold the phone. So to speak.

The payphone. It’s old. Porkchop had been able to pay more to get the number personalized. She knows the final six digits correspond with the letters V–I-P-E-R-S.

What are the first?

The area code is 201. So it’s only one number.

It comes to her now.

How long does she have? Between Bob at the bar and Mr. Alena-and-Friend Distracted, she can’t stay on very long.

What are the odds Porkchop is at Vipers and by the phone anyway?

She doesn’t know. But what other choice does she have? Plus if what she thought was happening at home was happening, well, Porkchop could be resourceful.

She quickly loads the digits in with her finger and presses send.

Porkchop answers on the first ring. “Where are you?”

“Dubai.”

“More precise?”

“The Bugatti residence.”

“Do you need to be extracted?”

“No, I’m good. Listen, I don’t have much time. I went to Russia. Barlow hired me—”

“I know this,” Porkchop interrupts, because he listened when she said she didn’t have much time. “The mistress. Nadia Something.”

“What about her?”

“She specifically requested you for the surgery.”

Maggie makes a face. “What do you mean? She doesn’t even know me.”

“You said you’re short on time.”

“I am.”

“So don’t waste it. It wasn’t Barlow’s idea to hire you. He was just a go-between. Nadia wanted you in Russia. Any idea why?”

Maggie’s head spins. Nadia? Nadia requested Maggie as her surgeon? “Who told you that?”

“Barlow.”

“It makes no sense.”

“Make it make sense. This Nadia knows you. She wanted you in Russia. We’ve researched her and found nothing significant.”

We.

Interesting choice of words on Porkchop’s part. She gets his hidden meaning here.

“Why are you in Dubai?” Porkchop asks.

“They think Trace is missing,” she says. “They want me to help find him.”

“Would I be sexist and belittling if I said it sounds too dangerous?”

“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.”

There’s more commotion outside. The American man is furious now, demanding that they turn on all the lights.

Time’s up, Maggie thinks.

“Porkchop, I have to—”

“So he’s been alive this whole time?” Porkchop half rants. “And he chooses to stay silent. Even now? He never tries to reach out to his wife or father and tell us...” He stops. “Maggie—”

“I know,” she says. Tears run down her cheeks. Her heart plummets deep in her chest at what is so obvious. “Marc is dead.”

“Then what are we doing here? It’s not our fight.”

The bathroom door bursts open.

“Bye.”

Maggie disconnects and deletes the Vipers number. The screensaver comes on. The center image is a man with a fake tan and blindingly white teeth in some kind of dark club surrounded by young, curvy women holding a huge birthday cake with the message “HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE ARTSTER.” The Artster. Maggie shakes her head. My God. Men. She flushes the toilet, puts the phone on top of it, and then hurries out. Alena rushes past her, not so much as glancing at Maggie. When Maggie gets back to the bar, she spots the Artster in a dark suit and blindingly white dress shirt with one too many buttons open. He is still ranting about someone stealing his phone while a young woman tries to calm him — “It’s okay, Arty, it’s here, Arty, we’ll find it, Arty” — and another digs through the cushions. Look at this clown, Maggie thinks. Arty the Artster. Another faux Master of the Universe. Arty shouts for someone to turn on the goddamn lights, but that doesn’t happen. Another young woman joins the search. Then a security guard. Alena hurries back out of the bathroom and immediately gets on her hands and knees to “help” in the search for Arty’s phone.

A few seconds later, in an acting performance that deserves Oscar buzz, Alena shouts in stop-the-presses style: “I found it!” and lifts Arty’s phone into the air.

The other women clap and cheer. Arty scowls.

From across the bar, Alena meets Maggie’s eye. There’s a small, knowing smile on the young woman’s lips. Maggie mouths a thank-you. Arty snatches the phone from Alena’s hand and heads to the exit. He snaps his fingers — actually snaps his goddamn fingers — and two of the women follow.

Then Alena heads to the exit too.

She doesn’t look back when she leaves.

Bob taps her on the shoulder. “Do you want to finish your drink?”

What she really wants to do is follow Alena and make sure she’s safe and okay and take her back home with her, and even while thinking all of this, Maggie knows how condescending she’s being. Alena had offered her help. No strings, no quid pro quo. It’s a moment in time. Maggie will never forget it. She will never forget Alena. Appreciate the connection, as fleeting as it might have been. It’s so damn human.

Man, Maggie thinks, I’m being awfully deep today.

“Maggie?”

She throws back the rest of the bourbon and puts the glass back on the bar. “Let’s go,” she says. “I need to review those medical files.”