Page 121 of Gone Before Goodbye

Nothing crueler, Porkchop thinks. He turns his head and looks athis son’s bike again. He flashes back to the smile on Marc’s face when he rode it. That smile. His son’s perfect, joyful, life-affirming smile. Gone. And not just gone, but intentionally extinguished.

Intentionally.

Premeditated. A conscious decision someone made to snuff out his son’s existence.

His hands tighten into fists. Again. And again. It is an unbearable outrage. It cannot stand. If Porkchop stops and thinks about it for too long, he will go mad. He will start screaming, and he’s not sure that he’d ever be able to stop. Still. Even now. Even after all he’s done to quiet his own screams.

He’s lied to everyone to quiet the screams.

Even Maggie.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Viking Bob drives Maggie back to the residence.

No one believes her. Or at least, that’s what they claim.

A few hours ago, Maggie managed to crawl and claw her way from the dance floor and the crowd. There was no sign of Oleg Ragoravich. There was no sign of CinderBlock or any of the other masked men. Or maybe they were still there, right near her or still partying at Etoile Adiona. Maybe with those masks on, they stabbed a man and just melded back into the crowd and kept on dancing.

Maggie found a waitress and told her she saw a man being stabbed. Suddenly, the waitress’s English wasn’t very good. The waitress sends Maggie to the other side of the club and says to look for a man in a blue suit. There are dozens of men in blue suits in that area.

No one knows anything. No one can help. No one is sure who she should talk to. The music still blares. The party keeps going.

She finds the red velvet rope VIP area. Two new guys are working there. Neither one knows Nadia. Neither lets her through. She takes out her phone and dials 999 for the Dubai police. They are dubious too. She doesn’t let up. She insists that someone come. With great reluctance they agree to send an officer, but she’s to meet him outside.

They are not to disturb the Etoile Adiona guests.

Maggie heads outside, where a police detective with a big mustachewaits for her. Bob is there too. “Don’t do this,” he tells her. “It won’t go well.”

She should have listened.

Big Mustache gets right into it:

“So you say you saw a stabbing, is that right? On a crowded dance floor? But no one else saw it? No one else reported it? Has anyone been reported injured? No? How come? Is there a body anywhere? Has anyone been reported missing? You say it was dark, only a strobe light—yet you saw all this clearly and no one else did? Are you sure? Are you sure you didn’t hallucinate it? By the way, how many drinks have you had? Did you take any drugs? Should we run a blood test to be certain? Oh, and please tell me—why are you here? Alone. In Dubai. What is the purpose of your visit to Dubai? Where did you fly in from? Oh, I see—you flew in on a private plane from Gelendzhik in Russia. Why would an American be in Gelendzhik? And are you in Dubai on your own? Are you here as a tourist? On business? What exactly are you doing in Dubai?”

At some point, Maggie sees the futility—and the danger. Big Mustache keeps asking what she is doing in Dubai, and the real answer, which she is now actively evading, is “probably something illegal.” She hasn’t looked up the rules, but most countries require licensing and authorizations to perform surgery, and there is no reason to think Dubai does not. So she stops talking to Big Mustache.

In the car, Bob says, “Not really smart.”

“What, I should have said nothing?”

“What did you think was going to happen, Maggie? That they’d close down the club and turn on the houselights and, what, search everyone in it?”

“I saw a man stabbed.”

He shakes his head. “Charles vouched for you, but I should have known.”

“You know Charles Lockwood?”

“Of course.”

“Do you know—?”

“That’s all I’m going to say on the matter, Maggie.”

The car vrooms back up into the glass elevator.

Maggie asks, “What time are the surgeries tomorrow?”