“Would you look at this?” Carlotta breathes, taking it all in with far too much delight. “These are my kind of people and my kind of party!”
“Good thing I brought handcuffs,” Noah mutters.
“I brought a gun,”Everett counters.
“Me, too,” I’m quick to confess. Fun fact: Everett and I have matching Glocks named Fred and Ethel. And I know for a fact that Noah has his weapon on him, too, because I can see the bulge at his waistband from under his coat.
Carlotta chuffs. “Well, aren’t you three a good time. I brought batteries.”
I don’t even want to know.
“Lottie Lemon!” Ronnie Crane materializes out of the shadows like a gorgeous, slightly intimidating vampire. She’s wearing a black slip dress that looks painted on and heels that could double as weapons. Her auburn hair is down, tumbling over her shoulders in waves that catch the candlelight.
“You made it!” She kisses me on both cheeks, very European, and her perfume wraps around me like a scarf. “And you brought the husbands.”
Her gaze slides over Noah and Everett with the slow, deliberate appreciation of someone appraising art in a gallery. Fine art.
“Both of them,” she purrs. “Delicious.”
A woman nearby, a brunette in a red dress with a martini in hand, glances over and does a double take at Noah. She elbows her friend, the blonde in a little black dress, and they both turn to stare.
“Merciful heavens,” the brunette whispers, loud enough for all to hear. “Look at those two.”
The blonde fans herself with her hand. “Which one can I take home?”
“Which one can I take a bite out of?” the brunette counters, and they both break out into cackles.
Everett gives me the side-eye. Noah’s jaw tightens, and he doesn’t look too impressed with our surroundings either.
“All right, friends,” Ronnie sings as she produces a large crystal fishbowl from a nearby table. It’s already brimming with keys and phones as the metal glints in the candlelight. “Houserules—all phones and keys go in the bowl. What happens in the penthouse stays in the penthouse.”
I stare at the bowl for a second before exchanging glances with Noah and Everett.
And just like that, we know exactly what kind of party this is—a good old-fashioned key party.
But is this the key to solving the case?
There’s only one way to find out.
LOTTIE
“And why exactly do we have to surrender our keys and phones?” I ask, batting my lashes and feigning innocence right here in a hotbed of sin at some seedy hotel in Leeds.
“For privacy, of course.” Ronnie Crane says smoothly, and her smile is as sharp as a blade. “We can’t have people running off early, can we? After all, the night is just getting started.”
I frown at the dimly lit room crawling with bodies, all of which are coincidentally crawling all over each other. The mood music, the candles, the liquor flowing freely, it has brothel-in-the-making written all over it. Only at this brothel, the loving is a free-for-all.
Carlotta tosses her phone and keys into the fishbowl with a whoop. “Honey, I love a party with rules!”
She would.
I reluctantly add mine to the pile, as do Noah and Everett, as we watch our escape routes disappear into the glass bowl.
Percy hovers near the ceiling, tail feathers fanned in agitation. “This feels like a trap, Lottie Lemon. A very attractive, scantily-clad trap, but a trap nonetheless.”
“How about we start with some drinks?” Ronnie gestures toward the bar where a shirtless bartender is mixing something that involves fire. “That always loosens things up.”
“I bet it does,” Noah mutters.
