14. Dominic
CHAPTER 14
Dominic
POSSIBLE 10-54
PRESENT
T he morning air is cool, the sky just starting to brighten as I drive to work. I go through the usual routine—coffee in the cupholder, radio turned low, mind cycling through renovation tasks. It’s a welcome distraction, a way to keep from thinking about today. It’s my first day with the detective’s unit. I’m so nervous, I’m pretty sure I’ve already sweat through my uniform.
I’m more nervous about this than I ever was at my last job. It’s the pressure. It’s the fear of failure.
A jolt shoots up my shoulder, as if my body is reminding me that maybe I’m not ready yet. Maybe I’ll never be ready.
My thoughts are interrupted when dispatch cuts in with instructions to switch to a private channel.
“All units, report to Canyon Ridge, coordinates sent. Possible 10-54.”
I nearly slam on the breaks. What?
That can’t be right, it’s the radio code for a possible dead body, foul play suspected .
My heart starts to race with a rush of adrenaline as I flip on the lights and sirens, making a sharp U-turn toward the location. Canyon Ridge isn’t far, but the isolation of the area has alarm bells going off in my head. It’s too early for most hikers, too late for late-night wanderers. Whatever is waiting for us there, it won’t be good.
By the time I arrive, the scene is already swarming. Patrol cars, both city and county, line the dirt road, their lights casting an eerie glow against the trees. Ryker stands near the perimeter, talking to Corporal Keene.
For a moment, I stay frozen, gripping the wheel so tightly my knuckles ache. Breathe in. Breathe out.
It’s been a while since I’ve rolled up on a scene like this. And even though it’s not the same—not the same location, not the same circumstances—it still feels the same.
This is my first time responding to a big incident since the shooting, and I’m struggling to separate the two.
The swarm of officers moving with practiced efficiency. The low murmur of radios crackling over the chatter. Forensic tech’s cameras click as they document everything.
It’s only a matter of time before the press shows up, and starts crowding behind the barricades.
It all blurs together, the sights and sounds folding over me like a tide, pulling me under. My throat is dry. My pulse pounds. My shoulder burns.
Breathe.
I flex my fingers, willing the tremor in them to stop as I peel my hands off the wheel. They still shake as I open the door, still shake as I step onto solid ground.
But by the time I reach Ryker, my hands are steady. My breathing is even.
Under control.
For now .
The moment our eyes meet, his expression tells me everything I need to know.
“Morning.” He looks uncharacteristically grim.
“Who’s the vic? Have they been identified?”
He nods slowly, while scanning the scene. “It’s Victoria Delmar.”
The evidence was leading to this but that doesn’t stop the sense of shock radiating through me. This wasn’t the outcome any of us were hoping for.
“Who called it in?”
Ryker gives me a baffled look. “Anonymous tip.” He lets out a wry laugh and shakes his head. It’s not funny, and we both know it. It’s the kind of laugh you give when you know you’re fucked.
“Shit,” I mutter, glancing toward the taped-off area where crime scene techs are already at work. “What’s the condition?”
Ryker exhales heavily. “Looks like she was dumped here. CSI hasn’t found much so far. The medical examiner estimates she’s only been dead a few hours.”
She’s been missing for a while but only died recently. Was she with the perpetrator the entire time? A million questions are rifling through my mind at once.
I follow his gaze to the cluster of trees ahead. Even from a distance, I can make out the dark shape lying on the ground, partially covered by a tarp. My jaw clenches.
So much for low crime. I thought I was getting away from this kind of shit.
“Still think it’s all fabricated?” Ryker throws me a pointed, I told you so glare.
I don’t respond. A dead body doesn’t change the fact that this case feels strange—off in a way I can’t logically explain without sounding like a woo-woo conspiracy theorist. But now, it’s urgent. We need to figure out what the hell is going on before someone else ends up like her.
“We’ll need to notify her family,” Ryker says, his voice quieter now. “But first, we have to manage the scene.”
“Are you going to call in the feds? We’re not exactly equipped to take on an investigation of this caliber.”
His spine straightens like a rod, eyes pinching. “No feds. And should that change, I’ll be the one who makes the determination.”
Clearly, I hit a nerve. Rather than argue, I nod. I know when to pick my battles with Ryker, and now isn’t the time. Even though I’m fucking right.We’re not equipped for this. For most of these uniforms, it’s their first time seeing a murder victim up close.
As we move closer to the scene, I catch sight of Morales by the patrol cars. She’s chipper, as usual, chatting with a city cop and gesturing animatedly. Even a dead body can’t rattle her, apparently.
It’s been over a week since she showed up at my house unannounced, and I’ve been actively avoiding her with little success.
She hasn’t tried anything and the more time that passes the more I think I’m overreacting. But the personal attention she’s been giving me lately, trying to get me to engage with her, it’s too much. Her bubbly demeanor is grating at the best of times, and now it’s just…awkward.
I told myself I’d keep things professional, but every time I see her, there’s this undercurrent of something I don’t want to deal with. A crush I don’t reciprocate, a situation I don’t want to navigate. So, I’ve been distant.
She notices me now, waving enthusiastically. I pretend not to see her, walking toward the scene instead.
Ryker casts me a look, but I ignore it, focusing on the task at hand. There’s a killer out there, and this could just be the beginning. Whatever Morales’s feelings are can wait.
I join Sergeant Vorheis and the rest of the detective’s unit on shift. We’re standing over the body, and I take a deep breath, letting the weight of the situation settle in. It never gets easier—seeing someone’s lifeless form, especially when it’s obvious she didn’t die of natural causes, the marred skin around her neck giving me a clue at cause of death.
Acid creeps up my throat, caused by the stench of decomposition. Taking a few steps back, I force a swallow. There’s nothing quite like starting the day with a dead body. My old captain used to say that the day it gets easy to see the bad shit, is the day you’re no longer fit for the job.
Feeling more composed, I step forward, crouching down, inspecting her closely, but making sure to keep enough distance so I don’t interfere with forensics. Ryker was right, definitely dumped. There’s only a small amount of blood, small enough to make me think the perp left it there on purpose.
Vorheis gathers us off to the side.
“What’s our next move, Sarge?” Detective Kincaid asks.
Vorheis exhales through his nose, scanning the stretch of dirt road. “This wasn’t where it happened. Body was dumped. Clean, intentional. They knew this place.”
He gestures to Kincaid. “Check for tire tracks, drag marks—anything that tells us what kind of vehicle we’re dealing with.”
Then to me: “Alvarez, we need to know who has access out here. Rangers, hunters, anyone who might’ve stumbled onto this place. Start making calls.”
Vorheis keeps rattling off assignments, but shouts from the press barricade pull my attention. Two vans from local news stations just rolled up. How they got here so fast is beyond me.
Fucking bloodhounds.
Homicide is rare in Clore County. It’s going to have the whole community on edge until we get to the bottom of this.
“Heard they’re dropping like flies over there,” Adrian says through the speaker, his voice laced with dry humor.
“Jesus Christ, Adrian. Have a little decency,” I grit, though there’s nothing behind it, I’m too tired to argue. “Is it already on the news in Portland?”
“Not that I know of. Heard it on the police scanner app,” he replies, as he crunches on—what I’m assuming is—a potato chip. “I’m always listening. Gotta make sure you’re staying alive up there.”
His tone is light, teasing, but I know better. We both do. It’s not just a joke—it’s his way of coping. Adrian probably does listen, every chance he gets, just to make sure a call doesn’t come up to make him think something happened to me. To make sure he’s not getting another call telling him I’ve landed in the hospital—or worse.
I know exactly how he feels too, because it’s exactly what I went through watching the news while he was deployed. Thankfully, after serving six years, he’s back to being a civilian, and the whole family breathes a lot easier.
I change the subject, steering us toward safer ground. “Mom mentioned cutting her trip short.”
He sighs. “Yeah, she said the same thing to me.”
“I don’t like her being down there alone, without him.”
“Neither do I,” Adrian agrees before crunching loudly. “We need to talk her into moving up here. Portland’s perfect—close to me and Celia, and not far enough from you for her to complain about the drive.”
“She’s set in her ways, though,” I remind him. “Good luck convincing her to leave the house ‘apá practically built with his bare hands.”
After selling the house Adrian and I grew up in, our parents built their dream house in Phoenix. It was less work to maintain than the sprawling property they had before and conveniently closer to Mexico for quick trips to visit family. It was all part of their retirement plan.
Adrian chuckles, a sad kind of chuckle. “Yeah, she’s tough, but I’m tougher. I’ll wear her down eventually. Besides, you know how Celia is. She’s already got Pinterest boards full of ‘downsizing tips’ and ‘how to help parents relocate.’”
I don’t actually know Celia all that well—I’ve only met her twice. Once when Adrian introduced us, and then again at the small family dinner they had to celebrate their marriage after eloping.
After our dad died, we both coped in our own ways. I quit my job and relocated, set on winning back the girl I could never let go, and using the small lump of life insurance money my dad left me to buy a house that’s barely standing. Adrian married a woman he hardly knew, like he was trying to fast-forward through life to get to the good parts. I’m not sure if what either of us did is healthy, but I think ‘apá would be proud of us, if not at least highly entertained.
“I’ll let you do the talking. You’re better at that shit than I am, anyway.”
“So,” Adrian starts. “Have you talked to her yet?”
I can hear his smile. Fucking dick. “Yeah.”
He laughs. “Not going well I take it?”
I knew I shouldn’t have told him the main reason I decided to move back to Red Mountain. He’s been giving me a hard time about it ever since. At first, I was able to easily brush it off, but now that my encounters with Ellie have all gone to shit, his teasing is hitting like a punch to the stomach.
“Things could be better.”
“She probably thinks you’re psycho. It’s not normal to uproot your entire life just to chase after some girl you screwed things up with years ago.”
He’s always assumed I was the reason for our breakup, but to this day, I’ve never been able to figure out where exactly it all went wrong. We were so close to summer break—to having months of alone time. It didn’t make sense to me then, and all these years later I have a hell of a lot more questions than answers.
“What did you even say to her when she asked why you moved back?” Adrian asks, breaking me out of my thoughts.
I clench my jaw, my grip tightening around my beer bottle. “She hasn’t asked,” I admit. “And if she does, I’ll tell her it’s for work until I think she’s ready to hear the truth.”
“Uh-huh,” Adrian drawls, oozing sarcasm. “Because Red Mountain is just overflowing with opportunities. Come on, man.”
Rubbing the spot between my brows does little to soothe the panic Adrian has induced. “You’re not helping.”
He howls with laughter, and I resist the urge to hang up the phone. “Elyse has never done anything she didn’t already set her sights on. Not as a kid, and likely not now. I don’t know what made you think showing up ten years later would warm her up to you.”
“How about you focus on your love life and I’ll focus on mine. Stay out of it,” I mumble.
“Look,” Adrian says, his laughter finally tapering off. “You’ve got two options: either you give her space and let her come to you—which, let’s be honest, might never happen—or you figure out a way to show her you’re smarter than you were at nineteen.”
I sigh, gliding my palm on the back of my neck. “Easier said than done. I thought I was making progress, but she’s so quick to lash out at me, I can’t get a read on her.”
I was completely caught off guard when she showed up at my place the other day, and I played it all wrong. I came on too strong, pushed her too far. It’s so easy to go there with her, easily slipping into her gravitational pull—natural, effortless. Now I’m not sure how to recover from it. I don’t know where to go from here.
Adrian snorts. “Not that you asked, but my advice would be to start small. You’re always doing too much, you’re too intense,” he says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Show up, be consistent, and don’t make it about you. Be laid back. And maybe if you’re patient, and don’t attack her like a dog in heat, she’ll eventually come to you.”
The irony of getting relationship advice from him is not lost on me. He used to be adamantly against marriage and anything close to a serious relationship.
I cut the call short, claiming something work related came up, when really I’m done talking about my recent string of failures involving Ellie. If I don’t figure out how to make things right, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to move on.
I’m clinging onto one thread of hope, and one alone.
The tattoo.
She kept it.