No, no, no, no . . .

As Erika elbowed her way through a moving forest of half-dressed, fully drunken clubgoers, she was pissed off and on edge. Ahead of her, the bouncer who was leading the way parted most of the sea, but there were stragglers who got in her way—and she had to resist shoving them off. And then there were the lasers. And the buzzy music. It was like being in a hurricane, everything blasting her in the face, too much between her and where she needed to be.

Fortunately, the trek didn’t last forever. Even if it felt like a year and a half.

In the far corner of the club, outside a hallway that was the only thing properly lit anywhere, two plainclothes officers were arguing with a guy who had slicked his hair back with what had to be shellac and was wearing black jeans that had been surgically mounted onto his skinny legs. A minor kibitzing circle of partiers were playing peanut gallery, but most of the clientele were doing their thing at the bar, on the dance floor.

“. . . you can’t make me,” Mr. Smooth was saying to the officer. “You can’t tell me I have to shut down—”

Erika pushed past the argument and went to where a uni was standing outside the women’s bathroom.

“Ma’am,” he said as he opened the door for her. Then he flushed. “Sorry—I mean, Detective.”

Whatever, she had other things to worry about.

Jesus. The smell of the fresh blood was so thick that it overrode the vape stain in the air, and as she slipped on a pair of booties, the copper tang blooming in the back of her throat made her think about throwing up.

Stepping into the women’s facilities, she snapped on her nitrile gloves and looked around. Everything was either stainless steel or tile and she was willing to bet that the place got hosed down with a bleach wash at the end of every night. There weren’t even proper mirrors, but panels of polished metal, like the bathroom was in a public park. Blowers, not paper towels. No trash cans, which explained the condom wrappers, wads of tissue, and questionable flecks and specks all over the floor.

The stalls were on the right, four of them. On the other side of things, two sinks and more than enough counter space to have sex on.

The pool of blood was coming out from under where the last toilet was.

As she approached the stainless steel door, she watched from a distance as her hand went forward and pushed the panel wide—

“Shit,” she breathed.

Another heterosexual couple: The man was seated on the toilet with his pants around his knees, his shirtless torso sprawling back into the corner created by the tiled wall. The woman was straddling him face-to-face, short skirt up around her hips, the line of a thong that had no doubt been pushed aside barely visible between her buttocks area. Her remains were listing to the opposite side, her forehead on the partition that separated the stall from its next-door neighbor.

The blood loss for both was extensive, the red wash traveling down all sides of the toilet base, the pools joining and rivering toward the drain out in the center of the bathroom’s floor.

In the center of the man’s chest . . . a ragged wound that flashed white ribs in the midst of the red muscle and the now-graying skin.

Given the blood puddle under the woman’s torso? She’d been done like that, too.

Erika shook her head as she turned away and strode back out into the hallway. Marching up to the club’s manager and the plainclothes cops, she looked at Mr. Smooth.

“Close the music down right now, and no one leaves the premises.”

The guy threw his hands up. “We have another set of bathrooms! We’ll block this off—”

“This whole club is now a crime scene. You’re no longer in charge.”

He pointed over her shoulder. “There’s a fire exit right down there. If you need to take the bodies out, you can just—”

“Two people were murdered in that bathroom,” she snapped. “So the whole club and everyone in it has to be processed. Turn the lights on, and let us get to work.”

“Wait, you’re taking the staff ’s names?”

“I’m taking everyone’s name.”

Mr. Smooth crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. “You are going to put us out of business, lady—”

“I also need your security feeds—inside and out. And don’t tell me you don’t have them.”

“I’m not giving you shit!”

Erika got up in the guy’s face and lowered her voice. “Two people just died in your business or your boss’s business, whichever this is. Two human beings. And someone in here did it. So you’re no longer calling the shots. We can do this nicely, or we can put you in handcuffs and you can enjoy paying a lawyer to defend you against the obstruction of justice charge that’s heading your way.”

Mr. Smooth deflated faster than she anticipated. “He’s going to fire me. I’m going to get fucking fired for this.”

“I can’t help you with that, but you can help us. By doing the right thing, right now.”

There was a pause, and then the guy glanced over his shoulder. “Tibby, shut it down.”

Erika turned around—and ran right into Deiondre Delorean’s big chest.

“Nicely handled, Detective,” the special agent murmured.

“Those charm school lessons haven’t completely worn off.”

The lights came on all at once, some kind of breaker thrown, and as the music was cut off as well, it was as if the illumination had chased the beats away. Naturally, the response from the crowd was immediate and drunkenly disgruntled.

Disdrunkled, Erika thought absently.

Corralling this bunch of intoxicated potential witnesses into any semblance of order was going to be fun, and like he read her mind, Delorean got on the phone to call in more agents. With the crime scene unit already dialed, Erika went back into the bathroom—and stared at the closed door of the stall. The congealing blood on the tile. The smudge of the man’s heel edge as he’d swept his leg from side to side, likely from pain, fear.

She also stared at everything that was not there.

No bloody footsteps on the flooring outside the stall. Or on the way to the exit.

No blood drops anywhere except inside the stall.

Erika pushed the metal panel open again. Plenty of blood underneath the bodies, but except for some flailing of the victims’ hands, nothing on the walls.

How in the hell did someone take out two hearts from two people in a public place and then leave without a trail or anybody noticing?

Maybe the club’s patrons could answer some of that, but she worried she was going to get more dead ends than leads.

As her phone went off, she answered it on a reflex, snapping the thing out of her jacket pocket to her ear. “Saunders—”

“Check your email.”

She rolled her eyes. “You could have just put your head in here, Delorean.”

“I’m on my way out of the club. HQ’s called me in, but I’ve got another four agents coming in to back you up. Check your email.”

The connection got cut, and she muttered as she called up her work account. She was still talking to herself as she opened what the special agent had sent. Talk about short and sweet. The email had an attachment . . . a video file . . . and Delorean had typed out three words without punctuation: “taken last night.”