“The place was busy,” North said, determined to remain neutral. “Jeanie said to give you her best, by the way.”

Hank snorted. “Bullshit. Jeanie has never once in her entire life told anyone to give me her best.”

“Okay, what she actually said was that if you ever decide to give up running this hotdog stand she will consider hiring you to tend bar.”

Hank nodded. “That sounds like my Jeanie. I talked to some of the other cleaners on your team tonight. They said the takedown went well today.”

“We found the guy we were looking for,” North said. “A serial killer who was using his psychic vibe to attract his victims.”

No need to mention that the case was probably the last time he would go out into the field with the team. If he stayed with the Foundation, he would end up behind a desk. That wouldn’t go well, not for him.

“So you took down one of the monsters. Good job.” Hank folded his arms on the bar. “In that case, why aren’t you out on the dance floor or buying drinks for one of the nice ladies who come in here to have a little fun?”

“Give me time,” North said. “The evening is still young.”

“It’s one o’clock in the morning.”

“I thought it was always midnight here at the Fogg.”

The atmosphere inside the Fogg was mostly the same as it was at any other Vegas nightclub—a lot of intimate shadows, high energy, pulsating music and a dance floor lit with dazzling strobes. There was also some fake fog that glowed a fluorescent green. But the real vibe, the one that brought in the regulars, was created by the array of paranormal artifacts displayed in a floor-to-ceiling clear plastic vault in the center of the room.

The objects inside appeared ordinary enough. Mid-century office chairs, ashtrays, a metal filing cabinet and a couple of old-fashioned, black landline telephones were arranged on the tiered glass shelves and illuminated with the glowing green fog. All the artifacts were standard-issue vintage government surplus. But at some point in its history, each antique had been associated with one of the lost labs of the Bluestone Project. Each had absorbed some kind of paranormal radiation, enough so that someone with a degree of psychic awareness could sense the energy.

He might be losing his unique night vision but the rest of his senses were still working. The fact that he was wired from what he suspected was his last field op made him especially aware of the heat in the atmosphere. He was restless, on edge and, okay, maybe depressed. He needed something to take the edge off. Sex might offer a temporary fix, but he knew most of the people in the room tonight. They were colleagues, coworkers and friends. Sex with someone you worked with was usually a mistake, although everyone knew that particular mistake happened a lot within the Foundation. He had made it himself on more than one occasion, although he had been careful to get together with women who worked in the labs or the museum, not someone on his own cleaner team.