They got out of the car at a club just short of being ritzy. The second her feet touched the hot tarmac, Gillian sensed it again, but stronger this time—someone was watching her.

She scanned her surroundings surreptitiously and unobtrusively as she followed her unofficial partner. Again she found nothing and, with a shrug, entered the club's silent darkness a step behind Colt.

Odd how empty places like that felt when the party ended and there was nobody left. It was a quiet all of its own, as if the building slumbered, waiting for night to come. The cool surreal atmosphere like a museum or mausoleum.

A shiver slithered down her spine, her senses locating the scent trails of blood, spilled alcohol, urine, feces, old smoke, new death, and the clingy tendrils of something horrible.

Nothing prepared her for what awaited inside, and neither had Colt been warned, it seemed, and they froze as if they had walked into an invisible wall. Blood painted every surface, and bodies littered the floor like a grotesque scene from a horror movie.

The overpowering smell, sweet and familiar, yet horrid and repulsive. She almost gagged, repulsed by so much death, fear, and such hatred, but malice and arrogance also tainted the air, and her forehead creased.

Strong emotions left a visible afterglow because they changed the body's chemical makeup. Even after someone left a room, such an impression lingered for a while, but bodies retained that final reaction for hours until the chemicals broke down. Positive emotions were bright oranges, yellows, whites, and negative ones were dark purples, deep browns, and grays. Violent emotions leaned more toward reds and blacks.

"What in heaven's name?" Colt muttered, touching the tiny cross around her neck.

She counted twelve bodies on the ground, tables, and stools beside the bar, riddled with bullets from what could only be an automatic gun.

There were many more blood trails and red body marks than bodies, leading her to conclude that those belonged to the wounded.

Gillian marveled that anyone could have escaped with their lives.

The signs were easy to read; single shooter, not very tall, pissed off, and deadly. He did not randomly fire into the crowd, aiming and firing purposefully and without remorse. He intended to kill as many people as possible, not just wound a few.

***

"Hi Boss, what we got?′ Colt asked, and Boss nodded almost sternly, looking even more ragged. This was not the type of case that one wanted dumped on your doorstep. He glanced at Gillian's plain clothes and raised a brow.

"It's her day off, and I didn't want to fetch her uniform at the precinct," Colt explained, and Boss nodded.

These very public messes ended the careers of good men if the pressure from above kept bearing down and the answers came too slow.

When she was still at home, Tom, one of her bodyguards, always told her—beyond earshot of her family—that "shit rolls downhill, Darling. Someone has to take responsibility, and blame doesn't care for righteousness or justice."

"Teenager walked in wearing a hoodie, black jeans, black loafers, and a mask. He screamed some shit about assholes and started shooting into the crowd, killing twelve and injuring twenty. The little shit strolled out the door, got on a scrambler, and took off." He stood more upright, rolling his shoulders, straitening his back, and stretching his arms. "Cruise is following him on the traffic cams; maybe we'll get lucky."

"How do we know it's a teenager?" Colt asked, and Boss grew still.

"Voice, movements, gestures... speculation—" He concluded, and Colt glared at him. "You two get to go speak to the survivors. Get them before they forget something vital," Boss ordered, and they both nodded.

Gillian had to admit, he was kind of handsome when he was this stern. Gemma, one of her few friends, would have gone for him like a bee to honey. No one resisted Gemma, but he would not be blinded by her charms or long-legged body.

Her small fond smile disappeared; there were too many memories of home lately. They hurt, and she had no time for her own dramas now.

Outside, she expected that familiar sense of being watched, but nothing happened. She squinted against the overbright glare; maybe it was just her imagination.

It seemed wrong that the sun should shine so brilliantly after the darkness and clinging death inside the club. The interior now seemed stuck out of time or caught in a moment.

***

Gillian hated hospitals—they reminded her more than any other place in the world of just how fragile and temporary humans were.

The touch of death seemed to linger in the sterile hallways, waiting, biding time, and knowing life would end.

Boss had left the survivors with well-trained people who allowed family and friends but firmly kept the media out of bounds.

They were isolated from each other without interfering with whatever care they needed. Except for trauma counseling, not even the families could discuss the events until the interviews were concluded.

It would be hard to explain to these people that details changed with every moment spent rethinking, talking, and retelling, and some things got lost. They had to take these statements as quickly as possible before memory played its tricks.

Vampires had no such luxury, their memories were entirely photographic. Every moment caught in perfect, spatial, seven-dimensional, sight and sound enhanced, blue-ray, super HD, nowhere to hide and no way to forget perfection.

It was true only for natural vampires, and the elders called it the "curse of the true blood."

"You start on that side; I'll start on this side," Colt said, taking her by surprise by leaving her unsupervised while dealing with trauma victims.

***

It became a very long day as they interviewed the witnesses able to talk. Took statements from the staff. Reviewed the first response teams' records. Listened to the tapes of the incident as calls were made to the emergency lines by hysterical people pleading for help.

Some begged for their lives, and more than one died as they spoke to the operators. Finally, they got around to checking the security footage, and it was past midnight before Colt decisively and firmly called it a day.

"Do you want a proper coffee before I take you home?" Colt asked, but she didn't get a chance to answer as another deputy reached them, out of breath.

"Senior Detective Colt? Senior Detective Boss told me to tell you they found the boy's bike. An arrest was made, and the young man is downtown, but he wasn't the shooter. He does not match the perpetrator's description, even though he has no alibi. He claims innocence and that his bike was stolen. Boss thinks he knows something and wants to know what it is."

"In other words, we're not going home yet," Colt said with a sigh.

"No, mam," he flipped through his notes. "The bike's starter had not been tampered with, but the boy had a set of worn keys on him when he got arrested. Although scratched on some rough surface, the key in the ignition was brand new, with no key ring, dirt, fingerprints, or signs of metal fatigue." He wasn't as out of breath anymore.

"No locksmith in the city recognized the photo of Martin, except in the neighborhood where he lives, and only because the guy knows the mother. According to him, she worked at 'the big house up the hill,' but they had their keys made by that 'fancy place uptown.' The guy wasn't happy and scoffed as if it was some personal offense that the rich people didn't trust him with cutting their keys."

"Did you conduct this interview yourself?" Colt asked, and he nodded, putting his notepad away.

"Thank you, Officer," Colt said, and he nodded, going straight for the water fountain. "Let's get to the station, Beaumont."

***

After five hours of blatant badgering and threats, Martin broke. When he voiced his suspicions, seeing no way to save either himself or his mother's job, most of the people in the room wished that what he said could be unsaid. Unheard. Forgotten out of existence.

Martin's suspicion came with fear, and it was not unfounded. Every cop in that room felt the cold chill caused by the implications of his words. If they ignored it, they would lose their jobs, and if they didn't, they would lose a lot more.

"A week ago, Jacob Phelps borrowed my bike to do a couple of errands. He was decent to me for the first time in the twelve years my mother has been the Phelps' housekeeper, making me uneasy. He even paid me two hundred dollars if I didn't tell his parents because they grounded him and denied his car privileges, pending an incident with his father's Porche." He stopped speaking, a frown tugging at his brows, his hands shaking, and his heart beating slowly and steadily.

"Afterwards, he was his usual rude self. We argued, and I told him he was a rich, stuck-up little bastard. If my mom wasn't the best housekeeper Mrs. Phelps had ever hired, she would have been fired. Instead, they banned me from the house and the grounds." Sadness pulled at his lips, and he sat with his head down, his eyes nailed to the table, and his jaw tight.

"Jacob waited until I was almost out the gate before he yelled, 'You will live to regret this, Border Crawler!' He actually spat on the ground. It took every ounce of my willpower to walk away without attacking the arrogant pissant and leave him in a bloody mess." Red spots blotched his chiseled cheeks, and resentment burned in his dark gaze.

"Thank you, Martin," we shall verify that, Colt said. "Get him a juice and a burger," she ordered one of the other officers.

"What do you think of his story?" Colt asked as they walked down the corridor.

"He spoke the truth."

"I agree with you, but it will be hard to prove." She rubbed her neck and sighed heavily, carrying her shoulders low.

***

Interviews with friends and family, neighbors, and teachers brought Gillian to the conclusion that Martin Menendez was a good boy with a great mother. Unfortunately, the description of Jacob matched their assailant.

Voice analysis turned out to be a seventy percent match, and the 'fancy' key maker admitted he cut a new key for Jacob. A so-called generous gift to his 'friend' to replace the old worn pair.

Jacob Phelps was the son of a powerful man. The Senator, not a Senator but 'The.' The man who would, in just a few short weeks, be the second most powerful man in the country. Not the most powerful because he was too smart for that, and he didn't mind saying it.

Everyone also knew why. His motto was, "Power is best dealt from the bottom of the deck." The most powerful man would always be the first to fall, and he would take the blame for public sentiment, while a less visible target had more leeway. It was the secret but not a secret basis of his entire campaign.