“Fascinating,” Chet says.
“And remarkably far from the subject at hand.” I turn to Bianca. “Could we simply follow your sister after the club closes? It’s not as if she can disappear into thin air.”
She shakes her head. “She might as well. She has a system in place. She has a private driver pick her up from Aces Underground every night. This driver takes her to a garage located in an undisclosed location. Rouge owns several vehicles of varying makes and models that she keeps in the garage. She selects one at random and drives herself home from there.”
“So we could follow her to the garage?” I ask.
“That would be futile,” Chet says. “The garage in question is a very busy one. The kind that has drivers filtering in and out at all hours, even late at night when Rouge departs Aces. By the time she arrives at the garage, she is in disguise, and the car she selects to drive herself home will have tinted windows.”
“There won’t be any security cameras in the parking garage either,” Bianca says. “And I’ve already told you my sister doesn’t have a driver’s license. If she owns a home, it’s likely under an assumed name, like the one I used to book the hotel.”
Chet begins to hum.
“Will you stop that?” I ask. “If the home is owned under a pseudonym, then the public records would be of no use to us.”
“And I doubt she’s registered to vote.” Bianca paces the room.
Chet hums louder. The tune is familiar, and grating.
“Shut the fuck up!” I yell at him.
Bianca widens her eyes. “Wait. He’s humming the birthday song. Rouge’s birthday!”
“What about it?” Vanya asks.
“Her birthday. No one knows it except me. That’s why she uses it as the code to the employee entrance. No one would guess it because she’s wiped it off all official documentation. It’s the tenth of June.”
“A Gemini…” Chet mumbles.
I roll my eyes at Chet’s utterance. “Like that matters.”
Bianca holds up a hand. “You never know. My sister loves a game.” She pulls out her phone. “Zero-six-one-zero. What if that’s a zip code?”
“Zip codes have five numbers, though.”
“Right. But we know that all zip codes in Illinois begin with a six,” she continues. “So what if I search six-oh-six-one-oh?”
“Why not?” Vanya says.
She pulls up her map app and punches in the code. “That particular zip code covers most of the Gold Coast Historic District. Definitely a place I could see my sister laying down her roots. Very ritzy, very self-contained. Low crime rate.”
“Besides her own,” I add.
“Fair point.” Bianca scratches her arm. “But I’m not sure where to go from here. A zip code is a pretty broad area.”
“Wait!” I grab my own phone out of my pocket. “Rouge does have a pseudonym we know of. The fake name she uses as the CEO for Shinzo Life Center, the place that distributes the organs she harvests. Romeo Sturgeon. It’s an anagram of her name. What if we search within that zip code for that name?”
Bianca widens her eyes. “You do the honors.”
I pull up the White Pages website and search for “Romeo Sturgeon” within the 60610 zip code. “Oh my God. I think we found her.”
“Really?” Bianca asks.
“Yeah.” I read the text on the phone. “Ten East Burton Place, apartment six hundred ten.”
“Her birthday again!” Bianca throws her arms around me. “It has to be her!”
I plug the address into my GPS. “Looks like it’s about a half-hour drive from here. Let’s fucking roll.”
