“But Rougey⁠—”

  She snaps my Barbie’s head right off.

  I gasp and start to cry. “Mommy! Rougey broke my⁠—”

  But Rouge is behind me in a flash, covering my mouth. “Mommy isn’t here right now, Bianca. And our nanny is on the other side of the mansion. Neither of them can hear you. So crying isn’t going to do you any good.” She uncovers my mouth.

  I wipe my eyes and sniff a few times. “Why did you break my Barbie?”

  She grins. “Because you’re so much more than Barbie. You’re Bianca.”

  I get up and grab a tissue to blow my nose and wipe the rest of my tears away. “Then what kind of games should I play? What are the grown-up games?”

  She extends her hand. “Come with me down to the basement. I’ll show you.”

  I get to my feet and follow Rougey, but as I do my left eyebrow twitches.

  That’s weird. I’ve never felt that before.

  Mommy sometimes has a twitch like that in her eyebrow. I asked her about it once. She said she just had too much coffee that day, but she looked a little scared when she told me.

  She then got a phone call and learned that Daddy had been in a car accident. He was in the hospital, so she scooped me up and took me along. I never got to ask about her twitch again.

  My eyebrow twitches a second time.

  It’s probably nothing.

  I’ll ignore it.

  10

  HARRISON

  I knock on the door to Alissa’s room. Just as I thought, there was a small electric piano in the kids’ music room, which I promptly unplugged and dragged back up to my ward. It’s lightweight, so I didn’t need any help.

  “Come in,” Bianca says.

  I open the door and enter. Bianca is seated at the side of Alissa’s bed, right where I left her. She has a distant look in her eyes, but when she sees me she smiles.

  “You found a piano!”

  I take the piano to the other side of the bed and set it up on its flimsy stand. “It’s not exactly a Steinway, but it should help you decipher the code in the music box.” I plug it in and the keyboard lights up.

  Alissa plays a few notes, her lips twisting at the tinny sound that comes out. “Not much, but you’re right. It’ll do. Can you hand me the music box?”

  Bianca hands it to her, along with a piece of scratch paper and a pen.

  She winds up the key and listens through the tune once more. She jots some notes down. She listens to it a few more times, each time writing a few more notes down. After five listens total, she shows us what she’s written, her lips pursed.

  She sighs. “I’m afraid it’s nonsense. Maybe it’s just a broken music box. The cylinder is off-kilter or something.”

  “Hold up,” I say. “That first word could be ‘ace,’ couldn’t it? Maybe it’s referring to me?”

  “I don’t think so,” Alissa says. “The word ‘ace’ can be easily written in regular notation, since E is a musical note. It would be more obvious.”

  I rub at my forehead. “Right. And this music box was in my car before I dressed as the Ace of Clubs, anyway. So it can’t be referring to that.”

  “How are you sure some of the wrong notes are connected?” Bianca asks. “I see you put hyphens between some of them.”

  “There is a measure of correct music between each set of wrong notes,” Alissa says. “If it is indeed a message—which, based on this, seems like a lost cause—it denotes three separate words.”

  I stroke my chin. “Okay, but that composer you like. Shosta-heiney.”

  Alissa chuckles. “Shostakovich.”

  “You said he used the German system to spell out his initials, right? The notes he uses in that code are D, S, C, and H. But S and H aren’t notes on the musical scale.”

  “Not in our system, no.” She strokes her chin. “In the German system, the note we call B is H, and the note we call E-flat is Es, because the flat is an S in German instead of the little symbol we have that resembles a lower-case B.”

  “Okay, so what if the first four notes at the beginning of the tune, the ones that indicate the Shosta-whatsit motif, mean that we’re supposed to use that system?”

  “Worth a try,” Alissa says. She rewrites the notes again, this time replacing the B’s with H’s and the E-flat with an S.

  She shakes her head. “Still nothing.”

  Bianca wrinkles her nose. “Well, he had the word ‘head’ followed by ‘HS.’”

  “Head… High School?” I suggest. “Like a principal?”

  “Still doesn’t explain what on earth the first few words could mean.” Alissa bites her lip. “And does a high-school principal have anything to do with what we’re doing? Have you met anybody who matches that description?”

  “No.” I pace a few steps. “Damn it. Maybe this is a dead end.”

  “Hold on.” Bianca touches her finger to her eyebrow. “I think we’re on to something. We just have to think harder.” She closes her eyes. “Whoever planted this in your trunk probably thought we were close to figuring out what Rouge is up to.”

  I nod. “The cooler of hearts.” Then a lightbulb. “Wait! The last word. Could it be ‘hearts?’”

  Alissa widens her eyes. “Oh my God. The tenth symphony. How could I be so stupid?”

  “What about the tenth symphony?” I ask.

  “It’s the same symphony that Shostakovich uses his DSCH motif in. There’s another musical code in the third movement. A code honoring a fellow composer, Elmira Nazirova, with whom he had a lifelong friendship. He likely had a romantic interest in her. The theme he wrote around her name and the DSCH motif tangle with each other throughout the movement.”

  Bianca blinks. “But that name can’t be spelled out with musical notes, either.”

  “Precisely. Shostakovich combined German and Italian notation to write her name out. The notes as we know them spell out E-A-E-D-A. But the Italians don’t use letters for notes. They use the solfège syllables, like in The Sound of Music.” She sings the scale. “Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do. C is Do, D is Re, and so on. Combining the Italian and German notation, the musical theme spells out E-La-Mi-Re-A, which is much closer to Elmira’s name.”

  “And this woman has to do with our code because…?” I ask.

  “Because we can replace the D and the second H—formerly a B—in the last word of the puzzle with an R for Re and a T for Ti, spelling out the word ‘hearts.’” She erases the letters and presents us with the newest version of our code.

  “All right!” Bianca says. “We have the last word.”

  “I think we do,” Alissa says. “Unfortunately, the first two words are still nonsense, I’m afraid.”

  I pace the room. “Do you think this was trying to tell us about the hearts we were going to find? An extra push in the right direction? If so, it’s a little late. We already found them on our own.”

  Bianca sighs. “That could be the case… But it still doesn’t explain the first few words. I don’t see how they could be twisted around to say something like ‘find the hearts in the ladies’ restroom.’”

  I scratch at the side of my head and glance back toward Alissa. “But you mentioned that there were a few other bits of the tune in the music box that were wonky. But they weren’t wrong notes.”

  Alissa raises her eyebrows. “Right. I was so hyper focused on listening for the wrong notes, I forgot about the other elements.” She winds the teapot once more and listens through. “Okay, right. The first thing that’s off is the extra beat of nothing, even before the first wrong note is played. There’s an awkward one-beat pause that throws off the waltz rhythm.”

  “And there was something else,” I say. “A note that was too long.”

  “Right. A four-beat note in waltz time. Shouldn’t be possible. A whole note. And that occurs before the F.” She erases her notes and then writes everything down, including a few new symbols I recognize as the quarter rest and the whole note in music notation. “This… This might be something.”

  “The…Zac of Hearts?” I wrinkle my nose.

  “That can’t be it,” Alissa says. “The quarter rest looks more like a J than a Z to me.”

  Bianca’s jaw drops. “The Jack of Hearts.”

  11

  BIANCA

  Three bucks, two bags, one me.

  The girl whose dreams were too big for her has landed back in Chicago. She took the job her big sister dangled under her nose right after she hit rock bottom in her attempt to climb to the top. A leading role in a Broadway show was in her grasp, and then she put her own body on the line to clinch the contract.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  So here I am, tail between my legs, officially giving up. Falling back on my family’s wealth and businesses in the Windy City.

  It feels particularly windy today. There’s a bite in the air as chilly gusts burst from Lake Michigan. It’s early summer, but dark clouds hang in the air blocking the sun, so the air is unusually icy for June.

  Perfect weather for a girl to hang up her dreams and call it a freaking day.

  It’s my first night working at Rouge’s club, Aces Underground. I follow her directions to the letter, to the alleyway off Randolph and State, to the discreet black door adorned with the four playing-card symbols, and into the foyer where I’m greeted by fur-lined couches and the strangest-looking man I’ve ever met in my life.

  His snow-white eyebrows rise as I walk in. “Miss Bianca. We’ve been expecting you.”

  “H-Hi.” I cross my arms, running my hands up and down them. “Yes. I’m the new singer. And you are?”

  “Chester Tabbitt, Miss Bianca. But you can call me Chet.”

  “And you’re…what? The bouncer?”

  He grins. “Something like that. I’m new to this post myself. Still learning the ropes.” He checks the watch on his wrist. It’s misshapen like the clocks in that Salvator Dalí painting. “We have fifteen minutes before opening. Come. I’ll show you around.”

  Chet takes out a ring of keys and opens another door that leads to a staircase lined with mirrors. For a second I’m concerned that my sister has sold me into sex slavery—it wouldn’t be the worst thing she’s done to me—but then Chet flicks on a light switch, illuminating the way down.

  He gestures to an emerald door at the bottom of the stairs. “This is the Green Door.”

  “Thank you. I was able to tell that for myself, actually.”

  His eyelids twitch. “I see you’re a regular comedienne, Miss Bianca.” He runs his yellowed fingernails up and down the wood of the door. “There are many entrances to and from Aces Underground. This one is Green. Another is Red. Find the third and you’re already dead.” He lets out a wheezy laugh.

  What the fuck?

  He opens the door and leads me into the main area of Aces. It’s gorgeous. Different colors illuminate each section—one for Spades, Diamonds, Clubs, and my domain, Hearts. The floor is a checkerboard floor in black and white. The waitstaff dart about, making preparations for the evening. The women are in bikinis and the men are shirtless with tight shorts. Both uniforms, if you can call them that, are speckled with the symbols of their respective section.

  “And this, Miss Bianca, is your stage,” Chet says, gesturing to a glittering pink stage in the center of the Hearts section. There’s a standing mic right at the center and a pink baby grand to the side along with chairs for the other musicians.

  I’ve practiced with them already. They’re nice guys. Rouge booked us space at the Fine Arts Building downtown. I’m not sure why we couldn’t practice here, but then again, I’ve never been able to wrap my head around my sister’s mind.

  “Your dressing room is through that pink door,” Chet says, pointing. “There’s a private bathroom, as well as a bed.”

  I cock my head. “A bed? Why on earth would I need a bed in my dressing room?”

  Chet’s eyes shine. “In case you’d like to…lie down, I suppose.” He lets out that wheezy laugh again before turning his gaze back to me. “I’ll leave you to it. Your sister will be starting out at one of her other clubs this evening, but she assured me you will be exquisite.”

  “I’m sure I will be.” I extend my hand toward Chet. “Thank you, Chet.”

  He stares at my hand a minute and then wraps his long fingers around my thumb—only my thumb—before scampering back through the door to the mirrored staircase.

  What a weird little fucker.

  Not so little. He’s at least six-seven.

  Certainly not a guy I’d want taking care of my kids, if I had any.

  I have a book of sheet music for the band, which I told them I’d lay out on their music stands before they got here. I guess I’ll do that now. I open my notebook, and⁠—

  Shit!

  The rings popped open. Looseleaf paper flies everywhere. I get down on my knees to gather the music as best as I can, but it’s strewn all over the dance floor. I look up just as one of the waiters approaches. He’s wearing the same outfit as the other men—tiny shorts and a bare chest. On the black shorts are little hearts, and on his right shoulder is the letter J.

  I grin. “The Jack of Hearts, I presume?”

  He nods, his eyes bright.

  I extend a hand. “I’m Bianca. The new singer.”

  Again he nods as he shakes my hand.

  I narrow my eyes. “Are you not supposed to speak?”

  He shakes his head, pantomiming locking a key against the corner of his mouth.

  “Why?”

  He shrugs.

  “Well… Nice to meet you.”

  The more I get to know this club’s culture, the less I like. Chet’s a freaking weirdo, and now the waitstaff can’t speak.

  The pianist might have mentioned that when we rehearsed the other day, come to think of it. I wasn’t listening much. I think my musicians aren’t allowed to speak either. Maybe that’s why we had to rehearse offsite.

  Jack—I guess that’s what I’m supposed to call him—kneels and helps me collect the rest of the sheet music. He points to the title of one of the pieces—“I Put a Spell on You”—and pats his heart.

  “You like that one? I’d only ever heard of it because of Bette Midler singing it in Hocus Pocus.”

  He drops his jaw into an open-mouthed smile and pats at his heart again.

  “You like that movie?”

  He nods vigorously.

  “Well, maybe we can hang out sometime. Have a movie night.” I smirk. “I realize it’s June, but you don’t need to wait until October to watch Hocus Pocus. Or we can watch something else. I don’t have any local friends. Maybe tonight?”

  He nods again.

  “Perfect.” I rip off a corner from one of the pieces of sheet music and jot down my address. “This is my apartment. It’s not too far from here. Walkable.”

  He frowns for a moment, but then takes the paper and gives me a thumbs-up.

  It’s a date.

  Well, that wasn’t a complete disaster. I sang through my set half a dozen times this evening, and I received a warm ovation from the Aces patrons. My voice is tired, but I’ll steam when I get home tonight.

  Except I invited Jack over. Right.

  He seems nice enough. Hopefully he isn’t a complete weirdo. I probably should have determined that before inviting him to my place.

  I’m walking out, purposefully avoiding eye contact with Chet, when Jack waylays me in the alleyway. He’s changed into a tight T-shirt and a pair of athletic shorts.

  “How’d you get here? Were you behind me?”

  He shakes his head. “Waitstaff entrance. Around the corner.”

  He speaks with a heavy accent. Russian, I think. Makes sense. Rouge told me a lot of the Aces waitstaff are immigrants from Eastern Europe or South Asia.

  “Okay.”

  He cocks his head. “I can still come? Movie night?”

  I smile. “Of course, Jack. Or… I suppose that isn’t your real name.”

  He shrugs. “Jack is fine.”

  On our walk, I get to know Jack a little better. He is indeed from Russia and has worked at Aces for a few months. He started toward the end of March, and so far he likes it, says that the tips are great. He’s gay, which is a relief. I’m not exactly hurting to get hit on anytime soon after the fiasco that was my Reflections callback. He came from a poor village in rural Russia, so he’s excited to live in a country where his sexual orientation will be more accepted, where he can live the American Dream.

  I don’t have the heart to tell him I tried to take my slice of the American Dream for the better part of a decade in New York City and failed miserably. Maybe things will work out better for him.

  We get back to my apartment. Unfortunately, I don’t have a copy of Hocus Pocus on DVD, and I can’t seem to find it on the few streaming channels I subscribe to. We finally settle on watching The Devil Wears Prada. Jack’s English is limited, so I’m not sure how much he’s getting out of it. We spend most of the film chatting, anyway.

  “Meryl Streep. I love,” he says.

  “Yes, she’s great.” I lean back on the couch. “So tell me, Jack. What are your hobbies?”

  “Hobbies?” he asks. It must be a new word for him.

  “Sorry. What do you like to do for fun?”

  “Fun? Oh, yes. I love to bake.”

  “Oh really? What do you bake?”

  “Lots. Cakes and cookies. Pirozhki, vatrushka.”

  “What are those?”

  “Very tasty. I make for you.”

  “That’s very kind.” I smile. I like Jack a lot. It’s nice to have a friend. “Do you have a specialty? Something you make that is the best?”

  “Oh, yes. Cherry tart.” He rubs his belly. “Delicious.”

  “Really? You know, that’s one of Rouge’s favorites.”

  He widens his eyes. “Rouge likes cherry tart? Perhaps I make for her?”

  I laugh at that. “I’m sure she’d appreciate the offer, but I doubt Rouge would ever eat anything she didn’t make herself.”