Page 129 of Gone Before Goodbye

Steve holds up his phone. “Yeah, I know. I got the report.”

“We’ve contacted Malik,” Less Beefy says. “He wants to handle this personally.”

Steve swallows. “I’ll watch them.”

“I think we should stay.”

“I got this. Go upstairs and wait for Malik.”

More Beefy doesn’t like that. He looks at Less Beefy. “You stay right here. No one gets on or off that elevator.”

Less Beefy nods.

“I’ll head back up and wait for Malik.”

More Beefy steps in, and the elevator doors close. Less Beefy gives them all hard eyes.

“I’m going to take them to the EFG room,” Steve tells Less Beefy.

Less Beefy responds with more hard eyes. Maggie wants to roll hers, but there’s no reason to make this situation any worse.

When they are back inside, Steve closes the door and says, “Tell me everything. Fast.”

“Who’s Malik?” Maggie asks.

“Head of security. Ex-military. He’s going to want to know why Nadia was trying to break into my computer—and he’s not going to ask nicely.” He opens a desk drawer, rummages through it. To Nadia, he says, “How the hell did you get my password anyway? Never mind, I don’t care.”

Steve pulls out a large pair of scissors. He moves toward Nadia. She sticks out her wrists. Her hands are turning blue. The zip tie is too tight. Steve carefully eases the tip of the scissors through the gap and cuts the plastic.

Nadia rubs her wrists. “Thank you.”

“I don’t get it,” Maggie says. “Nadia is a patient who sneaked a look at her doctor’s computer. Why would they go so crazy?”

“Are you serious? She didn’t just sneak a look. She tried to sign in as Trace Packer. Trace Packer, for crying out loud. Oh man, I’m totally screwed.”

“Why?”

“They suspected me of helping him the last time.”

“Helping Trace?”

“Yes.”

“Helping him how?”

“Why did you come back?” he asks Maggie.

“Steve, please, listen to me. Trace is missing.”

“I know. They’ve been looking for him.”

“Who?”

“Everyone. Look, when I first got hired, WorldCures still had an office here, but, I mean, with Marc dead and you out of the picture, there wasn’t much to it. But Trace Packer still showed up every once in a while. You know this, right?”

“Pretend I do.”

“Trace and I hung out a little. We weren’t friends or anything, but when it all went down, well, people thought I was involved, because of my connection to you.”