Chapter 33 Harrison
HARRISON
“You don’t know where your own sister lives?” Vanya asks.
Bianca whips her hands to her hips. “It’s not as if Rouge is a normal person. If she were, I’m sure she’d let me know her address. But she’s extremely private. She’s something of a celebrity in the city, so she keeps all her personal information on a need-to-know basis.”
“It’s true,” Chet adds. “Even I am not privy to that information.”
“Then why the hell are we bringing you along?” I fire back at him. “Your whole argument for joining us is that you know Rouge in and out.”
“Emphasis on in.” Chet’s lips twitch.
I have to swallow to avoid losing my lunch at the visual Chet just conjured. Once the nausea has waned, I pull out my phone. “Surely we can find her on one of those people-finding websites. In this day and age, no one has true privacy.”
“Good luck,” Bianca says. “Remember when I told you Rouge had every document listing her actual date of birth scrubbed out of existence? Her birth certificate, her licenses, social security? She’s made it as difficult as humanly possible to track her down.
When you wield the influence and power she does, you can make pretty much anything happen. ”
“But she must live somewhere,” Vanya says. “And it must be within the Chicago metro area. It’s not as if she’s taking a private plane in every day.”
“I wouldn’t put it past her. She has billions of dollars’ worth of diamonds in her safe in her office,” I say.
Chet raises a hand. “I can say with near-absolute certainty that isn’t the case. Her Maj—I mean, Rouge—is too involved with the goings-on in the city. The only time she leaves the state of Illinois is typically when she is looking for replacement waitstaff.”
“If you happen to be telling the truth,” I respond.
Chet shrugs. “Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.”
“What?” Bianca asks.
“It’s Shakespeare,” Vanya says. “Cymbeline, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Excellent ear, Mr. Dmitriev,” Chet says. “You too are a student of the Bard?”
“I read through his complete works to help me master English,” Vanya says. “This was after I spent months watching movies with Bianca to get my first grip on the language.”
“Fascinating,” Chet says.
“And remarkably far from the subject at hand.” I turn to Bianca. “Could we simply follow your sister after the club closes? It’s not as if she can disappear into thin air.”
She shakes her head. “She might as well. She has a system in place. She has a private driver pick her up from Aces Underground every night. This driver takes her to a garage located in an undisclosed location. Rouge owns several vehicles of varying makes and models that she keeps in the garage. She selects one at random and drives herself home from there.”
“So we could follow her to the garage?” I ask.
“That would be futile,” Chet says. “The garage in question is a very busy one. The kind that has drivers filtering in and out at all hours, even late at night when Rouge departs Aces. By the time she arrives at the garage, she is in disguise, and the car she selects to drive herself home will have tinted windows.”
“There won’t be any security cameras in the parking garage either,” Bianca says. “And I’ve already told you my sister doesn’t have a driver’s license. If she owns a home, it’s likely under an assumed name, like the one I used to book the hotel.”
Chet begins to hum.
“Will you stop that?” I ask. “If the home is owned under a pseudonym, then the public records would be of no use to us.”
“And I doubt she’s registered to vote.” Bianca paces the room.
Chet hums louder. The tune is familiar, and grating.
“Shut the fuck up!” I yell at him.
Bianca widens her eyes. “Wait. He’s humming the birthday song. Rouge’s birthday!”
“What about it?” Vanya asks.
“Her birthday. No one knows it except me. That’s why she uses it as the code to the employee entrance. No one would guess it because she’s wiped it off all official documentation. It’s the tenth of June.”
“A Gemini…” Chet mumbles.
I roll my eyes at Chet’s utterance. “Like that matters.”
Bianca holds up a hand. “You never know. My sister loves a game.” She pulls out her phone. “Zero-six-one-zero. What if that’s a zip code?”
“Zip codes have five numbers, though.”
“Right. But we know that all zip codes in Illinois begin with a six,” she continues. “So what if I search six-oh-six-one-oh?”
“Why not?” Vanya says.
She pulls up her map app and punches in the code. “That particular zip code covers most of the Gold Coast Historic District. Definitely a place I could see my sister laying down her roots. Very ritzy, very self-contained. Low crime rate.”
“Besides her own,” I add.
“Fair point.” Bianca scratches her arm. “But I’m not sure where to go from here. A zip code is a pretty broad area.”
“Wait!” I grab my own phone out of my pocket. “Rouge does have a pseudonym we know of. The fake name she uses as the CEO for Shinzo Life Center, the place that distributes the organs she harvests. Romeo Sturgeon. It’s an anagram of her name. What if we search within that zip code for that name?”
Bianca widens her eyes. “You do the honors.”
I pull up the White Pages website and search for “Romeo Sturgeon” within the 60610 zip code. “Oh my God. I think we found her.”
“Really?” Bianca asks.
“Yeah.” I read the text on the phone. “Ten East Burton Place, apartment six hundred ten.”
“Her birthday again!” Bianca throws her arms around me. “It has to be her!”
I plug the address into my GPS. “Looks like it’s about a half-hour drive from here. Let’s fucking roll.”