And there had been that surgery, that awful surgery here in Dubai...
“Do you see how it looks?” Nadia continues. “You leave WorldCures — and then on his very last humanitarian mission, someone sells out your husband.”
“Oleg Ragoravich probably.”
“That was my thinking too,” Nadia says. “At first. Which is why I made it my business to get close to him.”
“How?” Maggie asks, and as soon as she does, she realizes how stupid the question is. No need for subtlety. “You, what, seduced him?”
“The man I loved had vanished. I would do anything to get him back.”
Sounds like a yes. “So how did it happen?”
“Like a lot of oligarchs, Ragoravich had made Dubai a big part of his life. I made sure we crossed paths. At this very club, as a matter of fact.”
“Jesus.”
“Are you judging me again?”
Maggie shakes her head. “No, go on.”
“I wanted him to take me back to Russia.”
“Which he did.”
“Yes. I thought I would find answers there.”
“And did you?”
“No, not really. I searched Oleg’s computers and files. I don’t think he had anything to do with Marc or Trace. So I kept asking myself: If Oleg isn’t behind all this, who else could it be?”
Maggie makes a face. “And the answer was me?”
“I couldn’t forget Trace’s face getting on that plane. He was so shaken. Scared, even. I’d never seen him like that. Don’t you see how it looked? Trace gets a call. He’s upset. He drops everything and flies to you and then, poof, no one ever sees him again.”
Nadia gives Maggie a challenging look. Maggie shakes it off.
“I had nothing to do with that,” Maggie says. “Trace is my friend. We were in combat together.”
Nadia’s eyes continue to bore into hers. “I just want to find the man I love. You can understand that, can’t you?”
“Of course.”
“So now I’m in Russia, with Oleg. I’m learning about how he had his hand in all these medical charities. But I’m getting nowhere with my original mission.”
“Finding Trace.”
“Yes. But I’m starting to wonder what you’re hiding.”
“I’m not hiding anything.”
“Meanwhile Oleg, he keeps saying how he loves me, but I’m too skinny. When a man says you’re too skinny, well, you know...”
Maggie knows. They both know. Most women know.
“So Oleg, he was already looking into finding a discreet surgeon for some plastic surgery of his own. When I heard that, I suggested that at the same time, hey, I could get bigger boobs. He loved the idea.”
“Big surprise,” Maggie says.
The two women share a knowing smile. Men. They don’t change much.
“So now I put myself in charge of finding the surgeon.”
“And you made sure that I got selected?”
“Yes.”
“So you could get me to Oleg’s weird palace and hope, what, I’d crack?”
“Yes,” Nadia says. Simple as that. “I’d control the environment. You’d be isolated, out of your element, off-balance. I wanted to confuse you, make you question everything. The tattoo was a big part of that. By the way, I saw the tattoo on Marc in a pool here in Dubai. He and Trace told me the story about how he got it in college. I had other things planned for you, and if they didn’t work, I planned on directly confronting you — like I am now.”
“You had other things planned?”
“Yes.”
“More head games?”
“Yes. You were supposed to stay longer. Your first demand was two weeks.”
Maggie remembers. “So what went wrong, Nadia? Why was everyone suddenly in a panic after the operations?”
“I don’t know. But it had something to do with Oleg.”
“What?”
“From what I could make out, he ran after the surgery. I heard gunfire. A couple of guys got shot and killed, I think. Ivan wanted me out of the way, so I asked them to fly me back home.”
“You’re lucky they didn’t kill you.”
Nadia smiles. “Not luck. I took precautions. Killing me would have made it worse for them.”
Maggie thinks about it for a moment. They’re missing something...
“Wait, why would Oleg Ragoravich want facial surgery anyway?”
“Oleg kept making jokes it would make him prettier.”
“But we don’t believe that.”
“We don’t,” Nadia agrees.
“Oleg wanted to disguise himself. Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“And if that was the plan, why would he run?”
“I don’t know,” Nadia says. “I also don’t know how you escaped. How did you get out?”
Maggie shakes her head. She’s not ready to go there just yet.
A man dressed in, yep, a black suit opens the curtain. He says something to Nadia in Arabic. She nods.
“I have to go.”
“So now what?” Maggie asks.
“I’m not sure. I don’t even understand why you ended up coming to Dubai.”
“The same reason you did,” Maggie says. “To get answers. To find Trace.”
“And maybe also find...?” Nadia asks, her voice with a little tease in it.
Maggie isn’t about to go there. “And maybe also find a way to bring down this whole enterprise.”
Nadia still has a hint of a smile on her face. “So the two of us should work together?”
“Yes.”
“Except, Maggie, I don’t trust you.”
“Perfect,” Maggie says, “because I don’t trust you either.”
Chapter Eighteen
Maggie makes two calls before she gets back in the VIP elevator. The first is to her former classmate and suck-up student Bonnie Tillman. She needs to ask for a quick favor because Bonnie was class president and will definitely know.
Maggie gets right to the point.
“I need Steve Schipner’s mobile number.”
Bonnie groans. “Sleazy Steve?”
“Yep.”
“The Boob Whisperer? Do you know he calls himself that?”
“I do, yes.”
“Gross,” Bonnie says, in case the groan hadn’t been obvious enough. “Look, Maggie, I know you’re going through a tough time out there—”
“It’s for a medical consult.”
“And only Steve can help? Come on, Maggie.”
Maggie doesn’t have time for this. “Do you have his number or not?”
With a theatrical sigh, Bonnie gives it to her.
It’s midnight here in Dubai, but Maggie is hardly worried about waking him. The phone Charles gave her has Maggie’s name on the caller ID. She figures that there’s an excellent chance Charles or one of his people is listening in on the calls, but at this stage she doesn’t really care.
Steve picks up on the third ring. His voice doesn’t hide his surprise. “Well, well, well, is this really the Maggie McCabe?”
“Hey, Steve.”
She hears classical music in the background. One of Chopin’s preludes. A bit of a surprise for Steve. She’d expected something more like Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher” or Mötley Crüe’s “Girls, Girls, Girls.”
“To what do I owe the pleasure of a late-night call?”
Maggie tries not to roll her eyes. “I’m in Dubai—”
“What, now?”
“Yes.”
“I hear music. Are you at a club?”
“I am.”
“Which one? I know them all.”
Big surprise. “Etoile Adiona.”
Steve gives a low whistle. “Exclusive.”