Page 25 of Gone Before Goodbye

“To see Doctor Barlow, of course.”

She turns to face forward. The car starts up. Maggie stays quiet for a moment. When they start heading north on Madison Avenue, she leans forward and says, “Isn’t Barlow Cosmetics south of here?”

“That’s the public office,” Dawn says. “We think of it as our storefront. Most of the elite surgeries are done in, shall we say, a more private location.”

“And that’s where we’re going?”

“That’s where we are going, yes.”

“Can you tell me where specifically?”

“I never remember the address. It won’t be long. Would you like a Minus 181 mineral water?”

Ten minutes later, the Mercedes heads into a garage under a Dolce & Gabbana. There are cars lined up to be parked, but Alou circles around them and veers down a ramp. They drive two floors down and pull up to an elevator with its door open.

“Here we are!” Dawn exclaims in a singsong voice.

Maggie tries to open the door, but it won’t give. “I think my door is locked.”

Dawn turns to her from the front seat. “First, do you mind leaving your phone here?”

“Pardon?”

“We don’t allow phones on the premises. Company policy. For the privacy of you and all our patient—” Dawn stops, corrects herself. “I mean, visitors. Don’t worry. Your phone will be safe with Alou.”

“And if I don’t want to give up my phone?”

Dawn’s reply is a disappointed-schoolteacher frown. “I’m afraid we can’t make exceptions to this policy.”

Maggie debates making a stink or calling Dawn’s bluff, saying something like, “Okay, fine, take me back to the hotel,” but really, what’s the point? She powers down her phone and places it on the seat next to her. Alou opens the back door. Dawn escorts Maggieinto the elevator. She presses the button for the eighteenth floor. Maggie stands and watches the light dance upward. Dawn does the same. Maggie has questions, but she sees no point in asking them right now.

The doors open, and it almost feels as though Maggie were back in the Aman. The medical offices—assuming that’s what these are—feel more like an upscale spa. Soothing sounds are playing. No one is wearing white—that would be too loud and disconcerting—and so the staff mills around in light-sage surgical garb. Dawn opens a door and invites her to enter. After Maggie does, Dawn gently closes the door behind her.

The room has wall-to-ceiling windows with spectacular views of the Manhattan skyline. Funny. Maggie loves nature—she has experienced every sort of mountain, desert, ocean, valley, canyon, night, day, sunrise, sunset, whatever view imaginable—but something about the skyline in a great city works best for her. She never tires of them. Maybe it’s because city views change. They are man-made, not divine, so she can relate to them more on some base level. Or maybe, more likely, it’s because you are not alone with this view: It isn’t just rock or brick or stone or vegetation—there are people out there, thousands or even hundreds of thousands of them, and they all have hopes and dreams and a spiritual vibrancy and connection that nothing in nature can duplicate.

Man, Maggie thinks,I’m in a mood.

“Maggie.”

Dr. Barlow enters from the side door, wearing the light-sage scrubs and a surgical cap, though she doesn’t think he just got out of surgery or is headed into it. He greets her with a hug and a buss on the cheek. “Sorry for the whole cloak-n-dagger bit, but I thought you might like to see how we handle our more discerning patients.”

“It’s quite an operation,” Maggie says.

“It feels like overkill, I know, but—” Barlow shrugs, waves his armto have her take a seat on an off-white leather couch. “Some patients will do anything to make sure no one knows they are undergoing a procedure. A few years ago, we had a big-name celebrity who didn’t want the tabloids to find out she was getting a rhytidectomy. You know how it is. So to disguise herself, she came to our midtown office in a—I can’t believe I’m even saying this—in a burqa.”

Maggie frowns. “Wrong in so many ways.”

“Exactly. So now we offer greater privacy in this location. We have recovery suites, guest apartments—you get the point. Again, not all our patients want this. In fact, I would say fewer than ten percent purchase the security package. But it’s a service we have to offer.”

She was getting a bit impatient. “Doctor Barlow—”

“Evan, please.”

“Evan, why am I here?”

“You’d find this place intriguing, Maggie,” he continues, as if she hadn’t spoken. He’s staying on a script, she figures, so she’ll just have to hang on for the ride. “As you know, we at Barlow Cosmetics are constantly pushing the boundaries. Refining and updating our procedures. We make them less invasive. Fewer scars. Shorter recovery time. You’ve always been a risk-taker, Maggie. It’s what drew you to the military. It’s what drew you to provide care in some of the most dangerous countries on the planet. You were never one to color in the lines. Perhaps that led to your…”

He falters here. Maggie helps him.