Chapter 9 Harrison
HARRISON
Why the hell did that interaction with Rouge leave me so shaken?
She’s tall, statuesque. But not as tall as I am. And I could absolutely take her in a brawl, though I’d never hit a woman, of course.
It’s something in the way she carries herself. As if she’s untouchable, immortal. As though she’s a person capable of doing terrible, terrible things. She could murder the mayor of Chicago in front of the chief of police and walk free that same day.
I didn’t respond when she asked why her sister brought me to the club tonight.
I honestly don’t know why Bianca decided to let me in.
Maybe because she found me attractive? We had a flirty conversation in between her two sets, but she hasn’t come out of her dressing room since she finished her second. Maybe she just needs a few minutes to gather herself after a big performance.
Of course, Rouge made a beeline for Bianca’s dressing room after I sputtered silently in reaction to her question. She’s probably reading her sister the riot act right now.
But Bianca can take it. If there’s anyone who can handle Rouge Montrose, it’s the girl who grew up with her, who knows her better than anyone else in the world.
Bianca will handle her sister better than I did just now.
I’ve been to Aces a handful of times as Maddox’s wingman, but I never interacted with Rouge until now.
In fact, I’m surprised she knew who I was, come to think of it.
Maddox always kept a healthy distance from her whenever he brought me to the club, and the few times I’ve attended a hospital board meeting, she’s always sat silently at the corner of the table.
She of course doesn’t wear her Elizabethan ballgown in the board meetings.
She’s always kept her flaming hair in a tight bun, worn a charcoal pantsuit with modest makeup, and kept a large pair of Gucci sunglasses over her face.
This was the woman I knew as Rouge Montrose—not the monstrosity I just conversed with—until Alissa connected the dots for me a few weeks ago and I realized these two women were one and the same.
I always wondered why she was wearing those sunglasses inside. I figured she might have some light sensitivity issue, but now I think she didn’t want to be recognized.
So much mystery to unravel.
But that mystery will have to wait for another time. I’m here to figure out what happened to Maddox and—
Bianca!
She’s leaving her dressing room…on the arm of a decrepit old man who is leering at her.
A fist squeezes around my heart.
But why?
I barely know this woman. We’ve had all of two conversations.
Where is the old man taking her?
Maybe he’s a major patron of the club, someone who runs a theater in town. Could be he just wants to compliment her on a fantastic performance.
Except he’s running his fingers up and down her arm…
I’m seeing red.
But I can’t be.
I shake the anger out of my head, try to clear it.
The old man is leading Bianca behind the red velvet curtains in the rear of the club.
I’ve seen club patrons escort the waitresses—and occasionally a waiter—behind those curtains before. I never asked Maddox what went on in those areas, but it’s not difficult to deduce.
My heart is tugging at me, telling me to follow Bianca behind the curtain, but that would be insane. She may have gotten me into the club, but I’m not here to play the role of some white knight. Plus, she seemed to be going into the private area willingly.
I came here for one reason and one reason only. To find out if there’s anything fishy about Maddox and Alissa’s extended vacation.
Bianca is a woman—a beautiful woman—who got me into the club tonight. I owe her a favor, but that’s about it.
I push the thought of her with the old man out of my head and focus my attention on Aces Underground. I’m still in the Clubs section. I’ve been standing here frozen since Rouge left.
I look around. Mr. Night is passing out cigarettes from his silver tray. He’s pretty old. He might know some of the inner workings of this place.
Once he’s finished attending to some of the other patrons, I tap him on the shoulder.
He looks up, widens his eyes. “Dr. O’Rourke. Would you care for another cigar?”
I shake my head. “One’s enough for me, Mr. Night, and I didn’t even finish it. But I was wondering if you could help me in a different way.”
“Oh?”
“Yes.” I inhale slowly. “You’ve worked here for the last several years, correct?”
“Correct, sir. It’ll be twenty years this fall.”
“And you seem to be pretty good with names and faces.” I tap my sternum. “You knew my name even though I’m not a member here.”
He nods slowly. “Rouge has a policy that all speaking staff—myself, Chet, the Diamonds dealers—memorize the names of all members and of all guests who frequent the club thrice or more.”
“But you recognized my face.”
“Chet takes photo IDs for a reason, Doctor.”
“So the photos are scanned.”
“No. But he has a photographic memory. He makes sketches of recurrent guests and distributes them to the speakers. That way we can put a name to the face when we see a guest again.”
I raise an eyebrow. “So there’s a sketch of me floating around here somewhere?”
“Several copies.” He grins. “Though most are destroyed once we memorize the names. Anonymity and all. But I’m sure Rouge keeps the originals filed away.”
“That’s fucking weird.”
Mr. Night shrugs. “We bask in both the weird and the wonderful at Aces Underground, Doctor. Here we believe that turning the known upside down reveals the hidden.”
God, these people talk like fucking fortune cookies.
“Listen.” I lower my voice and lean toward Mr. Night. “If you memorize the faces of every person who has come to this club more than three times, then you must know who Alissa Maravilla is.”
Mr. Night furrows his brow slightly but otherwise doesn’t react. “Miss Maravilla, yes. A lovely young woman. Light-blond hair. Full, pink lips. The only person Maddox Hathaway has brought to this club besides you, Doctor.”
“So you also know who Maddox is.”
“Of course. He’s a member. Though most of us who work here knew who he was before he ever started coming to the club, due to his family’s history.”
“Did you see them when they came to the club?”
Mr. Night places his silver tray of cigarettes on a nearby table. “I saw them enter the club once or twice, yes. But my job is in the Clubs section, Dr. O’Rourke. And they didn’t seem much for smoking.”
“Okay, which section did they hang out in?”
He shifts his gaze across to the Spades section. “They seemed pretty partial to the bar, at least at first.”
“At first?”
“Maddox and Alissa made quite a splash in the Diamonds section a few weeks ago. Won big at the Blackjack tables. Rouge herself crowned them the King and Queen of Diamonds.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“The title is ceremonial,” Mr. Night says. “It doesn’t carry a whole lot of meaning beyond that.”
“So what you’re telling me is that I should ask the staff in the Spades and Diamonds sections if they saw them.”
“That is where I would start, Doctor. Though…” He gazes into the distance.
“What?”
“Nothing, Doctor. Nothing. But you’ve piqued my curiosity. Why are you asking about Miss Maravilla and Mr. Hathaway? Last I heard, they were on a romantic tour around the world.”
“With all due respect, Mr. Night, that is none of your damned business.”
I turn then and head to the Spades section. It’s bathed in teal lighting—my second-favorite color—and the bar is manned by two barrel-chested siblings, DeeDee and Dudley.
I approach the bar. Dudley approaches me and bows his head.
Shit. That’s right. They don’t speak.
This might be finished before it’s begun.
“I’m not interested in ordering a drink,” I say.
Dudley nods and moves down the bar toward another patron.
“Wait,” I say.
Dudley narrows his eyes and moves back toward me.
“Do you know who Maddox Hathaway is?”
Dudley lifts his eyebrows and nods.
“And do you know the young woman who he brought as his guest?”
He tilts his head for a moment but then nods again.
“You received one of Chet’s sketches?”
He shakes his head.
That makes sense, though. Mr. Night said that only the speaking staff received copies of Chet’s sketches. Dudley and DeeDee don’t speak, so they’d have no reason to need to know people’s names.
“So you just remember her because he brought her here so frequently.”
Another nod.
“Good. Did you witness anything unusual while they were in the Spades section?”
Dudley crinkles his eyes but then slowly shakes his head.
That’s a fucking tell if I ever saw one.
I’ve treated patients for years who have come in with mysterious symptoms that are clearly the result of drug abuse.
A scratch on the arm, a wrinkled nose, or the slight narrowing of the eyes I just saw from Dudley—they’re all clues that the person is hiding something.
Something did happen. And Dudley knows.
“You sure about that, Dudley?”
He raises a hand to quiet me and then shifts down the bar.
“Don’t you walk away from me.” I scurry down to where he is and pop myself between two patrons who gasp at the invasion. “What happened, Dudley?”
He blinks several times, but for a moment his gaze flickers on a nearby waitress.
She has dark skin, long black hair, and red lips. She’s wearing the usual waitress attire—the black bikini dotted with white spades. I eye her shoulders—on the left is a spade symbol, and on the right the number eight.
One of the patrons at the bar elbows my shoulder. “She’s hot, isn’t she? Just started here.”
I turn to the patron—he’s middle-aged with a graying handlebar mustache. “Did she? How long ago?”
He twiddles his thumbs. “About a month ago, I’d say?”
A month.
That’s when Maddox and Alissa went off on their little excursion.
It could be a coincidence. There’s a high turnover rate at this club. Every time Maddox has brought me here, there’s been a sea of fresh faces. I imagine Rouge is a nightmare to work for.
Still, perhaps an answer lies with the Eight of Spades.
She won’t speak to me either.
If she’s new, that means that she replaced someone.
Maybe that’s a clue. But I’m not going to harass a poor waitress in the middle of a busy shift.
Mr. Night mentioned that Alissa and Maddox recently spent some extra time in Diamonds.
The dealers there are allowed to speak—thanks to my conversation with Rouge, I know this as a fact—but I won’t be able to get them away from their tables while people are playing.
I could wait for a lull, but the club is hopping tonight.
Besides, even if I do get a chance to talk to them, all the employees here are in Rouge’s pocket. If they have information, they won’t give it to me. They’ll just talk in circles like Mr. Night and Chet do.
I’ll walk the perimeter of the club. Look around for any clues.
I have no idea what I’m even fucking looking for, but it’s better than sitting in the corner.
I walk around Spades, ease into Diamonds, pull through Clubs…
And just before I hit Hearts… I stop at the velvet curtain where Bianca and that lecherous old man disappeared.
I can’t help it. I know I won’t like what I’m going to hear, but I listen anyway. The curtains are billowy so I don’t attract any attention from the other patrons.
I’m expecting to hear moaning, guttural grunts.
But I hear…nothing.
Nothing?
They’re not even talking?
The curtains are the only things separating this area from the rest of the club. It’s not like it’s soundproofed.
What if something’s wrong?
What if—oh, God—what if the old man has silenced Bianca? Is performing some kind of horrifying, torturous ritual on her?
I’m no white knight. But I know when a woman needs to be saved.
I feel it in the rush of my blood through my veins. The electricity jolting through my nerves, all the way to the ends of my fingers.
Fuck it.
Worst case I interrupt two people in the throes of a very silent fuck.
I don’t want Bianca fucking another guy anyway. So it’s a win-win.
I walk inside.
And my jaw drops.
I was right. The old man is naked, his wrinkled body looking like a deflated ball on top of the bed.
But…he’s not moving.
Surely even this guy can get it up for a woman as beautiful as Bianca.
And if he can’t, a few Viagras will do the trick.
I take a few tentative steps closer, and that’s when I hear it.
A muffled moan—a female voice—underneath the old man.
But it’s not a moan of pleasure. It’s one of panic, of terror even.
Fuck.
Now I know what’s going on. The old man is unconscious—or worse. Maybe a heart attack, or a stroke. Something brought on by a strenuous activity.
And Bianca is trapped under him.
I rush to the side of the bed. Sure enough, Bianca is squeezed underneath his weight. Her eyes are wide, and when she sees me, her stifled sounds get louder.
“It’s okay, Bianca. I’m going to help you.”
I wrap my arms around the old man’s midsection and haul him off the bed. Bianca gasps in a breath of air. I lay the old man on the ground before I return to Bianca.
And… Oh, my God.
She’s completely naked.
And her body takes my breath away.
Perfect, round breasts with pink nipples. Skin the color of cream and gentle curves in all the right places. And I can’t help looking down at the treasure between her legs. She’s shaved completely bare, and her pussy…
Damn.
She and I make eye contact. She quickly grabs a blanket from the foot of the bed and wraps it around herself. Her porcelain cheeks turn pink.
“I’m sorry,” I eke out.
She takes a few deep breaths. “Sorry for what? You saved me.”
“What happened?”
She looks down. “I mean… Mr. Calloway. He purchased my…services.” She buries her head in her hands. “You must think I’m disgusting.”
Rage claws at the back of my neck. But not just rage.
Jealousy. The fucking green-eyed monster. Always green. The color I hate.
I breathe in. Out. She doesn’t need my anger.
“What happened after he brought you back here?” I finally ask.
“I… He told me to take my clothes off. And then he did, and he was getting on top of me when he…collapsed. His eyes rolled back in his head and he fell onto me, pinning me down. I could barely breathe. I thought… My God, I thought I might suffocate and die.”
I can’t help it. I trail a finger over her cheek. “Not as long as I’m around, Bianca.”
She looks up at me, her eyes wide and her lips plump…
Shit. The old man.
I tear myself away from the bed and go back to him. I check for a pulse on his wrist, his neck. Nothing. I lower my ear over his nose and mouth. No breath.
He’s not unconscious. He’s dead.
“He’s gone.”
She covers her hand with her mouth.
I open my own mouth to tell her to get dressed while I go fetch Chet to call 911. But nothing comes out.
Because for the first time I notice her eyes.
They’re blue. But a dark blue, like the ocean in a storm.
They’re eyes I can get lost in. That can suck me into a whirlpool and land me at the bottom of the sea.
And I can’t help it.
I grab her off the bed and crush my lips to hers.