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.
32
BIANCA
I pick the phone up off the ground—God, the screen is shattered—and wave a hand in Harrison’s face. “Harrison? You all right?”
“Not even slightly.” He takes the phone out of my hand, not even acknowledging the broken screen, and speaks into it. “Thank you, Krasna. We’ll call back if we have any more questions.” He ends the call and turns to me. “I was just there, Bianca.”
“Just where?” I ask.
“The hotel where the shampoo comes from. The other night, after we met.” He blushes. “I was thinking about all this, and I missed my exit by a couple miles. And I ended up using the hotel’s parking lot to turn around.”
“How on earth do you remember all that?” Dinah asks. “Do you have a steel trap for a memory?”
Harrison shrugs. “I guess so.” He turns back to me. “But here’s the thing. When I got there, there weren’t any cars in the parking lot. Like, literally zero. I didn’t give it much thought at the time, because my mind was…elsewhere.”
I frown. Harrison’s eyes are…haunted. I recognize haunted. I’ve seen the same look in the mirror when I’m reliving childhood trauma. Has Harrison been through something? I ache at the thought. “Was the hotel abandoned?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Lights on in some of the rooms. Maybe the people staying there take the train into the city. The Blue Line serves Forest Park.”
“Yeah, but that far out of the city, the L isn’t super dependable.” I pace around Dinah and Harrison. “In New York, you can live without a car. Sometimes, it’s actually faster to take the subway than to drive somewhere. The train comes that frequently. But it’s not nearly as good in Chicago. Here, having a car make a big difference, same as most other major cities in the US.” I scratch at my chin. “What was the name of the hotel again? I had a hard time hearing through the customer service rep’s accent.”
He swallows. “The Caterpillar Hotel.”
My jaw drops. “Oh my God. Rouge owns that hotel.”
“What?” Dinah asks.
