Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 79253 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79253 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
I look around, my heart pounding into my throat. “Does Mr. Rose have any cameras in here? The footage of you jamming a pen into his eye will look pretty damning.”
He crosses his arms. “It was in self-defense.”
“But you attacked first. It’s not going to look good. I know what this man is capable of, but the rest of the world doesn’t.” I continue to scan the area. “It doesn’t look like there are any cameras, though.”
He chuckles darkly. “Of course not. He probably takes young male callers in here often. The guy at the front desk didn’t seem surprised to see me. Rose wouldn’t want any video evidence of his affairs to exist.”
I bite my lip. “I guess not.”
“That said, there is certainly footage of the two of us entering his office right before all of this, so we still need to move quickly.” He grabs my hand. “Come on.”
We open the door to the office and leave, closing it behind us.
Harrison runs up the front desk, a veil of concern atop his face. “Sir,” he says to the receptionist. “Mr. Rose got a little…spirited in our meeting. He ended up with a bad injury to his eye. You’ll want to call 911 and make sure he’s taken care of.”
The young man widens his eyes. “Oh, God. What happened?”
“I’m not at liberty to say. Client confidentiality and all that. But I’d call now if I were you. He needs immediate medical attention.”
“Right.” The receptionist pulls out a pad of paper. “And what was your name again, sir?”
I step forward. “His name is Ace.”
He scrunches his eyebrows. “Like the card?”
“Exactly. And my name is Whitney Royale. We’re guests of Mr. Rose’s. Seriously, call 911 right now. It doesn’t look pretty in there.”
“Right. Will do.” He pounds the three numbers into his phone.
Before he looks back up, Harrison and I have slipped out the revolving door onto Michigan Avenue, with nothing but the clothes—or lack thereof—on our backs.
22
HARRISON
Bianca and I made it out of the hotel safely. I wasn’t sure what our move would be from there, but she suggested we hunker down at the Harold Washington Library for a few hours. It’s huge, with several hidden corners. We slipped into a thrift store on the way and bought a sweater, skirt, and a pair of tennis shoes for Bianca.
Luckily, there’s no charge to go inside the library. We found a table behind a large display of dystopian fiction—something I feel like I’ve been living through myself—and began to collect ourselves.
I was hoping we could stop by the hospital to check on Alissa and Maddox, but if the cops figure out who I am from the security footage at the Gilded Rose, the hospital will be the first place they’ll go. Maybe I’ll get on one of the computers available here at the library, log on to Facebook, and try to message Dinah. We’re not Facebook friends, so she might not see my message immediately. She probably doesn’t have her phone on her anyway. The nurses typically keep their phones in their lockers to make sure they stay focused on the patients’ needs.
“They might think it was an accident,” Bianca says. “That’s what we told them.”
I exhale sharply. “How exactly does a man accidentally shove a fountain pen into his eye?”
“A very poorly timed fall?”
“Sure.” I rub at my forehead. “Let’s assume that could happen. Even then, we were the last two people who went into Rose’s office before it happened. The cops would want to hear our side of the story.”
“Fair enough. So it’s a race against time then.”
I nod. “We need to implicate your sister as soon as possible. Then we’ll be able to connect her to what happened in Rose’s office, and the cops will understand we were acting in self-defense.”
“Which is perfectly legal.”
“Exactly.” I sigh. “And here I thought staying in a hotel would make our day less complicated.”
She pats my hand. “We had no way of knowing.”
I shake my head. “I should have looked up who was in charge. I didn’t know Rose was Rouge’s confidante, but I did know he was a handsy little fucker. That he had some connection to Aces.”
“You’d be hard-pressed to find a place in this city without a connection to Aces,” Bianca says. “Rouge has her fingers in everything. Any hotel in town—certainly the nice ones—could harbor someone who’s in her pocket.”
“Then we should have stayed in some skeezy motel.”
She laughs. “That’s almost worse than what we went through at the Gilded Rose.”
I look at her, really look at her. After all we’ve been through, she’s still able to make a little joke. Neither of us is exactly rolling in the aisles at it, but she’s found a touch of levity in this gravely dangerous moment.
God, I love her so much.