Page 113 of Gone Before Goodbye

“From what I could make out, he ran after the surgery. I heard gunfire. A couple of guys got shot and killed, I think. Ivan wanted me out of the way, so I asked them to fly me back home.”

“You’re lucky they didn’t kill you.”

Nadia smiles. “Not luck. I took precautions. Killing me would have made it worse for them.”

Maggie thinks about it for a moment. They’re missing something…

“Wait, why would Oleg Ragoravich want facial surgery anyway?”

“Oleg kept making jokes it would make him prettier.”

“But we don’t believe that.”

“We don’t,” Nadia agrees.

“Oleg wanted to disguise himself. Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“And if that was the plan, why would he run?”

“I don’t know,” Nadia says. “I also don’t know how you escaped. How did you get out?”

Maggie shakes her head. She’s not ready to go there just yet.

A man dressed in, yep, a black suit opens the curtain. He says something to Nadia in Arabic. She nods.

“I have to go.”

“So now what?” Maggie asks.

“I’m not sure. I don’t even understand why you ended up coming to Dubai.”

“The same reason you did,” Maggie says. “To get answers. To find Trace.”

“And maybe also find…?” Nadia asks, her voice with a little tease in it.

Maggie isn’t about to go there. “And maybe also find a way to bring down this whole enterprise.”

Nadia still has a hint of a smile on her face. “So the two of us should work together?”

“Yes.”

“Except, Maggie, I don’t trust you.”

“Perfect,” Maggie says, “because I don’t trust you either.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Maggie makes two calls before she gets back in the VIP elevator. The first is to her former classmate and suck-up student Bonnie Tillman. She needs to ask for a quick favor because Bonnie was class president and will definitely know.

Maggie gets right to the point.

“I need Steve Schipner’s mobile number.”

Bonnie groans. “Sleazy Steve?”

“Yep.”