Page 105 of Gone Before Goodbye

“Which curtain?”

She points. Maggie has had enough. She hands the drink back to the waitress and storms toward the curtain. A man gets in her way, says “Hey, babe,” and starts dancing for her. He’s doing the middle-age Dancing Douchebag move of biting down on his lower lip. Maggie is about to maneuver past him, but she stops a second.

How does she want to come into this?

Would it be smarter not to show Nadia all her cards right away?Slow down and think a sec. Nadia has been playing her. Would it be wiser to let Nadia think she’s still in control, not letting on that Maggie is on to her?

Should Maggie play it coy?

Before she gets to the curtain, it flings open.

Nadia steps out of some back room. The two women lock eyes for the briefest of moments. Nadia moves with the grace of a trained Bolshoi ballerina—her head high, shoulders back, clothes draped perfectly on her petite frame. She knows how to draw the eye and yet it’s all organic. There is an intensity to Nadia, a focus, a fiery intelligence, a magnetism that you can’t quite escape.

Nadia breaks into a run and when she reaches Maggie, she throws her arms around her and pulls her close.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” she whispers in Maggie’s ear.

Maggie surprises Nadia by pulling her even closer. Aggressively. Oddly enough, Maggie can feel the new breasts press against her own. She had forgotten about that for a second, that Nadia was a patient, that she’d recently had surgery. She must still be tender to the touch, but Nadia doesn’t wince from Maggie’s grip or back off. Still in an embrace, Maggie push-walks Nadia back toward the curtain. Nadia’s lips remain near her ear. She can hear Nadia’s breath catch. Maggie keeps Nadia’s body pressed against her with one arm. Her other hand now slowly travels down Nadia’s back. Anyone watching from a distance—or heck, even close up—would see something on the sensual side.

When Maggie’s hand reaches her waist, Nadia stiffens, and then her body seems to totally surrender into Maggie.

“Doctor…?”

Maggie’s hand slides to Nadia’s hip bone, then down the side of her leg, and—should Maggie do it?—up her thigh. Nadia’s breath quickens. Maggie is leading them back through the curtain, moving them away from prying eyes. The back room is empty and lined with plush sofas.

Maggie changes up now, pulling up on the fringe of Nadia’s dress so that it’s over her waist.

“Doctor,” Nadia says again.

And that’s when Maggie pushes Nadia back onto the couch. Nadia’s face is flushed. Maggie is about to follow her down, but there’s no need. Nadia’s dress is still up over her waist. As was Maggie’s wont, Nadia’s thighs are exposed.

And unblemished.

Maggie looks back and makes sure no one is coming toward them. No one is. Anyone who saw them vanish back in here probably thinksthey want to be alone, private, undisturbed. Good. That’s what Maggie wanted.

Nadia’s eyes flare for a moment, and Maggie can see she realizes what’s going on.

Nadia pulls her skirt back down.

“Too late,” Maggie says.

Nadia stays still. Maggie reaches out and grabs the hem of the dress and pulls it back up, once again baring her upper thigh.

“No tattoo,” Maggie says, before letting go.

Yep, screw playing it coy.

“Time to cut the shit, Nadia, and tell me what’s going on.”

Nadia opens her mouth, a lie undoubtedly coming to her lips automatically, but Maggie cuts her off by holding up the phone Charles Lockwood had given her. She took screenshots from Ray Levine’s website and has the photos lined up and ready to go. She only needs one, the first one, to make Nadia go still. Using her index finger, Maggie swipes through them, just to emphasize the point. The photographs are black-and-white, taken by Ray the day before the incursion that killed Maggie’s beloved.

Marc is in many. Trace is in many.

And in the background, trying hard it seems not to be the object of attention, is Nadia.

“You’re Salima,” Maggie says. “You’re the guide who led Marc and Trace to the TriPoint refugee camp.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN