Hearts: Aces Underground Four, page 2
I gag, but nothing comes out.
What’s inside this cooler… It explains everything. It connects all the disappearances from Rouge’s clubs, the payments she’s received in red diamonds, the cruel deaths and dismemberments of her employees.
“Babe?” Harrison calls. “What’s in it? What’s in the cooler?”
I open my mouth to answer, but the words catch.
I can’t answer.
Because once I tell Harrison what I just found, we won’t be able to turn back.
And this… What’s inside this cooler…
It’s a hand not even the Ace of Clubs will be able to trump.
1
BIANCA
Hearts.
Inside the cooler are hearts.
As in the organ.
The human organ.
Three human hearts lie inside.
“Bianca?” Harrison calls again from the restroom. “What is it?”
The words escape me again.
My mouth isn’t functioning, but my brain is. The puzzle pieces are coming together.
God, I’m going to be sick.
The people who disappear from Aces are being killed. Their organs are harvested, sold on the black market to people wanting to delay their inevitable deaths, even for just a few years.
After their corpses have been disemboweled, their heads are removed, buried in a separate location, to keep people from identifying them. There isn’t anything valuable in the head anyway. You can’t transplant a brain.
Rouge sits on the board of Harrison’s hospital. That’s her in. She must sell the organs to St. Charles. They pay her in the red diamonds Alissa and Maddox found in her safe. No need to launder money when it’s in the form of precious stones.
But organs can’t last that long before they’re transplanted. I don’t know the exact science, but it can’t be more than a few hours.
Which means…
My blood runs cold.
These hearts were harvested recently.
And someone will come to collect them soon.
We have to get out of here.
A pound on the door again. The muffled voice of the female patron waiting outside rings all the way into this crawlspace. “Hello? Are you almost done cleaning up?”
No time to think.
I can’t take these hearts with me. They’re evidence. Stone-cold evidence of my sister’s wrongdoing. If I take them, Rouge will find out. She’ll see security footage of Harrison and me entering the ladies’ restroom. It won’t be hard to put two and two together after that.
She’s my sister, but I’m sure she’d have no trouble finding a new home for my hearts, lungs, and eyes. The thought nauseates me.
The woman at the door pounds again. “I swear to God, let me in now!”
I close the cooler, place it back under the folding table, and exit the crawlspace. I pull the flush lever up again to close the opening.
Harrison’s eyes are wide. “Babe, what was in there?”
I swallow, take a shaky breath in. “No time now. We just need to get out of here.”
He grabs my shoulders. “What is it? Are you in danger?”
I shake my head. “I’ll be fine. But you need to get the hell out of here. Now.” I depress the club-shaped button on the wall that opens the wall up to the staircase of the waitstaff entrance. “I’ll meet you back at your place.”
“But we took your car here,” he says.
“Take a cab home. I’ll cover the fare. Just go.”
“I’m not worried about the fare,” he replies. “What the hell was in there?”
“There’s no time.” I check my watch. “My next set is up soon. If I’m late, Rouge will know that I found out what’s in the crawlspace.”
“And what exactly is in the crawlspace?”
I shake my head. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” I grab his shoulders, lead him to the staircase, and press the button again to close the secret door in the wall.
Harrison turns around to defy me again, but the walls close over his stunned face before he can get another word out.
I turn and move the chaise out of the door’s way, finally opening the door to reveal the identity of the female patron.
“Mrs. Roth.” I bow my head.
She drops her jaw. “Bianca! I thought you were the custodian.”
Right. I said I was Hilda. We don’t employ anyone named Hilda. We don’t even have custodial staff. The cards clean up the club after it closes every night. It was just the first name that came to mind.
I blink. “Yes. Well, I was…embarrassed. My own bathroom is out of order, and I’ve been experiencing some”—I lean in—“feminine troubles this evening. And things came in a bit stronger this month than usual.”
Mrs. Roth grimaces. “My God, Bianca. Be a little more discreet.”
“Apologies.” I cross my arms. “I didn’t want anyone else to come in, so I blocked the door. I didn’t think I’d be in here as long as I was. I’m so sorry for keeping you, ma’am.”
Mrs. Roth rolls her eyes and huffs past me into a stall. I breathe a sigh of relief. She didn’t choose the one that leads to the secret crawlspace.
I leave the bathroom and make a beeline toward my dressing room. When I get there, I finally allow the weight of my discovery to fall on me, if only for a moment. The tears starts flowing, and I scream into a lacey makeup towel while trying not to lose whatever is left in my stomach.
I allow myself three minutes.
That’s all the time I have.
When you’re an actress, you learn to leave your personal life at the door when you walk on the stage for a performance.
Even the discovery of the cooler of hearts, as horrific as it is, can be compartmentalized. It has to be. I have no choice.
I take a deep breath in. Another. A third.
Harrison is safe. Rouge didn’t find him in the club tonight.
If she had…
God, I can’t think about his heart sitting in that cooler.
He’s okay.
That’s what matters right now.
Everything else can wait.
I wipe my eyes, retouch my makeup where it’s been blurred by my tears.
I swallow down the feelings and exit my dressing room, head to the stage.
Showtime.
2
HARRISON
What the fuck was in that crawlspace?
Bianca wanted me out of here as quickly as possible.
I lean against the red door that leads to the women’s restroom. The stifled hustle and bustle of female patrons using the facilities buzzes through.
I can’t go back inside. They’d scream, and then Rouge would find me.
But I’m wearing next to nothing. I came here in a trench coat, but Bianca threw that in her dressing room once we got to Aces.
More importantly, I don’t have my phone or my wallet.
I can’t call an Uber. Can’t even pay for a cab.
All I have on me is this extremely tight, extremely small pair of black shorts.
It’s March. Mid-March.
The seventeenth of March. St. Patrick’s Day.
Happy fucking birthday to me.
It’s not too cold outside, but it’s not exactly balmy either.
We took Bianca’s car. She has a reserved spot in the Aces parking garage, and my Cadillac is a little too conspicuous for us to have brought it. I’m sure Chet and Rouge know everything about me, and they’d be able to figure out something was up if they saw my vehicle parked in Bianca’s spot.
Bianca’s face was sheet white when she emerged from the crawlspace.
Whatever she found back there has her fucking haunted. And she wanted me to get out of Aces as quickly as humanly possible.
Will she be okay?
I want nothing more than to go back through to Aces and make sure she’s all right. I can’t even text her without my phone.
Fuck fuck fuck.
But I can’t go back through the waitstaff entrance. And I certainly won’t get past Chet in the patron entrance.
That’s not what Bianca wants anyway. She clearly thinks I’m in danger if I stay here.
The best thing I can do is figure out how the hell I’m getting home and then contact her from there. We’ll regroup and she can finally tell me what exactly she found in that hidden area above the ladies’ toilets.
Now it’s time to think.
I’m nearly naked. No phone, no wallet, no keys.
What’s my next move?
I’m not too far from St. Charles. It’s a brisk walk from here.
Particularly brisk since I’m essentially in my underwear.
I open the door that leads to the alleyway off the main one we normally take into Aces. I’m barefoot, of fucking course. So I have to avoid the small stones and broken shards of glass that litter the alleyway. Once I’m on the actual streets, it’s a little smoother.
But now people are staring at me.
I pay them no mind. I keep my eyes forward and head toward the hospital.
This is Chicago. I’m not the first weirdo who’s wandered the streets in next to nothing. At least the good bits are covered up. I won’t be arrested for public indecency.
God willing no one who sees me will recognize me.
The last thing I need is this getting back to the higher-ups at the hospital. If they received word that one of their doctors was spotted wandering the city wearing nothing but a tiny pair of booty shorts, I’d be looking for another job. They’d think I was drunk or strung out.
But it doesn’t matter if someone does see me. I’d give up my whole career and all the perks that come with it to help Bianca.
Once we bring this to light, Rouge will go to prison for a long, long time. Whatever Bianca found was clearly evidence of something terrible.
I don’t take the main entrance of the hospital, of course. I’d be recognized there. It’s one thing for a guy to wander the streets in his underwear. It’s a whole other thing for him to enter a hospital.
The staff entrance in the back is more private, and a code is required to get inside. I walk over and punch in the numbers. One-eight-seven-one.
Thank God, no one is around. I steal into a medical supplies closet around the corner and throw on a set of scrubs, a medical coat, and a pair of slipper socks. There aren’t any shoes in here, but no one will be paying that much attention to my feet. I hope not, anyway.
I take the elevator to my ward and make my way to the nurses’ station, praying that Dinah is on the clock tonight. I’d hate to have to explain this night to anyone else.
She is. Another stroke of luck.
Her eyes widen as I approach. “Doctor! What are you doing here?”
I lean in, lower my voice. “Can you walk with me toward where we’re keeping our…special guests? It’s been a hell of a night.”
She blinks. “Of course.”
As we walk, I fill her in on the events of the evening. My disguise as a waitstaff member, my exploration of the club. I leave out the part where a male patron—Mr. Rose—fondled me in the middle of the Clubs section. It’s not relevant, and not a memory I’d like to revisit anyway. I tell her about how we discovered a hidden crawlspace, and how Bianca went in and then rushed me out once she discovered what was in there.
“But you didn’t learn what she saw?”
I shake my head. “All the color had drained from her face. She insisted I leave that very second. She thought I was in danger if I stayed at Aces even another moment.”
“My God.” Dinah swallows. “I can’t even imagine what could be so awful. It couldn’t be more horrifying than that poor girl’s head Alissa and Maddox found in the nature reserve out west.”
“I have no idea. Knowing Rouge Montrose, it could be worse.” I take a deep breath in. “Speaking of Maddox and Alissa, how are they doing?”
She offers a small smile. “They’re okay. Responding to the IV’s well. Maddox is still only conscious for a few minutes at a time, but all his vitals are improving. I checked on them both an hour ago, and they were both sleeping. I think it’s best not to disturb them, let them rest.”
“Agreed. I’ll swing by and check on them in the morning.”
“They’d love that,” Dinah says. “With luck, Maddox will be awake by then. He asked about you the last time he was conscious. I told him you were the one who rescued him.”
“It wasn’t just me. I had you and Bianca with me.”
“Yes, well. You drove.” She grins. “I’m guessing, since you’re without a phone and wallet, that you need me to order you an Uber home.”
“If you don’t mind. I’ll pay you back for it, I swear.”
She rolls her eyes. “Doctor, this one’s on me. You’ve had a hell of a night.”
The Uber drops me off in front of my house. Never have the words “there’s no place like home” rung so true.
I don’t have my keys, but I keep a spare in a fake rock in the garden behind the house. I walk over to my backyard, find it and open it, and enter through the back door. I quickly disable the security system. Everything is as we left it. No one’s been here.
I let out a sigh of relief as I spot my phone and wallet right where I left them on the kitchen counter. I quickly text Bianca.
Made it home safe. Let me know how you are.
She doesn’t respond immediately, but she’s probably in the middle of her set. She keeps her phone in her dressing room.
I remove the doctor’s coat and scrubs and change into a pair of sweats and a T-shirt. I sit down on my couch, turn on the TV. I’m not watching, but it’s good to have a little white noise to keep me from freaking out about Bianca’s safety.
I have a headache.
Of course I do. It’s been a hell of a night. I can’t remember the last time I drank any water.
I go to the fridge to grab a Gatorade. That’ll help replenish some electrolytes.
But I’m out. Damn.
I keep some in my trunk. We gave one to Alissa after we found her and Maddox at the Caterpillar Hotel.
I grab my keys—also untouched on the counter—and walk out to my garage, pop the trunk.
I grab a red Gatorade. That one always seems to help the most with headaches. Probably just in my head. I’m about to close the trunk when I notice something.
A colorful gift bag.
I spotted it the other night when I was in here grabbing a crowbar to break the door into Alissa’s room—her prison cell, really—at the Caterpillar Hotel. But of course I haven’t given it a second thought after everything that’s gone down.
Maybe Bianca left it for me as a birthday gift?
But she didn’t even know today was my birthday until after we found Maddox and Alissa. I’m pretty tightlipped about it anyway. It’s connected to the greenest day of the year, St. Patrick’s Day, and I can’t see anything green without thinking about the highlights in Ray Sinclair’s hair that evening at the Dimpsey house. The darkest night of my life.
Until tonight, maybe.
I pull out the gift bag. It’s on the heavy side.
I bring it back into my house and set it on the kitchen table with a thunk. I dig through the tissue paper and pull out an ornately decorated object.
I widen my eyes, set it gingerly on the table.
What the hell?
3
BIANCA
I finish my set. It wasn’t my best singing, but I’m going to forgive myself given the gruesome discovery I made not forty-five minutes ago.
Hearts.
Hearts.
Who did they belong to?
Someone who certainly didn’t consent to their organs being removed from their body.
Rouge is running an organ harvesting ring.
The patrons and servers who disappeared from Aces, from the Jade Sanctum, from Second Star and the rest of my sister’s clubs…
These are their organs.
And I bet they end up inside of Rouge’s friends. The club patrons who hold influence. Cale Calloway, the man who died on top of me a week ago, was in his late nineties. Most people that age are confined to their homes. They’re certainly not going out every weekend and bedding lots of young women. I’ll bet he’s been through a few of those hearts.
Hell, he probably died with the heart of a woman he’s fucked inside of him.
The Seven of Spades. May, her real name was. The girl whose head Alissa and Maddox found buried in that Forest Park reserve.
It could have been her heart. Calloway liked her.
Or perhaps it was Timothy Mann, the friend of Aus Waverly’s at the Jade Sanctum who went missing. Aus told us he lost everything in pursuit of a woman who didn’t love him back. And now he’s literally lost his heart.
She’s on the board of Harrison’s hospital. She could easily use that position to sell the organs she harvests to them. I’m not sure how organ donation works, but there must be a connection there.
I retreat to my dressing room and splash cold water on my face. It’ll mess up my makeup, but fuck it. I have much more to worry about right now than maintaining a perfect smoky eye.
I glance at my phone. I haven’t checked it since I went back onstage for my last set.
A text from Harrison.
Thank God. He made it home.
He left his phone there, so the fact that he’s texting means he’s okay.
And… Wait. Oh my God.
He didn’t have his phone on him when I threw him out of the ladies’ restroom. He didn’t have his wallet either. The shorts the male waitstaff wear have no pockets in them.
But he somehow made it home. Maybe he walked over to the hospital, had Dinah get him a ride home.
I unlock my phone and read the text.
Made it home safe. Let me know how you are.
A sigh of relief escapes me.
Harrison’s okay. His heart is still beating in his chest.
Same can’t be said for countless other innocents, thanks to my sister.
But he’s all right.
For now.
