Three dancers from the same club were dead in six weeks, and Scarlett Nightshade was the only one who thought that was strange. The police called them overdoses. The newspaper barely noticed. But Scarlett had danced beside all three on the black-tiled floor, and now she scrubbed her hands in the club bathroom like she could wash the fear off. She wanted the killer's name before her own went on the list. The sink wouldn't explain anything. So she went back to what the dead had left behind. Each woman had collapsed near these mirrors. Scarlett crouched and ran a finger along the baseboard. A fine black powder clung to the grout, velvety and dry, with a dull matte shine. She had seen it the night the last dancer fell. She had wiped it off her own boot. Now she folded a strip of it into a tissue and sealed it in her jacket. Proof meant nothing alone. She needed to know who had stood near each woman before each one died. And only one person at the club kept that record. Maya Vega never put the camera down. She was the club photographer, and she shot everyone who walked through the door. Scarlett found her by the stage, scrolling through a night's worth of frames. They had traded cigarettes a dozen times but never anything true. "I need your photos," Scarlett said. "From the three nights they died." Maya didn't look up. "You and the rumors." She finally lifted her eyes, sharp under heavy lashes. "I liked them too. I'm not making a show of it." "I'm not making a show." Scarlett held out the tissue. The black powder sat inside like spilled ash. "This was on the floor near each of them. Same spot. Same night. That isn't a coincidence." Maya went quiet. She set the camera in her lap. "You're serious." "Three times," Scarlett said. "Someone put them there." Maya pulled up the archive. They sat hip to hip and scrolled through hundreds of frames. Grinning crowds. Smoke. The dead women, alive, raising glasses. Scarlett searched the edges of every shot for the powder, for a hand, for anything shared. Then Maya stopped on one photo and zoomed in. In all three nights, in the corner of each frame, the same figure stood watching the dancers. Same long coat. Same gloved hands. Never dancing. Always near the bathroom door. "Same person," Maya whispered. "All three nights." Scarlett's chest went tight. The powder was real. The pattern was real. The killer was real, and now she had a face half-hidden in three photographs. "Send me these," Scarlett said. Maya's hand hovered over the screen. "If you're right, they know you're asking." She met Scarlett's eyes. "They'll come for whoever's looking." Scarlett pocketed the powder and the proof. She wasn't afraid of the whispers anymore. She was afraid of the coat. Now she had to find the face inside it before it found her first.