I raise an eyebrow. “Why there?”
“I don’t know for sure. But it’s the only place I haven’t looked yet, besides the places I’m not allowed to go.” I pace back and forth. “But it makes sense for a place to hide something, right? Easy access from the secret entrance and all.”
I scratch the side of my head. “Okay…”
He holds up a hand. “You’re not convinced. Neither am I. But it’s the only place I haven’t looked. Obviously I can’t go in and look without a woman going in first to make sure the coast is clear.”
I’m about to tell him that what he’s saying makes no sense, but then I feel the familiar twitch above my eyebrow. It could just be nerves—this is a high-stakes situation, after all—but it hasn’t led me astray yet.
Maybe Harrison is right. There could be something in the ladies’ restroom hiding in plain sight.
“Let’s try it out.” I check my phone. “I have fifteen minutes until my next set. Rouge sometimes comes in and checks on me during my breaks, but there are a lot of extra people here for the holiday. They should keep her busy.”
He nods. “Great. Thanks for trying this out for me, babe.”
I get on my tiptoes and kiss his cheek. “I have a feeling you might be right about this.” I open my dressing room door and peek through. Rouge is all the way across in Spades, and no one seems to be paying much attention to the area surrounding the ladies’ restroom. I gesture Harrison to follow behind me.
We cross quickly toward the restroom. I go inside first, and the coast is clear. The three stalls are empty, and there’s no one sitting on the fainting couch at the entrance or adjusting their makeup in the mirror.
I open the door. “It’s empty. Come in.”
He enters, and together we push the fainting couch against the door to keep people from coming inside while we look around.
“Let’s be quick,” I say. “You never know when my sister might have to heed nature’s call.”
Harrison chuckles. “I didn’t think Rouge would ever be caught doing something so human as taking a shit.”
I let out a short laugh. It’s a funny thing to say. Unfortunately, I have seen the human side of Rouge, and it might be even more terrifying than her Queen side.
“Let’s look around. See if anything looks out of place.”
He nods.
I check the mirror behind the sink—since mirrors seem to be important to this section of the club—but find nothing. No secret cabinet or anything. I run my hands along the upholstery of the fainting couch. It’s all original stitching.
“That’s weird,” Harrison mutters from the stalls.
“What’s weird?” I walk over to him.
“The stalls in this bathroom. They have writing on the locks. Like in an airplane bathroom. When you switch the lock”—he demonstrates—“it goes from ‘vacant’ to ‘occupied.’”
I purse my lips. “So? That’s not exactly uncommon.”
He shakes his head. “I was in the men’s room before I met you in the dressing room. I looked up and down the doors of those toilet stalls, seeing if there was a picture of a raven or something, and they don’t have that feature.”
“So? There probably isn’t a fainting couch either. Sometimes ladies’ restrooms are a little fancier than men’s.” But then I gasp. “My God! It’s writing!”
“Yeah. As in the writing raven.”
“I thought it meant that the raven was doing the act of writing. Not the writing itself.”
He nods. “I was thinking about this earlier. The river of tears in the riddle wasn’t referring to an actual river, or actual tears. So we have to think outside the box on the other half of the riddle as well.”
“Okay. So what could raven mean?”
“I was thinking it could be raven as in raven hair. Like the color black.” He gestures to the stall doors. “But the writing on all these locks is pink, just like everything else in this bathroom.”
“Right.” I grab my phone. “Let’s see if there are other definitions of the word.” I pull up Google and search for the definition of “raven.” Several results pull up, and I pull up a dictionary website. “Well, the first definition is the bird, obviously. Then there’s the adjective, like ‘raven black hair.’ And then…” I widen my eyes.
