Chapter 8
Eight
I’ve never been to Dahlia’s.
Hell, I’m not really into the club scene.
But looking at it from across the street, I can see why it’s popular. The entire building is painted black with a neon sign hanging crookedly from the center—purposefully crooked, probably trying for edgy.
It’s closed. Won’t open until tonight. Just a locked door and dark windows.
My spine does that thing again as I stare at the sign. Cold-hot-cold.
“So that’s it.” I stare at the black building. Dahlia’s. Where our mystery murderer hunted women. Where he found his victim.
My stomach turns.
“Come on.” Alex grabs my arm, dragging me across the street before I can overthink this. “Alley first.”
“Alex, we shouldn’t—”
“We’re already here.” Her voice is steady but her grip on my arm is too tight. I can feel her pulse through her fingers. Racing. She’s as terrified as I am but won’t show it. “Just look. Five minutes. Then we leave.”
She leads me past the club and down the street.
Alex stops before a stoop to an accounting office.
“Okay, so while you were getting dressed I went onto Google Maps.” She’s talking fast. That thing she does when she’s nervous and trying to sound confident.
“You said he mentioned lighting a cigarette on a stoop, then going into an alley. I mapped every alley within two blocks that has a stoop nearby.”
“How many?”
“Six.” She pulls out her phone, shows me the saved map with pins. “This is the third one. The first two had cameras. This one doesn’t.”
Her hands shake slightly as she puts the phone away.
She fishes a joint from her bra.
“What are you doing?” I blink at her.
“What? Did you think it wouldn’t be suspicious to just stand here and stare at a stoop?”
“I need your head in the game.” I’m not mad at the weed, but I need her sober for this.
“Relax, it’s lavender.” She lights it and hands it over.
It is indeed lavender. “I take it all back.”
“See, I know what I’m doing.” She waves her hand. “To anyone else we are just two girlies sharing a joint.”
I look around and inhale slowly. Saturday afternoon, there are people on the street—not packed, but enough that we need to look casual. To anyone passing by, we’re just two girls sharing a joint and chatting. Nothing suspicious.
Certainly not two amateur investigators searching a murder scene thirteen hours after the crime.
My hands are shaking. I hide them by gripping the joint tighter.
It’s smart. Necessary. And I’m annoyed I didn’t think of it.
But Alex did.
“Come on.” Alex grabs my hand. “I think this is it.”
She starts toward the alley and I freeze. My feet won’t move.
“Dylan.” She tugs my hand. “We have to do this now.”
“What if—” My voice comes out hoarse. “What if Dom’s team is still here?”
“They’re not. I’ve been watching.” She squeezes my hand. “There are no cameras. I checked. The accounting office doesn’t have any. We’re between street lights. It’s a complete blind spot.”
I force my feet to move. One step. Two.
“That’s why he chose it,” I whisper.
“Yeah.” Alex’s voice is tight. “That’s why.”
I look at the mouth of the alley. Across the street is another alley. “Even if the businesses had cameras, they wouldn’t point over here.”
“Exactly.” She walks in while I take another drag of the lavender joint and hand it over.
“Too small for a dumpster too.” She looks at the ground.
The alley is darker than the street—the buildings block most of the afternoon sun—but I can still see. Shadows, yes, but not pitch black. My eyes adjust as we move deeper.
The alley smells wrong. Not just pee and trash—there’s something chemical underneath.
“Do you smell that?” My stomach churns.
Alex wrinkles her nose. “Bleach?”
“Cleaning supplies.” My hands shake. “Dom’s team was here. This morning. Less than twelve hours ago. Has to be that. Alley’s here don’t just smell like bleach for no reason.”
“Oh God.” Alex covers her mouth. “We’re standing where—”
“Where she died. Yeah.” I force myself to look at the ground. “The scene is fresh.”
While we were sleeping. While I was watching Alex breathe and thanking God she was alive, Dom’s team was here with industrial cleaner. Erasing a woman like she never existed.
That’s the business. That’s what I’ve been helping him build for five years.
Neither of us moves. Just stand there in the dim alley, breathing chemical-laced air, knowing what happened here last night.
Every sound from the street makes me freeze—footsteps, car engines, voices. What if Dom sent someone back? What if they see us here?
“How long have we been here?” Alex whispers.
I check my watch. “Two minutes.”
“That feels like too long.”
“Yeah.”
“Five minutes,” Alex says. “Then we’re gone.”
“Agreed.” I scan the shadows. “Before someone comes back to double-check. Before rain washes everything away. Before the trail goes completely cold.”
I crouch down, looking along the brick wall.
I look at the mouth of the alley and envision him coming in. Desperate. With a girl. He probably wouldn’t be able to wait, but would she lead him deeper into the alley?
Dark stains on the brick. Could be water. Could be old grime.
Could be blood.
“Dylan.” Alex’s voice is strange. Tight. “Is that—”
I follow her gaze.
Reddish-brown stains. Splattered pattern. Low on the wall, like something—
Like someone’s head hit it. Or blood sprayed when he—
I can’t swallow. That cold-hot feeling crawls up my spine, wraps around my throat. My neck feels like hands are there even though nothing’s touching me.
“Oh God.” My hand goes to my mouth.
“It’s blood,” Alex whispers.
“We don’t know that.” But I do. I know. “Could be rust. Or—”
“Dylan. It’s blood.” She’s already pulling out her phone, the one should should have left at home. “Should I—”
“No!” I grab her wrist. Hard enough to hurt. “No photos. Nothing digital.”
“But—”
“Nothing that can be traced or subpoenaed. Nothing that proves we were here.” My voice is shaking. “We just look. We remember. That’s it.”
She lowers her phone. “So what do we do?”
“We remember.” I stare at the stain, memorizing its location. Left side of the alley. Three feet from the fire escape. Two feet up from the ground. Splatter pattern, not smear. “We document it mentally. But we don’t create evidence that we were here.”
I stare at the blood stain. Try to remember exactly what he said.
Strangulation during rape. Hand around her throat. “She just dropped.”
“The splatter pattern...” Alex’s voice shakes.
“Yeah.” My throat closes. “Assault that violent...”
She doesn’t finish. Doesn’t need to.
I stare at the stain. Low on the wall. Right where her head would have been pressed.
I can hear his voice in my head, “against the dirty wall.”
A car slows on the street.
My heart stops. I grab Alex’s arm and pull her against the wall.
We press into the shadows. Not breathing. Not moving.
“Dylan?” Alex barely whispers it.
The car passes. Keeps going. Taillights disappear around the corner.
Not Dom. Not anyone we know.
I let out my breath. But my hands still shake. And Alex remains pressed against me, her heart pounding so hard I can feel it.
“We need to be faster,” she whispers.
“Yeah.”
But neither of us moves for another few seconds. Just stand there, flattened against the alley wall, waiting for our hearts to slow.
“What if he sent someone back?” I finally whisper.
“He won’t. Not yet. Not during the day.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” Alex admits. “I don’t.”
I force myself to move. “Look for anything suspicious. Personal items. Signs of struggle. Anything Dom’s team might have missed in the dark.”
“Found a pee spot.”
“Not suspicious.” I give her a look before turning back to my search.
Just trash. Wet paper slowly dissolving. Bottle caps.
The usual.
The ground is damp in spots—dew, mostly, and maybe where Dom’s team used water to wash down the walls. But no heavy rain. The alley is sheltered enough that some evidence may have survived.
“Dylan.” Alex’s voice changes.
I turn. She’s near the fire escape, crouching, looking at something caught in the rough brick.
Long blonde hair. Tangled around the brick’s edge. And caught in it—
A ring.
My breath stops.
“It got caught when he—” Alex’s voice breaks. “When he pulled her hair. When he yanked her up by—”
“Don’t.” I can barely say it. My hands are shaking so badly I have to grip the wall. “Her hair caught on the brick. The ring got tangled.”
We both stare at it. This tiny piece of her that survived.
“Dom’s team missed it,” Alex whispers. “In the dark. They cleaned up her body but didn’t see—”
“Men don’t notice hair.” My throat is tight. “Especially not in a dark alley. Not a few blonde strands.”
“She was real.” Alex’s voice cracks. “She was a real person. Who wore this ring. Who had long hair. Who—”
“Alex.” I can’t. I can’t think about who she was. Not yet. “We need to—”
“Take it.” Alex’s voice is suddenly firm.
“What?”
“The ring. Take it. Before Dom’s team comes back.”
“Alex, that’s—” I’m shaking my head. “That’s evidence tampering. Chain of custody is broken. If this goes to trial—”
“If we leave it, it disappears forever.” She grabs my hand. Makes me look at her. “Dom’s team will find it. And then she’s really gone. Every piece of her. Gone.”
She’s right. God, she’s right and I hate it.
This is it. The moment I stop being a paralegal and become something else. A criminal. A vigilante. Someone who tampers with evidence because the system won’t work.
Because Dom made sure the system won’t work.
“My fingerprints will be all over it,” I whisper.
“I know.”
“If anyone finds out I took it—”
“They won’t.”
“Alex.” My voice cracks. “This makes me a suspect. Not a witness. A suspect.”
“Then don’t get caught.” She squeezes my hand. “But don’t leave here with nothing.”
I carefully untangle the ring from the hair strands. Three or four long blonde strands still wrapped around the band.
I slip it into my pocket. It feels heavy. Wrong.
Someone’s hair. Someone’s ring. Someone’s last physical trace.
Dahlia. Maybe. Or whatever her real name was.
She wore this ring. Chose it. Maybe it meant something. Maybe it was just a ring.
But it was hers. And now it’s mine. And I don’t even know her name.
“Oh God.” My stomach lurches. “What did I just do?”
“What you had to.” Alex pulls me toward the street. “Now we go. Fast.”
We walk back to the street. Casual. Like we were just smoking and talking.
But my heart is racing. Every person we pass could be Dom’s. Could report back to him. Could have seen us in the alley.
Every step, I feel it. The weight. The wrongness.
I touch my pocket. Make sure the ring is there. Make sure it’s not visible through the fabric. My hand keeps going there. Over and over. I can’t stop checking.
Alex notices. Of course she does.
“Stop touching it,” she whispers. “You look guilty.”
I force my hand away. But it creeps back thirty seconds later.
“Dylan.”
“I can’t help it.” My voice shakes. “What if it falls out? What if someone sees?”
“It won’t. And they won’t.” She grabs my hand. Holds it. “But you need to stop or you’ll get us caught.”
I nod. Let her hold my hand so I can’t check the pocket.
“Now what?” she asks.
I don’t know. We have a ring tangled in blonde hair. A blood stain we can’t prove is blood. A crime scene that’s been professionally cleaned.
And no body.
“Now we figure out who she was,” I say. “Because someone out there is missing her. And they deserve to know what happened.”
Even if I can never tell them.
Even if trying to find out gets us both killed.
But I have her ring in my pocket. And a few strands of her hair. The only proof she existed. The only pieces of her left.
And that means I owe her this much. At least this much.
Alex squeezes my hand. “We’ll find her name. Her real name. Not just Dahlia. We’ll find out who she really was.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”