Zeb cocks his head. “Your friends?”
I raise a hand. “One crisis at a time. You were telling us about this woman who used to come here.”
Zeb blinks a few times. “Yeah. Sorry. She and Rouge had some argument. I think over how much she compensates the waitstaff—one of them must have let her know how much they’re paid.”
“How much are they paid?” I ask.
“Beats me,” Zeb says. “That’s Rouge’s department, and they are expressly forbidden to discuss that with me or with the patrons. But one of them must have blabbed to Dishari, and she was discussing it with Rouge.”
“Was the boyfriend not around?” Bianca asks.
Zeb shakes his head. “He was on a gig out of town. Dishari was here herself that night. And then a few days later”—he snaps his fingers—“she dies of a snakebite.”
I widen my eyes. “A snakebite?”
“Yeah. A goddamned snakebite. In the middle of Chicago.”
Bianca widens her eyes. “How did that happen?”
“I guess a snake got out of the reptile house at the Lincoln Park Zoo. Made its way all the way to where Dishari lived. Bit her in the dead of night. It was a garden-level apartment, and she left her window open. Orin discovered her when he got back from his gig.”
“My God,” Bianca whispers.
“You’re telling me,” Zeb says. “Orin was completely devastated. He’d have gone to hell and back to save her, but she was gone.”
I exchange a glance with Bianca. Her eyes are wide and her lips are trembling.
I have a feeling she’s wondering the same thing I am.
Did something similar happen to Maddox and Alissa?
Second Star is a rooftop bar with an expansive view of the cloudless night sky. It’s in a part of town a little farther away from the lights of the city, so several constellations illuminate the space. You can even see a hint of the Milky Way in the distance, and a large part of the bar is covered by a domed planetarium.
The waitstaff here are dressed scantily, the women in light-blue cutoff shorts and bikini tops and the men in forest-green Bermudas adorned with red feathers with no shirt. They’re similar to what the servers wear at Aces, minus the addition of fairy wings strapped on the backs of the men and women alike.
This is a bar that I’m familiar with. I’ve taken women on a few dates here, though I had no idea at the time that Rouge Montrose owned it. I’ve met the guy who runs the place in her stead, and he’s not the kind of person you’d easily forget.
He goes by Scythe, and the women I’ve taken to Second Star have started drooling the moment they set eyes on him. He’s always wearing a dark trench coat covered in chains over a ruffly white shirt and maroon parachute pants. Heavy scruff over a chiseled jaw and a layer of liner under each eye. The thing that really makes him stand out, though, is his prosthetic left arm. He lost the one he was born with in some kind of gang fight in his youth, and rather than replacing it with one that looks like a regular arm, he had a robotic one crafted out of aluminum and titanium that brilliantly catches the starlight. Scythe prides himself on how badass it makes him look, and I’m guessing his entire ensemble is crafted to highlight rather than downplay the prosthetic.
He's at the bar, currently chatting with the bartender, a dark-skinned woman wearing a light-brown dress. He turns and faces me right as we approach him, raising his dark eyebrows slightly.
“We’ve met before, haven’t we?”
“Yes.” I stretch out my hand. “Harrison O’Rourke. I’m a doctor at a hospital downtown. I’ve come to this club a few times in the past.”
He shakes my hand with his biological arm. “Aye, I thought so.” He narrows his eyes at Bianca. “And who’s the lass?”
Bianca offers him a timid smile. “Bianca. Bianca Montrose.”
Unlike Lucille and Zeb, Scythe doesn’t react to the Montrose name. He merely shakes Bianca’s hand as well and then gestures to the bartender. “And this is Lily Brindle, our barkeep.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Lily says. “What can I get you?”
“We’re not actually here to drink,” I say. “Scythe, could we speak somewhere private?”
Scythe glances toward Lily. “Lily here is my main confidante. Anything you have to say to me, you can say in front of her.”
“It’s a matter of some sensitivity,” I reply.
