Page 98 of Spades

I’m notproud of it, but Ididend up taking Three into one of the private areas that night. She was beautiful, and I was horny as all hell. I paid her well for her services, and I hope she used that money to build herself a good life. She left the club about a year after I started coming, and I never heard anything from her again.

I never knew her real name. Based on her looks alone, she was probably from Russia or Ukraine. True to Rouge’s words, she never spoke a word to me, not even when I was pumping my cock into her shaved pussy. Not a single moan. It was like fucking a photorealistic sex doll.

Of course, I wasn’t thinking about her as I emptied myself into her. I was thinking a little bit about Laurie, but I was mostly thinking of Rouge.

What was so interesting about her? She’s a beautiful woman, and the electric charge that pulsated through me when she laid her hand on my shoulder was comparable to what I felt with Laurie. Mad Maddox peeked his head out. He was the one who asked Rouge whatherrate was.

And then…

I never let myself think of what happened after that.

I can’t. It’s too much.

I never took another server to a private area again. It felt dirty.

I met a lot of women at Aces. I occasionally took one oftheminto a private area, but they were well-to-do young ladies who didn’t need my money.

Sex wasn’t the only reason I went to Aces that night. I couldn’t get those words—the ones in my father’s handwriting on the note I received after the funeral—out of my head.

Follow the writing raven through the river of tears.

I figured maybe this would refer to a painting in the club, of a raven with a quill and scroll of paper, but I explored the entirety of Aces that night after Three brought me my drink and couldn’t find anything.

I dismissed the words as the rants of a man losing his grip on reality as his political career—his very legacy—crumbled around him.

But now that we’re here, at this nature preserve next to O’Hare, I can’t help wondering if the Des Plaines River, which we’re being told to follow to find some evidence of Rouge’s wrongdoing, is the river of tears my father wrote about on that sheet of paper I received all those years ago.

I’m keeping my eyes peeled for a raven as Alissa drives her car to the parking lot in the clearing next to dam number four.

At the same time, I’m looking for a cat, too. See if there’s some other clue.

But I haven’t seen either. Not that I can see a whole lot in the black of night.

We park across from the picnic grove. There aren’t any other cars parked here at this hour. It’s nearing midnight. Alissa pops the trunk and gets out before I can open her door for her—damn it—and she grabs the spades and flashlight out of the back. I take both of the spades in my left hand and she takes the flashlight.

The picnic grove is unassuming. A few wooden tables underneath a tall shelter. Some half-deflated heart-shaped balloons are scattered around—someone must have had a birthday party here recently. There are no lamps, so we have only the glow of Alissa’s flashlight and a sliver of moonlight illuminating the area.

Alissa shines the flashlight around. “You see anything out of the ordinary?”

I rub at the back of my neck with my free hand. “Nothing so far.”

She frowns. “Thishasto be it. There’s no other way to have read that second riddle.”

I shrug. “What about the first riddle? Maybe there’s something there.” I pull out the sheet of paper that was placed in my jacket pocket back at the club. “A figure of black, with points to its rank…”

Alissa hovers over me, pointing at the third-to-last line. “Beneath flower and shrub.That’s what we’re looking for. We were told to bring our spades, so I imagine we’re supposed to dig. And we should dig in a place marked by flowers and shrubs.” She shines her flashlight around the grove. “Flowers and shrubs… Flowers and shrubs…”

“Wait.” I hold up a hand. “Look in that back corner, beyond the last picnic table.”

She shines her light in the direction I’ve indicated. A row of rose bushes, alternating in red and white, line the back of the picnic grove.

Alissa kneels and shines her light on the soil beneath the bushes. “We need to find a place that looks like it’s been freshly dug up.”

I lay the shovels down, get on my hands and knees, and crawl up and down the row of bushes. Finally, right in between a white rosebush and a red one, I spy a spot where the soil is looser and more crumbly. A few earthworms are crawling across the surface, and some roots are exposed.

“Alissa,” I call over. “I think this might be where we want to dig.”

“Sounds good,” she says. “Hand me a spade.”

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