Page 103 of Gone Before Goodbye

“And if I say no?”

“Seriously?” Maggie shrugs. She checks her watch. “Fire me then.”

Bob stands there for a moment, looking a little lost.

Maggie makes a shooing motion with both hands, palms down. “I need to shower and get changed. I plan on leaving in an hour.”

Not sure what else to do, Bob reluctantly leaves.

Maggie takes a shower and grabs a simple black dress and sandals out of the essentials Charles has given her. She checks her look in themirror, trying her best not to be self-judgmental. She isn’t sure she’s ready for an exclusive Dubai nightclub, but then again, she supposes she never would be. She steps out into the main room. Bob is standing there.

“Wow,” he says when he sees her. “You look really nice.”

“Thank you.”

He gestures with his hand to the Bugatti still sitting in the middle of the living room. The rich can be so bizarre. “I’ll drive you,” he says.

“But you won’t follow me in.”

“If you say so,” he says.

“I say so.”

“I’ll wait downstairs.”

“I might be late.”

“I’ll be okay.”

The drive is a short one. Charles Lockwood had given her very specific instructions about how to get into Etoile Adiona. The Burj Binghatti is currently the tallest residential tower in the world. Like every skyscraper in Dubai, it is sleek, space-age, and shiny. The most notable feature is the diamond-like crown on top. Bob drops her off in the elevator below ground on the C level past a facial-recognition security station. Maggie steps into the opulent elevator with some kind of purple quartz, amethyst maybe, lining the walls. There is a burgundy leather love seat in case you feel the need to sit for the ride. Again, no buttons to push, no bouncing lights telling you the floor. Nothing. The doors close, and the elevator shoots you rocket-like into the night sky.

The ride up the Burj Binghatti’s hundred-plus floors takes less than a minute.

Not much time to use the love seat.

The entrance to Etoile Adiona is a shimmering portal, tucked away on the 110th floor. No sign announces the club’s presence—if you need to be told where it is, you don’t belong. Maggie steps out ofthe elevator and stands in front of a mahogany door. She knows there is a camera. A well-dressed man opens the door. He says nothing. Maggie sighs at the theatrics, but per Charles’s instructions, she whispers the password, “Roman Goddess,” before the well-dressed man steps aside and lets her enter.Silly, Maggie thinks, but it adds to the mystique, and places like this thrive on mystique.

The music assaults when you enter. No other way to put it. Maggie loves music, but she doesn’t understand the need for it to be this hostile. The main room pulses with frenetic energy. It’s a kaleidoscope of lights and mirrors and strobes. Nothing feels real, but that’s probably the point. She sees dancers packed so tight they can only hop up and down rather than actually dance—human pogo sticks with spring necks, sweat glistening on their faces. Everyone is dressed in black and white. Some partiers are wearing capes and those Venetian masquerade masks. The room rumbles from a custom-engineered sound system.

Maggie tries to swim through the sea of revelers. A man with a masquerade mask half grabs her and starts to dance. She pushes past him and looks up. Above her head, a retractable roof reveals the inky expanse of an Arabian night. Neon drones paint the sky via intricate aerial choreography. The spectacle is mesmerizing. The drones fly with marching-band-like precision. It reminds Maggie of the Christmas light shows her parents would take her to as a kid, only raised to the tenth power.

She continues to trudge through the dance floor. The DJ, a woman with a sleeveless top showing toned arms, is on a giant swing above. She’s rocking out loud while her platform sways back and forth, one hand on a turntable, the other pressing a single headphone to her ear. The bass gets into Maggie’s bloodstream, making her chest vibrate like someone had jammed a tuning fork into her heart.

The basic VIP area is always easy to spot because, well, what’s the point in being a VIP if you can’t let others know they’re excluded?They sit in balconies so they can look down at you Roman Colosseum–

style. It’s dark up there, but from Maggie’s vantage point, she can see a lot of men dressed in the more traditional dishdasha, big in the United Arab Emirates, a robe-like, single-piece, long-sleeved, ankle-length garment, which is white, simple, practical, comfortable, and—especially in the desert heat—cooling. A ghutra headdress with a classic black-corded agal. Marc often sported one when he came to this area, once the locals insisted that it was considered respectful and not any sort of appropriation.

Damn. Marc again. The constant stream of Marc-related pangs.

Up ahead she sees two beefy security guards with dark sunglasses standing behind, in a hackneyed move on the club’s part, an actual red velvet rope. Maggie steps up to one of the security guards. The music is still loud—don’t people just want to talk without screaming sometimes?—so she has to shout: “I’m looking for Nadia.”

She expects him to come back at her with some stupid rejoinder like “I don’t know any Nadia” or “Who’s asking?”—a line like that. But instead, the guard nods and says, “We know.”

“You do?”

He nods and unclasps one side of the velvet rope to allow her to pass. “Take the elevator to the Ecstasy Level.”

Maggie gives him flat eyes. “Ecstasy Level?”