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is crazy.
She crept down the corridor. Surely she was close to the ballroom again. She would get away, find the cops—find Bennett—and then this guy would be done.
    Only…she stilled. He’d stopped talking, so she didn’t know where he was.
He could be right behind me now.
    There was no time to waste. She ran for the ballroom. Forget being quiet—she raced forward.
    And the lights flashed on. So bright and glaring after the darkness. She blinked, trying to adjust to that glare, and then she spun around, frantically searching behind her.
    He wasn’t close to her. He was on the other side of that corridor, near the exit that led to the escalators.
    He shoved open the door—
    “No!” Ivy screamed.
    But he was gone.
    And he’d left her…left her with…
    Her gaze fell to the floor of that corridor.
    A white mask lay near the fallen man’s hand.
    He left me with a dead man.
    ***
    The convention center’s alarm had finally stopped shrieking. The lights were back on and the people in the crowd weren’t crushing each other any longer. Bennett saw the men and women blearily staring at each other. They moved slowly now, as if trying to figure out what in the hell was happening.
    I’m trying to figure out that one, too.
    His men had fanned out into the crowd. There were injured people there—people who’d been trampled near the door. People who’d fallen and would need medical assistance.
    Masks were on the floor. Broken Mardi Gras necklaces littered the area.
    “It must have been some prank, Detective,” one of his team members told him, a detective named Drew Trout. “The building supervisor said someone got into the control room and messed with all the switches there.”
    And caused panic.
    Fear.
    A man in a white mask?
    He glanced back toward the ballroom. Ivy should be clear by now. The fear eating at him should’ve eased, but it hadn’t.
    He needed to see her.
    More emergency personnel flooded into the area. Security guards were on scene. And EMTs were already moving into the crowd. He knew that—at events like this one—emergency personnel were always close so that they could respond in an instant.
    Like they’re doing right now.
    He turned and headed back to the ballroom. Chairs were overturned in there, tables tipped onto their sides. Food had been stomped into the flooring.
    The ballroom was nearly empty, though.
    No sign of Ivy. He headed over to the stage, then he went to that back door. A door that should have given Ivy an easy way out. He grabbed for the handle.
    Locked.
    His heart slammed into his chest. He yanked harder on that handle.
    Locked.
    Maybe Ivy had locked the door when she fled. Maybe it had closed and sealed up behind her or—
    Maybe she never got out that door because it was locked the whole damn time.
    He spun around. “Ivy!” Her name came from him as a roar. “Ivy!”
    ***
    He’s not dead, not yet.
    She could see the faint rise and fall of the man’s chest—not just any man, but a guy she knew.
    Councilman Laxton Crenshaw was on the floor of that corridor, bleeding out. Ivy rushed back to his side, and she fell to her knees as she tried to inspect his wounds. He’d been stabbed—multiple times—and the blood was covering his white cummerbund. She put her hands on his chest, trying to stop the blood flow from the worst wound.
    His hand flew out and locked around her wrist. “You—”
    “He’s gone,” Ivy told him. “Just stay calm, okay?” He was bleeding so much. Gushing out. “It’s going to be all right.” Her words could be a total lie, but she didn’t care. Weren’t you supposed to reassure the victim in situations like this one?
    His fingers fell away.
    She tried to staunch the blood flow, but the wounds were so deep.
    “Help!” Ivy screamed. She was afraid to leave him—if she didn’t keep applying pressure, would he bleed out right there? “Help!” And if she didn’t go…was he just going to die anyway?
    ***
    Ivy wasn’t in the ballroom. He