Chapter 26 Harrison
HARRISON
When we bring Rouge to justice, we’ll get immunity for everything else.
That’s what I keep telling myself as the bus pulls off the highway.
It’s not as if Mr. Rose is innocent, anyway. We have a first-hand witness in Jack. He watched as he sawed the head off the Two of Hearts. One of countless victims who suffered the same fate, probably after being strangled to death.
Of course, he was under the influence of mind-altering drugs at the time, but we’ll find other people with similar stories to corroborate.
We have the drumsticks made out of Pierce’s bones.
We’ll get a warrant to have the police search Aces, especially Rouge’s office…
and the little safe where she keeps her red diamonds received in payment for the organs.
Maddox mentioned a little ledger in there with all the names of Rouge’s victims. That alone might be enough to put her behind bars for life.
That’s too good a fate for her, but it’s better than her roaming free.
What an evil bitch.
We’re going to see that she, Mr. Rose, and anyone else who had a hand in this gets put away for good.
The bus jerks to a stop at the Caterpillar Hotel. My heart starts pounding in my ears.
Time to face the music.
The Aces servers stand and file out of the bus in an orderly fashion.
The King sits in the corner, his face still completely obscured by shadow.
I keep my head low as I pass him. He’s probably been working at the club for years and might recognize me from the times I came there as Maddox’s guest. He doesn’t react as I pass him, thank God.
In fact, he barely seems to be paying attention at all.
Good. I need him off guard.
Since we lined up for the bus as we were dismissed, Jack ended up in the front while the Clubs servers and I were in the back. Once I’m off, I speedwalk up to him and pat him gently on the shoulder.
He presses forward, and I follow him to his room on the seventh floor of the hotel, room 7B.
I make sure no one has eyes on me before I slip into Jack’s room behind him.
I close the door behind us and turn to Jack. The color has drained from his face.
“What is it?”
He raises a trembling finger and points. A delicious-looking cherry tart sits on an elegant china plate on his bed, along with a handwritten note.
I pick up the note. It’s written in calligraphy—because of course it is—in blood-red ink.
My Dearest Jack,
Congratulations on completing your five-year journey with us here at Aces.
From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for your service and wish you the best of luck as you move on and pursue the “American Dream!” Please enjoy this token of my affection—my specialty, cherry tart!
—to commemorate your final evening under our employ.
It is a recipe that has been handed down from Montrose to Montrose for generations, and I hope you’ll enjoy a sweet treat on your final night.
With utmost cordiality,
Rouge
I read it twice, turn it over to see if anything is on the back.
I face Jack. “I think it’s clear that under no circumstances should you consume that cherry tart.
It’s probably poisoned.” I point to the note.
“See. It says this is your ‘final night.’ She doesn’t mean your final night in this hotel. ”
“Agreed.” Jack sits on the edge of his bed.
“I was told I had a one-week grace period to move out, so the only way Rouge would know this is my final night is if she guaranteed it herself. And if that’s the case, I imagine one of the Kings will be by to check in on me pretty quickly.
” He runs his hands through his messy blond hair. “What’s our move now?”
“We wait.” I sit on the bed next to him.
Jack turns to me. “What are they planning to do to me?”
I take a deep breath in. “If I tell you, you can’t panic.”
“I already know they’re trying to kill me. How much more could I panic after that?”
“Fair.” I take another breath in. “Bianca and I think Rouge is killing her employees and harvesting their organs, selling them on the black market.”
He jumps up from the bed. “What?”
“We discovered a cooler full of human hearts at Aces the last time we were there, on St. Patrick’s Day. I think Rouge also has all her servers—and sometimes even her patrons—killed.”
Jack paces the room. “But that night—the night I took mushrooms with Rouge—I didn’t see Mr. Rose taking the organs out. Just sawing Two’s head off, removing it from her body.”
“They do that to make the body harder to identify,” I explain. “When Alissa and Maddox found the head of May, the Seven of Spades, they found her hands as well. Fingerprints, facial identification, and dental records are the easiest way to identify a body, so remove them and all you have is DNA.”
“And if there isn’t a match in the police’s system…”
“Exactly. They can’t prove the person was an employee of Rouge’s. No way to concretely tie the body to her, and that’s if it’s found. The only reason Maddox and Alissa found the head in the first place was because Chet slipped them a riddle that led them to it.”
“Chet?” Jack raises an eyebrow. “I don’t trust that fucker as far as I can throw him.”
“Good instinct. He turned right around and betrayed them when they came to the club next. He’s the reason they ended up here at the Caterpillar Hotel, nearly starved.”
Jack widens his eyes. “There’s so much I still don’t know.”
“I wish I had time to explain the whole story to you,” I say. “It’s a doozy, that’s for freaking sure.”
“A doozy?” Jack asks.
“Like…it’s crazy. Unbelievable.”
“Doozy. You Americans have a word for everything.” He sits back down on the bed, rubbing at the back of his neck. “So what I saw in Rouge’s office that night—it was real?”
“As far as I can tell, I think it was,” I say.
“My friend Maddox saw something similar. He doesn’t remember anything about someone’s head getting chopped off, but he remembers being offered a goblet of blood to drink.
He freaked out, and my guess is Mr. Rose ended up getting the job Maddox was being tested for. ”
All color remaining in Jack’s pale face drains away. “My God.”
“Yeah.” I clap a hand to his shoulder. “But we’re going to see to it that the same thing doesn’t happen to you. Or to anyone else. And we’ll start by making sure you don’t eat that damned tart.”
“Done,” Jack says. “But when will—?”
A knock at the door sends a jolt through me.
I’d look through the peephole, but there isn’t one.
But I can tell by the chills snaking up and down my spine that it isn’t Bianca. She hasn’t gotten here yet.
It’s the King of Hearts.
Here to collect.