Page 123 of Gone Before Goodbye

“Can we both agree that Oleg Ragoravich wasn’t getting cosmetic surgery to start male modeling?”

“We can,” Maggie says.

“So Ragoravich wanted to disguise himself.”

“And then, with his face still not healed, he runs away?”

“Hmm, you’re right. It makes no sense.”

They come up with no better theories for now. Charles promises to investigate and see what he can find out about Oleg Ragoravich’s current whereabouts.

“Let me know how it goes at Apollo Longevity,” Charles says.

When they hang up, Maggie heads into the shower. After she towels off, she stands in front of the full-length mirror and does a little medical self-examination. Her kidneys hurt. A lot. But there’s no blood in her urine. Lots of bruises from the scuffle, but no broken bones or internal injuries. At least, none she sees. It’s still early. There isn’t much pain right now, but there probably will be in a few hours. Nothing she couldn’t handle with some light medication.

She slips under the covers, but her nerves are too raw and jangled to sleep. Soon she will be back at Apollo Longevity. She hates that place. She swore she’d never go back. But there’s no choice now.

Or is there a choice?

She doesn’t need to do this. She could just go home. Her conversation with Porkchop still echoed:

“…I need to follow this through, Porkchop.”

“No, you don’t…”

Porkchop was right.

She could just leave right now. Her crusading days are over. She didn’t come into this fight on her own—she was dragged here by lies and manipulation.

Nothing good will come of this in the end.

At least, not for Maggie.

She knows that nothing she does now will bring Marc back. She can just go home and live her life—life? what life?—and forget all about this.

But no, not anymore. Like it or not, there is no way she can walk away.

She has to see it through.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Wow,” Steve Schipner says, “this is really great work, Doctor McCabe.”

They are in an examination room. Steve wears a white lab coat. His name is stenciled in below the Apollo Longevity name and logo. To his credit, Steve examines Nadia with professionalism, discretion, and respect. It’s as if he’s a completely different person in here. His voice when he speaks to Nadia is kind, understanding, inviting. He listens to her, pays attention, responds appropriately, asks the right questions. Despite Nadia’s stunning looks—and what could be viewed by some as the salacious medical reason they are here—Steve never, not once, hints at an ogle. He might as well be inspecting two lawn chairs. Maggie is surprised, and she is not. She has seen this before with physicians. It’s not an act on Steve’s part. You don the lab coat, you remember your oath, you get the importance and responsibility of what you are doing. You are everything to a patient—and they have to be everything to you.

Even Sleazy Steve understands that.

When they first met up in the lobby, Maggie had filled Nadia in on the Oleg… stabbing? Maggie isn’t sure what to call it. Nadia had listened raptly. She’d been up in the VIP section and had no idea of any of it. “The one you call CinderBlock. His name is Akim. He was on the plane with me. So was Ivan Brovski. But they aren’t in Dubai anymore.”

“How do you know?”

“On the plane, I got hold of Ivan’s phone when he fell asleep. I turned on his location services and dropped a pin to me.”

Brilliant and yet simple, Maggie thinks. “So you can track him?”

“Yes. Last night, I could see he was at Etoile Adiona, but”—Nadia opens up her phone and clicks on the app—“it hasn’t been active since 5:06 this morning.”

Maggie looks at the screen. “Is that Dubai International?”