Chapter 31 - Harrison
HARRISON
We finished up our beer with Aus and then left the Jade Sanctum discreetly. Bianca and I wanted to regroup somewhere public where Rouge wouldn’t have a million eyes on us. We found a brewpub in a more remote part of downtown called Sander’s Batch, where we’re now sitting.
It’s the dictionary definition of a dive bar.
Metal stools with worn-out cushioning around a long wooden counter.
A disorderly collection of bottles behind the bartender, a broken jukebox in the corner, and a pool table with more scratches than felt on its surface.
We take a seat at the bar and are served non-descript beers from a burly guy with an eyepatch—yeah, an eyepatch.
I take a sip from mine. “What’s the plan from here?”
Bianca closes her eyes and takes a deep breath in. “I think it’s pretty clear that Rouge is up to something pretty damned nefarious.”
“Definitely.”
She sighs. “There could be a logical explanation. Chicago is a big city. People go missing every day. People get shot, kidnapped.”
“They do. But these stories all carry a common thread.”
“Yeah. My sister.” She swallows. “And there’s something I thought of back at Jade. My drummer, Pierce.”
“What about him, babe?”
“When I sang that extra song at the end of my set. That night you came to the club. He was the one who urged the rest of the band to go along with it, even though it was against Rouge’s wishes.”
“Yikes.”
“You don’t know the half of it. The next evening, he didn’t show up. No explanation given. We had to rework the set around his absence at the last minute, and so much has been going on since then that I haven’t given it a second thought.”
I rub at my chin. “Fuck.”
“She was pissed at me that night. But obviously she couldn’t do anything to me. I make her a hell of a lot of money.”
“Plus she’s your sister.”
She scratches at her upper arm. “I don’t think that matters to Rouge.
If I were more expendable to her, I’d be history by now.
But she can get another drummer like that.
” She snaps her fingers. “Aces pays well. More than most gigs across the city.” Her lip trembles.
“I think Pierce was a message. A pawn in her little game.”
Chills snake up and down my spine.
This wasn’t real until tonight.
Up until now, everything was a theory.
We still don’t have any concrete evidence against Rouge, but something dark is going on.
I rake my hands through my hair as I try to process all this new information. “Okay. We have to look for more clues. Find one solid piece of evidence that Rouge is the person behind all of this.”
“I don’t think we should go to any more clubs.” Bianca stares at the scratched bar. “Any of those people we talked to could snitch on us. If Rouge catches wind of anything, we’re toast.”
“Agreed.” I stroke my chin. “But there are other places we could look for clues.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Wait. Do you have a key to Maddox’s apartment? You’re his best friend, right?”
I sigh. “Maddox is—and don’t get me wrong, I love the guy—far too possessive of his haberdashery to let anyone but himself have a key.”
“Could we break a window?”
I shrug. “Not sure if that would work. He might have an alarm system. He’d certainly have one for the shop. I don’t know if his apartment would have the same. But they’re the same building, so the cops would be there quickly if we tried to break in.”
Bianca frowns. “Sounds like a no-go.”
“Yeah. I’ve been begging him for years to give me a spare key, just in case. It’s not like I’d rob him blind. I’m his best friend, for crying out loud. He—” I widen my eyes, scratch at the side of my head.
“What is it?”
“I don’t have the key to Maddox’s place, but Alissa’s best friend might have a key to hers.”
Bianca leans in. “Do you know who Alissa’s best friend is?”
“I do.” I pull out my phone. “Her name is Dinah. She’s another nurse in my hospital. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before.”
“You’ve had a lot on your mind, Harrison.”
No fucking kidding. Guess I’ll cut myself a little slack.
I call Dinah. It rings once, twice…
“Dr. O’Rourke?”
“Dinah! Thank God you answered.”
“Are you aware of the time?”
Shit. We’ve been touring Rouge’s clubs all night. I check my watch. It’s nearly one in the morning. “Sorry. I wouldn’t wake you up if it wasn’t important.”
“Oh, damn it all. You need me to come in, don’t you?”
“Come in?”
“To the hospital? I’m not on call tonight, but if no one else is answering…”
“No, no. This has nothing to do with the hospital.”
“Then why are you…” Her tone shifts. “Oh, my God. Alissa.”
“Exactly.”
“Please tell me everything’s okay.”
I swallow. “I’m not sure. She and Maddox might be in trouble.”
“Jesus.”
“But we might have a shot of saving them both if we can find some more clues. I was wondering. Do you have a key to her place?”
A pause. “Holy shit. Why didn’t I think of this before?”
“So you do?”
“Yeah. She gave me one for emergencies when she moved into her new place. She doesn’t have any family living in the area.
But she’s very fussy about her personal things.
We have to be a hundred percent sure something is up.
If Alissa is truly living her best life in some tropical paradise, she’d be beyond pissed that I went into her apartment without her permission. ”
“Honestly, Dinah, if I were acting as weird as Alissa was before her quote-unquote vacation, I’d want people to be snooping around making sure everything was okay.”
Another pause. “Fair point.”
“I know it’s late, but can you meet me at Alissa’s place in thirty minutes?”
“Sure. My shift tomorrow starts late, so I can just sleep in this morning.”
“Great. Thanks, Dinah. See you in a bit.” I end the call and down the rest of my beer, turning to Bianca. “Let’s roll, babe.”
* * *
Dinah is waiting for us at Alissa’s apartment when we get there, wearing gray yoga pants under a puffy pink jacket. She raises an eyebrow as we get out of the car. “Who’s your friend?”
“Dinah, this is Bianca. Bianca, Dinah.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Bianca says.
Dinah shakes Bianca’s hand hastily and then turns to me, shivering. “I’ve been waiting in the cold forever.”
“Why didn’t you let yourself in?” I ask. “You have the key.”
Dinah bites her lip. “I mean… I wasn’t sure what might be waiting for me in there. I wanted to have backup just in case.”
“Fair enough.” I open the front door of Alissa’s apartment building and step into the entryway. “Let’s check it out.”
We walk up the flights of stairs to Alissa’s apartment and I put the key in her door, unlocking the deadbolt. With a deep breath, I open the door, and…
Nothing.
It’s a little dusty, but other than that, everything is tidy and neat.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen dust here,” Dinah says. “Alissa is normally so clean.”
“But that’s normal. She’s been gone for over a month. Not exactly a clue that something weird is up.”
“True.” Dinah crosses toward her bedroom. “I’ll check her dresser. See if all her clothes are still there. If she left on a big vacation, she would have packed a big bag.”
“Good move,” I say.
I’m glad Dinah’s here. I would feel like a weirdo going through Alissa’s dresser. And I’m sure Bianca wouldn’t want to do it either.
I look around her kitchen in the meantime. Nothing seems out of place. I open her fridge, expecting a rotting stench to hit me. But it’s been cleared out, just a few condiments along the shelves on the door.
“Anything in the bedroom?” I call over to Dinah.
“No. Nothing. There’s a big empty spot in her closet where I think her suitcase was, and her underwear and sock drawer is cleared out.” She walks out of the bedroom, sighing. “Maybe she really did take off on a big vacation. She had it pretty bad for Maddox.”
I shake my head. “Bianca and I have been snooping around. There have been other disappearances like this. If Alissa was taken, she would have had her keys on her. Whoever took her could have come to the apartment and made it look like she left.”
“If that’s the case, is there really any point in us looking around?” Bianca asks. “My sister is nothing if not thorough.”
“She’s still human, though. Which means she could have made a mistake. Let’s comb the place, see if there’s anything out of the ordinary.”
We spend the next thirty minutes looking under every cushion on the sofa, every dish in the kitchen cupboard, every tiny knickknack on the living room shelves.
Of course, the only person who has been here is Dinah, so she’s the only one who would be able to tell if something was out of place. But our search is fruitless.
Until Bianca emerges from the bathroom holding a small plastic bottle.
“Is this anything?” she asks. “There’s a small hotel-sized bottle of shampoo. It’s unlabeled, which seems kind of odd.”
Dinah raises her eyebrows. “You found that in the shower? Was there anything else in there?”
She holds it up. “A half-empty bottle of regular-sized shampoo along with conditioner, and a bar of soap. Her personal toiletries—toothbrush, toothpaste, et cetera—those are all gone. She wouldn’t have needed her big shampoo and soap on a vacation, though.
Whoever turned over this apartment did a good job. ”
Dinah looks at the bottle, her eyes narrowed. “And this bottle was next to the larger shampoo?”
Bianca nods. “It was sort of nestled between the shampoo and conditioner bottles.” She sighs. “It’s probably nothing. She probably got a travel-sized shampoo from another trip and was just finishing it up.”
Dinah shakes her head. “You don’t know Alissa.
She’s pretty meticulous. She had this mother who—well, it’s a long story, but suffice to say that she was extremely fastidious.
Some of that rubbed off on Alissa. She keeps everything neatly in its place.
If she had a travel-sized shampoo, she would keep it with her travel bag.
She would never have any unnecessary clutter in her shower. Can I see it?”
Bianca hands it over. “I’m not sure if it’ll be much use. It looks like the label has been torn off.”
Dinah examines the bottle. “There’s a serial number printed along the bottom. Harrison, search Google for… Just a second.” She squints as she reads the serial number out loud.
I type them in as Dinah dictates and then add the word “shampoo.”
A few options come up, most of which are in what I think is either Russian or Ukrainian.
I scroll down and find a Reddit post from a couple of years ago. Apparently there’s a small community of people who collect vintage hotel soaps and shampoos. Takes all kinds, I suppose.
I read the post. The number on the Reddit post matches the one printed on the bottle. “Looks like it’s a brand called Temper Hair Products. They mostly sell to hotels and motels, usually privately owned ones. Not big ones like a Hilton or a Marriott.”
“Interesting,” Bianca says. “Anything else?”
“Yeah… It looks like most of their line was discontinued—at least in the US—back in the seventies.”
“The seventies?” Dinah asks. “Then this could actually be a clue. Why the hell would Alissa have a nearly empty shampoo bottle in her shower that’s a half-century old?”
“Here.” Bianca shoves her own phone in my face. “Temper Hair Products has a customer service number. Should we call it?”
I rub at my forehead. “It’s a stretch, but this may be our only lead. What the hell?” I enter the number into my phone and press the call button.
The ringback tone is lower in pitch than what I’m used to. It rings quite a few times before someone answers. A woman, speaking in a language I don’t understand.
“I’m sorry, do you speak English?”
“Yes, sorry,” the woman speaks in a thick Eastern European accent. “This is Krasna. How may I help you today?”
“Yes, I have an odd question. Are your products still available in the USA?”
A small pause. “Temper Hair was somewhat popular in the United States in the nineteen seventies, but now we are mostly in the market of Eastern Europe.”
“Are there any hotels in the US that use your products?”
“There are a handful, yes.”
“Any in the Chicago area?”
“Chicago? Let me check.” The sounds of a keyboard in the background, as well as Krasna talking to someone else in a foreign language. “I will have to put you on a brief hold. Thank you for your patience.”
Smooth elevator music floods my ears, and I put the phone on speaker and place it on Alissa’s counter. I sigh. “Is this just a wild goose chase?”
Bianca frowns. “It is. But I have a feeling this wild goose is going to be worth catching.”
“How can you tell?”
She touches her left eyebrow. “Don’t make fun of me, but I can feel it here.”
“In your eyebrow?” Dinah asks.
She nods. “I sometimes get a little twitch here. It’s going to sound silly, but I always get a feeling there when something important is happening…or is about to happen.”
Normally I’d call bullshit, but this is Bianca, who I adore. Plus, a lot of weird shit has gone on the last few days. The last few months, really. Bianca having a peculiar intuition based on an eyebrow twitch barely cracks the top ten.
Bianca’s cheeks flush pink. “I had the same feeling the day I met you, Harrison.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You did?”
She nods. “That’s why I insisted that Chet let you into the club. I just had this…this feeling that you should be in Aces that evening. Now I know why.” She looks up at me, her eyes warm.
Her words touch my heart. She can’t surely be implying what I want her to imply. I look into her eyes. “You mean to help save Maddox and Alissa.”
She smiles. “That, too.”
I smile back. There is something. Something real.
Damn.
“Hello, sir? Are you there?” Krasna’s voice crackles through the phone.
I pick it back up. “Yes, we are.”
“Thank you again for your patience. I had to sift through some old records which are not on our computer. We did provide stock for one hotel in the Chicago area up through the late nineties.”
“Great. Where was it?”
“It is still there, as far as I can tell. It was purchased by a third party in November of 1998, after which we no longer provided any product. It is in a neighborhood called Forest Park. The Caterpillar Hotel.”
The Caterpillar Hotel?
My phone clatters to the floor.