Cole both nodded. “I’ll meet you in the Blue Room!”
Cole gave her a thumbs-up and, hand in hand with Cameron, slid through the crowd toward the dance floors. Margrit watched them go, grinning, then went the other way, jostling for a position in line at the nearest bar. The club was busier than she expected for midweek, and she cast a wry grin at the crowd. Cameron was right: she needed to get out a little more. At least once a week, she promised herself abruptly. There had to be one night a week when she could get out of work early enough to spend time with friends and in the company of sensually impersonal strangers. All work and no play led to obsessions over apparently murderous strangers in Central Park. There were less dangerous pastimes to pursue.
“Hey,” said a voice at her elbow. Margrit half turned, looking up a few inches at a dark-eyed guy with a bright smile. “You want to dance?”
“Later!” She nodded toward the bar, and he nodded in turn, stepping back. Margrit glanced over her shoulder a few minutes later as she maneuvered through the crowd, two beers and a ginger ale in hand, to find him following at a discreet distance. She grinned and ducked through a doorway.
The Blue Room was the club’s main space and its namesake. Two stories of strobes and spotlights changed the color of the air every few moments, cycling through blue every third change, to emphasize the name. Fog- machine smoke rolled through, the air dry and faintly tangy as dancers made swirls in the haze.
Cameron and Cole leaned against one another and against the metal railing of a landing halfway up to the second-floor balcony. Cam was scouting the room’s entrances, watching for Margrit, and raised a hand when they made eye contact. She lifted the bottles in response and scurried up the grate stairs, handing Cam the ginger ale. Cam accepted, teasing, “Thought you got lost.”
“Just people watching.” Margrit turned to look down into the crowd. “Somebody even asked me to dance.”
“Did you?”
“Nope, I was on a mission. Deliver drinks. He was following me a minute ago.”
“Ooh, creepy,” Cam pronounced. “Maybe he’s your stalker.”
Margrit laughed. “What happened to a healthy city paranoia? I think I just needed to get out and remember what it’s like to have fun.”
Cam chuckled and clinked her bottle against Margrit’s. Cole bonked his against the other two, nodding approvingly. “Do you mind playing drink hawk and saving our spot here while Cam wears me out? Then you can spell me down on the dance floor.”
“Sure.” Margrit collected bottles again and waved her friends down the stairs, then leaned over the railing with her bottle dangling from her fingertips and the other two safely tucked against her arm.
“Is it later enough yet?” The dark-eyed man appeared at her elbow again, smiling. Margrit laughed and shook her head.
“Not now, sorry. Gotta watch my friends’ drinks. One of them’ll be back soon, so why don’t you catch me on the floor?”
He spread his hands, disappointed, then shrugged in agreement as he jogged down the stairs. Strobe lighting made sharp shadows in the muscles of his shoulders. Margrit watched approvingly, then searched out Cole and Cameron on the dance floor. Cole was more graceful than Cam, flowing from one movement to another with elegance.
Cameron exuded the raw power of pure joy in letting go, like a drummer in a rock band. They made a nice contrast. Margrit drank her beer, smiling down at them.
Cole had exaggerated his lack of stamina. They stayed on the floor through half a dozen songs, until Margrit’s beer was gone and the music drove her to dance on the stairwell, still holding two bottles. She waved, trying to get Cole’s attention, then squeaked air out through compressed lips, waiting with growing impatience for one of them to tire. As revenge for having to wait, she drank half of Cole’s beer.
Someone tapped her on the shoulder. Margrit rolled her eyes and turned. “Look, I said-”
The blond man from the park looked down at her quizzically.
“Son of a bitch!” The appeal of encountering him again turned to sour panic in Margrit’s belly, reality of dancing with a devil slaughtering a half-formed fantasy of taming the beast. Margrit threw Cole’s beer upward, foam and alcohol spraying into the blond man’s face. He yowled, hands flung up to protect his eyes. Margrit abandoned the remaining bottle, sending it careening over the metal railing and into the dancers below as she scrambled down the stairs. Her heel caught in the metal grating, snapping and pitching her forward.
An instant later she was on her feet at the bottom with no clear idea of how she’d gotten there. Her broken heel was poking out of the grate of one step at a rakish angle, a lone monument to her presence there.
Cole and Cameron appeared at her side, alarm and concern on their faces. “Margrit? What the hell happened?” Cole took her arm, as if her balance might be questionable.
“It was-he was-didn’t you see? Up there?” She jerked her chin up, staring at the landing above.
He wasn’t there.
Margrit shook her head hard, trying to clear it as she gazed in disbelief. “I swear to God,” she said. “He was there. Just a second ago. I swear.”
“Who, Grit?” Cole’s voice was coaxing, as if he was talking to a small child or a puppy.
“The-the guy from the park!”
“Jesus, are you sure?” Cameron bolted up a couple steps, as if to go charging after the man. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure! He was there, just a second ago. Then he vanished! He disappeared last night, too.”
“What do you mean, he disappeared last night?” Cole frowned down at her, eyebrows pinched together.
“He disappeared! I ran about ten feet, looked back, and he was gone, poof, no sign of him. Just like now!”
Cole and Cameron exchanged glances. Frustration born from knowing how absurd she sounded sent a childish wave of anger through Margrit. “I’m not kidding! Guys, I’m serious! Why would I make something like this up, dammit?”
“It’s one way to get back together with Tony,” Cole muttered. Margrit glared at him as Cameron bent to work the broken heel out of the grating, then lifted it between her fingers to waggle it.
“’Cause you really didn’t like those shoes?”
Margrit’s lip curled, her irritation disproportionate to the gently teasing question. “They were ninety dollar shoes, Cameron. I liked them.” When a hurt expression flashed across her friend’s face, Margrit gritted her teeth, trying to rein in her temper. “Security cameras. The club’s got security cameras.”
Cam and Cole exchanged glances again, Cam’s lower lip protruding as she tilted her head in acknowledgment. “Think they’ll let us look at them?”
“They’ll let the cops, if they won’t let us,” Margrit said.
“How did you get involved in this, Margrit?” The question was delivered through Anthony Pulcella’s teeth, an aside she wasn’t meant to answer. He’d been off duty long enough to arrive at the club in a Knicks jacket and jeans, less formal than the on-duty suit he usually wore. “I got your message. Sorry I haven’t called. They put me on point for this investigation.”
“Congratulations,” Margrit said without irony. “It’s okay.”
“Dinner tomorrow,” Tony continued. “If I can make it, I’d like that.”
Margrit pulled a brief smile. “Another reason we’re always on and off. Incompatible schedules.”
“We’ll talk about that, too,” he said under his breath.
“As soon as we get a chance,” Margrit agreed. “Look, they wouldn’t let me watch the security videos without you.”
“Of course they wouldn’t. You’re not an authority.” The conversation took them from the Blue Room’s front door into brightly lit back corridors, following the club’s tension-ridden manager, a woman in her fifties who clearly wanted to be elsewhere. A reedy, pimply-faced kid scrambled to his feet as she pushed the door open and gestured them into a small room filled with video screens.
“This is Detective Pulcella, Ira, and the woman who saw the suspect. Go ahead and play the tapes for them.
