Page 136 of Gone Before Goodbye
“Where?”
“Bordeaux. A vineyard called Château Haut-Bailly.”
“I did some research on the plane,” Maggie tells him, as they stroll out of the arrivals hall. “There are no nonstop flights from Heathrow to Bordeaux.”
“You don’t want to fly anyway,” Porkchop says, heading for the stairwell. “Too much scrutiny. Come on. Do you have anything that can track you?”
She thinks about it for a moment. “The phone Charles Lockwood gave me.”
Porkchop gestures toward a trash can. She dumps the phone in it and keeps on moving. A sign readsHEATHROW EXPRESS. They follow it, walking side by side.
“So why Bordeaux?” Porkchop asks.
She quickly explains how Steve had told her that the medical researchers had packed up from Apollo Longevity and moved to a secret location. When she finishes, Porkchop says, “And you think the secret location is on a Bordeaux vineyard.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me why.”
Maggie had spent a lot of the flight working out the angles. She is eager to try out her theory on the only person who might get it. “You remember the last time I called Trace?”
“Of course.”
“I know you remember. It wasn’t a question.”
The Heathrow Express arrives, and they hop on. Porkchop sits and waits. He isn’t the type to say I told you so, but he had warned her about making that call. She hadn’t listened. Porkchop had been against reaching out to Trace. “You don’t want to tip him off,” he’d told her.
And, of course, Porkchop had been right.
“Trace was in Dubai when I called him,” Maggie says.
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve met his girlfriend. Fiancée, actually.”
“The Nadia who wanted you to do the surgeries?”
“Yes.”
“And you told her you called Trace?”
Maggie shakes her head. “She confronted me about it.”
“What did you say?”
“I denied it.”Denied it, Maggie thinks. A polite way of sayingI straight-up lied to her face. “I said I never called him.”
“Does she believe you?”
“Hard to know.”
Porkchop nods. “Go on.”
“So after I called, we know Trace vanished. You figured he had something to hide and ran off.”
“Me?”
“Okay, I did too. But not like you.”
