“I hope so.” She bites her lip. “So…the clubs?”
“Right. The first place we went to was the Noir Parlor, and it was outfitted like a mid-century TV studio. Everything in black and white. Even the servers.”
She cocks her head. “How’d they manage that?”
“Makeup. Most of the people they hire at Noir are actors, so they have a decent idea of how to handle makeup anyway. They must put gray pancake all over their face and hands and then cover the rest of their bodies with clothes in shades of black, white, and gray.”
“Fascinating.” Alissa sighs. “Your sister is so creative. If only she used that creativity for good.”
“Agreed.”
“And Noir Parlor had missing waitstaff as well?”
I nod. “The head, Lucille, told us she never heard back from anyone who worked there except for one. Mr. Night?”
Alissa furrows her brow. “Mr. Who?”
“You probably don’t know him. He works in the Clubs section, which you probably didn’t check out too much since neither you nor Maddox are smokers. Very old man.”
She shrugs. “I might have seen him. To tell the truth, those first few days at Aces, I had eyes only for Maddox.”
I smile. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
She blushes. “I am. I was afraid to say it out loud at first. Everything happened so fast, I couldn’t help wondering if it was just all the trauma that had made me develop feelings for him. But once I accepted that I was truly, deeply in love with him, I realized we could get through anything together. Even that horrible hotel, the two of us starving, we would talk through the wall, tell each other how much we loved one another. I think that kept us going, if I’m being honest.”
“I’m so happy for you.”
She grins. “You feel the same way for Dr. O’Rourke, don’t you?”
I widen my eyes. “Oh… I mean… I definitely like him, if that’s what you mean.”
She laughs out loud. “It’s not just like. It’s not as if he’s your chum.”
“But it’s too soon,” I sputter. “I’m sure that in some time I’ll know for sure.”
She shakes her head. “You know for sure now. I can see it in your eyes. The way you look at him when he enters the room.” She grabs my hand. “When I was in that hotel, it forced everything in my life into perspective. My whole life, I tried to keep everything neat and pretty. Straight lines, never bending. But there really isn’t such a thing as a straight line, is there? Our planet is round. So even the most level street isn’t actually a straight line, though it may feel that way to us. It curves with the shape of the earth.”
I swallow. “I never thought about it that way.”
“I had a lot of time to ponder life’s deepest thoughts in that bloody hotel,” Alissa says. “There are no guarantees. The world is a confusing place, filled with both great good and great evil. Things don’t make sense…until they do.” She gazes into my eyes. “You and Harrison… Maddox and I… Through all the nonsense the four of us have been through, the love we have for one another has been our only source of stability.”
I brush a tear from my cheek. “My God, Alissa. I think you’re right.”
She chuckles. “I know I’m right. But I didn’t mean to get all philosophical on you. You were telling me about the clubs.”
I blink. “Right. Yes. So after Noir, we went to MINOS. Same thing, the guy who runs the club, Zeb, told us he’d never heard back from the waitstaff who left once their contracts were up. And he also told us about this woman, Dishari, who got into a public argument with Rouge. A few days later, a venomous snake escapes from the zoo and bites her, killing her in her sleep.”
She gasps.
“Then we went to Second Star. Again, a waitress named Tina vanished into thin air. Same with the Jade Sanctum. Aus Waverly—the guy who runs it—told us he had a friend named Timothy Mann who was working at the club and disappeared one day.”
She crosses her arms, shivering. “This is clearly a lot bigger than Maddox and I initially thought. We thought we were dealing with two needless deaths. But if Rouge has been killing off people in her clubs since she started taking over…”
“Exactly. It could run into the hundreds. Rouge started taking the reins from my father when she turned eighteen. That was over two decades ago. Our father died right after I returned to Chicago, which was when she officially became the head of all our family’s enterprises, but she could have been organizing this organ harvesting deal for the better part of two decades.” A chill runs through me.
Alissa’s face twists. “It’s difficult to think about all those poor people.” She scratches her chin. “You know, Maddox didn’t just find red diamonds in that safe in Rouge’s office. There was also a manifest. When we were there, we saw the last two names were May and Svetlana, the last two women to disappear. I bet that manifest lists every single person they’ve done away with. Not just at Aces, but everywhere else, too.”
I widen my eyes. “So if we get hold of that manifest…”
