“I was trying to protect you.”
“Yeah, look how well that worked out for Marc.”
Porkchop winces. “I know. I was wrong. I’m sorry.”
“No more secrets.”
“No more secrets,” Porkchop says.
There is something troubling in his tone.
“You have more?”
He gestures at her with his chin. “Why don’t you go first?”
Maggie says nothing.
“Do you want to tell me about your father’s gun, Maggie?”
Everything goes still, as if the very room were holding its breath.
Porkchop takes a step toward her. “You went down into your basement. That’s where your father hid his old thirty-eight. Sharon saw you. She was worried, so she called me.” He tilts his head. “What were you planning on doing with his gun?”
She says nothing.
“Trace was supposed to show up the next day. He killed Marc — and he was going to get away with it. You knew that. So tell me, Maggie, what did you plan on doing with your father’s thirty-eight?”
Tears run down her cheeks.
“When you kill a man,” Porkchop says, “it stays with you.”
“It stays with you...”
“And,” Maggie says, “you didn’t want that for me.”
“I didn’t want that for you.”
“And that’s why—”
“I wasn’t lying. We followed Trace. He planned on killing you.”
“And if he hadn’t been?”
“There’s no point in talking hypotheticals.”
“I love you,” she says.
Porkchop nods, his eyes now wet with tears too. “I love you too.”
She runs toward him then. She wraps her arms around him and pulls him close. She puts her head on his shoulder. Maggie’s eyes look to the left, to the center of the room, searching and finding that motorcycle, and for a moment, she is certain that Marc is right there, riding it, giving her that smile that always reached into her chest and gently twisted her heart.
It’s over.
“No more secrets,” she whispers again.
But she feels his body stiffen.
“Porkchop?”
He pulls away.
“What is it?”
“The deal I made with Ragoravich.”
“What about it?”
“I didn’t just bring him the medical equipment.”
She waits.
Porkchop looks at her, blinks, then turns to the side. He too is staring at the vintage bike he’d gifted Marc.
“He murdered my boy,” he says.
“I know.”
“He murdered my boy. And there he is, running his mouth, handing me all the same bullshit he told Nadia about how he’d wanted more organ transplants.”
The temperature in the room drops ten degrees. “What did you do, Porkchop?”
“I didn’t kill him.”
“What?”
“I gave him his final wish.”
“What wish?”
He meets her gaze. “More organ transplants.”
His eyes grow cold now, distant.
And then Maggie sees it.
“Porkchop?”
“First, he donated his corneas. Restored someone’s vision.”
Maggie starts to shake her head.
“Then he donated a kidney. Probably saved a life. It’s what he believed in, right? It’s what he killed my boy for. Then he donated part of his lung — not too much or he’d die. I didn’t want that. Not yet anyway. Same with his liver. And then his pancreas. I don’t remember what else.” Porkchop swallows, but his voice stays steady. “And then in the end, when I realized Oleg Ragoravich would do anything to get hold of a beating heart...”
He doesn’t say more. He doesn’t have to.
They stand there. Together. Maggie has no idea for how long. Eventually someone unlocks the door. They come into the bar. Then someone else. Someone says hi. More people come in. Maggie and Porkchop break apart, greet people, accept hugs, but all Maggie can hear is the same sound she heard when she was leaving the operating room.
BEAT... BEAT... BEAT...
Acknowledgments for Gone Before Goodbye
First, I would like to thank my mother and father, Betty and John Witherspoon, who served in the Tennessee Air National Guard and US Air Force, respectively. Their forty years of service in military hospitals and then private health care were the background of this novel. Living on military bases as a child, surrounded by medical military families, I learned about the connectedness of communities dedicated to risking their own lives to help others. Every dinner table conversation about surgery and patient care, filled with thrilling stories of harrowing medical experiences, influenced me to write about Maggie and Marc’s passion for health care. My childhood visits to hospitals and military bases instilled in me a powerful lesson that a life of service to others is the most noble life to lead. Mom and Dad, I love you.
Thank you to Reza, Kevin, Steven, Dasha, Nader, and many others who helped me build out details of locations and worlds I could only imagine visiting one day. You added truth and humor to every story you shared with me. Thank you.
Thank you to Ben Sevier, Lyssa Keusch, and the whole team at Grand Central Publishing for believing in this idea from Day One. Your enthusiasm was the wind at my back during this whole experience.
Thank you to my book agent, Cait Hoyt, who never fails to be my biggest champion, especially when I am past deadline and feeling so nervous I could crumble. You always help put me back on track and convince me I am writing something truly original. That’s the biggest compliment I could ever hope for!
Thank you to Kate Childs-Jones, Meredith O’Sullivan, Chelsea Thomas, Maha Dakhil, Gretchen Rush, Rick Yorn, Josh Dembling, and my entire team, who always make sure I am endlessly supported in every creative project. Your hard work and encouragement made writing my first novel feel a little less daunting — notice, I only said “a little.”
Thank you to Hillary, Beatrice, Jenna, and Jeff, who keep my life in order and make me look much more pulled together than I am! Your organization, attention to detail, and deep loyalty mean the world to me.
Thank you to Rachel Bati, who has kept the many different crazy trains in my life running on time for over (gulp!) thirty years. The three hundred emails, five hundred phone calls, and at least seven pep talks a day have made space for my creativity to flourish and grow in every way. I will be forever grateful for all the little ways you motivate me, including lots of funny stories about your hair and my favorite surprise cheer-me-up cookies during long days at work. I love you!
I would like to thank Harlan Coben for agreeing to jump in and become my partner on this amazing journey. I have no idea how I managed to convince a writer of your esteem to agree to coauthor with me for the first time, but I will be forever grateful to you for taking my seed of an idea and building out this fascinating world. A novel filled with global medical intrigue and massive corruption, all centered around a woman whose superpower is her surgical prowess, seemed like a far-fetched dream. You brought Maggie McCabe to life with your ability to shape an idea into a fully fleshed-out, page-turning thriller. And you made the whole process so fun! I am enormously proud of our collaboration and the deep humanity inside it. Thank you for being the best partner in the whole world.
Thank you to all my favorite writers, including all my Reese’s Book Club authors, readers, and booksellers who inspire me to explore the edges of my imagination and dream of more stories to tell.
Finally, to my wonderful children and family, there aren’t enough pages in this book to tell you how much your love means to me. I am so blessed to have the most encouraging family in the world.
— Reese Witherspoon