Page 153 of Gone Before Goodbye

BEAT… BEAT… BEAT…

“You must be exhausted, Doctor McCabe.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one I’m giving you today.” He nods toward the exit. “You know the way out.”

She starts toward him, but he slips into a room and locks the door behind him. Maybe that’s for the best. She’s far too exhausted right now to come up with a new strategy to get the truth out of him. She turns left and moves down that massive white artery back to the stairwell. At the top of the stairs, she pushes the barrels out of the way. She’s back up in the musty old cellar. She looks to the right, to the door, and she sees a man wearing a baseball cap exiting.

“Hold up!” she shouts.

He doesn’t. The door closes behind him. Maggie hurries after him.

Of course, he could be anyone. He doesn’t have to be the surgeon who stood across from her. But he’s wearing a baseball cap. That might be meaningless, but you don’t see a lot of men in France wearing them. In the United States, it’s almost a staple, especially when someone doesn’t want to be recognized.

But in France?

She opens the door and bursts out into the overgrown vineyard. It feels good to be back out of the bunker with its piped-in staleness. The air outside is both sweet and acrid, earthy and ethereal.

She looks left. Nothing. She looks right. Nothing. The only way out, as far as she knows, is to the right, to the gate where she has come and gone both times she’s been here. She sprints toward it. When she makes the final turn she can see the gate, and through the gate, the man in the baseball cap is getting into the back of a car.

“Stop!”

He doesn’t. He slips inside and shuts the car door. Maggie runs toward him, but it’s too late. The car starts moving. The gate slides closed. Maggie bangs on the chain-link as the vehicle vanishes into the woods.

He’s gone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

When the gate finally reopens, Maggie starts down the path. She finds Porkchop and his motorcycle in the clearing.

“How long have you been waiting here?”

Porkchop makes a production of checking the watch on his wrist even though he’s not wearing one. “Since I dropped you off.”

“That’s twelve hours ago.”

He shrugs. “Want to talk about it?”

“Not right now.”

“Hop on.”

Porkchop hands her a helmet. They drive back in silence—it’s too exhausting to talk/shout on a motorcycle even if there was something to say. The wind in her face feels sublime. Maggie closes her eyes and lets it cool her. Porkchop plays no music. As always. It’s just the bike and the road. Forget massages. Forget aromatherapy or hydrotherapy or saunas or body wraps or hot tubs. This is peace and isolation and freedom. The only place she loves more… Well, with Marc gone, there’s only one now.

The operating room.

Her church, her sanctuary.

God, how she misses it.

As they pull in, Guillaume and Élodie wave from a big farmer’s table covered in various wines and cheeses.

“Do you want to eat something?” Porkchop asks.

She shakes her head. “My social skills are out of order at the moment.”

“Understood.”