Page 139 of Gone Before Goodbye

“I bet.” Maggie shakes her head. “I shouldn’t be surprised anymore.”

“And yet you continue to be.”

“How do you know, uh, Florence?”

“I spent a lot of years riding through Europe.” Porkchop folds his leather jacket into a pillow and places it against the window. “Anything else before I…?”

She shakes her head. “Take a nap. I need to check something out anyway.”

He closes his eyes and leans back on his leather pillow. Maggie spends the ride following up on some leads. She debates what she should tell Nadia, but for right now, she figures it’s best to stay no contact. Once the Eurostar arrives at Gare du Nord, they take theParis Métro to Montparnasse, where they grab the high-speed train. It’s when they arrive at the Bordeaux Saint-Jean station and walk outside that Maggie gets another reminder of who Porkchop is and what he means to people.

The street is lined with motorcycles.

Maggie can’t even guess how many. Fifty riders? Or a hundred, decked out in classic biker garb, greet Porkchop. There is a magic to Porkchop. She’s always known this. When Maggie’s parents first heard how Marc had been raised, they’d been, to put it politely, wary. When they met Porkchop, the wary vanished. He had an ease, a confidence. You want to be near Porkchop. She sees it again now, the way people are drawn to him. It’s not an act on his part. It’s not something Porkchop turns on and off. It’s not something he needs or cultivates. He makes people feel seen and secure, maybe because he doesn’t try to work on it. There is, if you look closely, a coldness to him too. Porkchop loves very few, just his inner circle, but those he does he loves with a ferocity that both frightens and exhilarates. You know those stories about a parent lifting a car to save their child? It takes little to imagine Porkchop performing such a feat. His family is his world—the rest of the planet’s inhabitants are in the periphery, deep background, scenery.

Porkchop goes down the leather-clad receiving line, offering hugs, double-cheek kisses, handshakes, backslaps, whatever. He introduces Maggie to the leaders. They hug her too. A woman with spiky gray hair introduces herself as Élodie and invites Maggie to hop on the back of her bike. Porkchop gets on with a man named Guillaume. The other bikers follow. It’s an impressive sight. Ten minutes in, the other bikers peel off because it’s getting late, and the bikes make too much noise. Thoughtful.

Guillaume and Élodie drive them through Château Smith Haut Lafitte’s entrance and past the main hotel. They wind their way through the vineyard to the guesthouse. The guesthouse is rustic inthe best of ways. Stone walls, tile floors, worn leather furniture, plain wooden furniture. There’s a chess set on the coffee table. There are four bedrooms on the second floor. Porkchop’s stuff is already in the corner suite. Maggie has no idea how. She takes the opposite corner. There are toiletries, but Maggie realizes, with the suddenness of her departure from Dubai, she has no clothes.

Ten minutes after arriving, a striking, elegant couple come by with a bottle of wine. The woman is the aforementioned Florence. She is with her husband, Daniel. They, too, greet Porkchop and Maggie with double-cheek kisses and warm hugs. Florence hands Porkchop the bottle. He studies it.

“The Rouge 2015,” Porkchop says with a nod of approval.

Daniel opens it with a smile. “We also brought the Blanc 2022 if either of you prefer the white.”

Porkchop looks over at Maggie. Maggie says, “I’m good with the red.”

Florence and Daniel are, as one might imagine, charming hosts. They had just gotten back a few hours ago from a two-week cruise from Amsterdam to Basel, doing both the Dutch canals and the Rhine. A dream trip, they told them, but they are happy to be back.

“I assume,” Florence says to Porkchop, “that you’ve been enjoying your stay?”

“Of course,” Porkchop says. “But I do have a favor to ask.”

He tells them that the airline has lost Maggie’s luggage and he wonders whether they might have anything in either their manor or maybe the hotel’s lost and found that she could use for the next day or two. Florence and Daniel both look Maggie over before Florence says, “You’re about the same size as our daughter Alice. We’ll send some garments down to you.”

After Florence and Daniel depart, Maggie and Porkchop remain on the porch, staring out into the Bordeaux night, sipping the most heavenly of wines. The vineyard smells of soil and fruits, of earth andlavender. The moon puts the grapevines in silhouette. The silence, like the dark, wraps itself around them. Under any other circumstance, it would be perfect here, timeless and profound, and she tries to remember her father’s advice about easing into the moment even in the midst of chaos. But that’s not working tonight.

She looks at Porkchop’s profile and thinks she sees a tear on his cheek.

“You okay?” she asks.

He nods. “Guillaume and Élodie tell me that there is no way into that abandoned vineyard. The area is remote and very well protected. CCTV. Motion detectors. Barbed wire. Round-the-clock armed guards.”

Maggie takes another sip. “I’m not surprised.”

“Everyone knows that it’s more than a vineyard. The most prevalent rumor is that it’s a secret military base. Some of the more conspiracy-minded think it’s housing biological or chemical weapons.”

“Even better to keep people away.”

“Do we have a plan?”

Maggie thinks about it. “I think so, yeah.”

They both sit back and stare out.

“There are things Marc didn’t tell me,” Maggie says.

“Which reminds me.” Porkchop grabs hold of his satchel, puts his passport in the side pocket, and starts to dig through the main pouch. “Sharon told me to give this to you.” He pulls out a phone. “Your griefbot.”