Chapter 9
Nine
The coffee maker won’t stop beeping. I could turn it off. But I physically can’t.
All I can do is stare at the bag on the counter.
A Ziploc bag to be exact.
Inside the bag: one ring with citrine stones. November birthstones.
Four blonde hairs wrap around the band like a prosecutor’s exhibit.
Except there’s no prosecutor. No case. Just me and a Ziploc bag that’s destroying DNA evidence while I watch.
“How long have you been standing there?”
I don’t turn around. “Unclear. My phone says an hour. My brain says five minutes and also three years.”
Alex appears beside me in my vintage I-95 hoodie. Hair in a bun held up by what looks like a pencil. Possibly a paintbrush. With Alex it’s fifty-fifty.
“That’s the sleep deprivation talking.”
“Is it though?” I finally look at her. “Because I’m pretty sure time stopped working around 2 a.m. when I had the same nightmare for the fourth time and my brain decided to just loop it like the world’s most fucked-up playlist.”
“Did you try skipping to the next track?”
“Surprisingly, my subconscious doesn’t have a skip button.”
“Rude.” She moves past me to the coffee maker. Stops. Stares at the ring. “Is that—”
“In a Ziploc bag. Yeah.” I press my palms against my eyes. “Any forensics course will tell you biological evidence needs paper bags. Needs to breathe. Hair degrades in plastic. DNA breaks down. I’m literally watching it happen and I can’t—”
“Hey.” Her hand finds my wrist. Pulls my hands down from my face. “Breathe.”
“I’m a paralegal. I know chain of custody. I’ve logged evidence on dozens of cases and I’m—”
“Making coffee,” she finishes firmly. Takes over before I can drop the pot. Her hands are steadier than mine. Barely. “Because falling apart before caffeine is just poor life choices.”
She pulls out our icon mugs. Ron Swanson for me. Leslie Knope for her.
I watch her make mine first. Honey and creamer. The exact amount she’s been making for seven years. Her hand shakes when she pours. But she doesn’t spill a drop.
“You’re using the emergency Knope mug,” I observe.
“The regular one is dirty and I’m not washing dishes while investigating a murder.” She hands me Ron Swanson filled to the brim. “Even Leslie Knope would understand that prioritization.”
I take it. The warmth grounds me slightly. “Your hands are shaking.”
“Yeah, well, your hands aren’t exactly steady either.” She makes her own. Three spoons of sugar, no cream. “We’re both a mess. It’s fine. This is fine.”
“We’re not fine.”
“No, but we’re caffeinated. It’s a start.”
We stand there. Both of us staring at the ring like it might start talking.
The coffee feels warm in my hands but I’m cold. That bone-deep cold that has nothing to do with January.
“I showered twice yesterday,” I say finally. “Scrubbed until my skin turned red. But I can still smell it. The bleach. The chemicals. Dom’s cleanup crew.”
“Dylan—”
“The ring is all that’s left of her.” My voice cracks. “And it’s in a fucking sandwich bag like she was leftovers.”
Alex sets her mug down. Crosses to me. Does that thing where she grabs my face with both hands.
“Hey. Look at me.”
I do.
“We’re going to find out who she was. We’re going to figure this out. But first—” She releases my face. Grabs her tarot deck from where she left it last night. “—I need to ask if this is hers. If she’s trying to communicate. If—”
“You’re going to ask a dead woman if that’s her ring.”
“Via tarot. Yes.” She’s already shuffling. Fast. Nervous. “Unless you have a better method of contacting the deceased. Ouija board? Séance? I could light some sage and—”
“Just pull the card.”
She cuts the deck. Her hand hovers.
“Alex.”
The card flips.
My stomach drops before I even see which one. That cold-hot thing at my spine coils tight. My body knows before my eyes register.
Nine of Swords.
The figure sitting up in bed. Hands covering their face. Nine swords mounted above them like a threat that never leaves.
We both stare.
“Oh,” Alex breathes.
“That’s me.” My laugh comes out broken. “That’s literally me. Sitting up in bed at 2 a.m. Hands over my face. Drowning in anxiety.”
“Nightmares,” Alex whispers. Her finger traces the card but doesn’t touch. “Fear that won’t let you sleep. Guilt eating you alive.”
“So that’s a yes? The ring is hers?”
“She’s trying to tell you something.” Alex looks up. Her eyes too bright. “Or you’re going completely insane.”
“Both can be true.”
“Both can absolutely be true.” She sets the Nine of Swords next to the ring.
Evidence. One mystical, one physical.
Both saying the same thing: I’m fucked.
“Tell me about the nightmares.”
I wrap both hands around Ron Swanson’s ceramic face. Let the warmth ground me.
“Four times. Maybe five. I’d wake up gasping, check my phone for news that wouldn’t be there, check the ring was still real, then pass back out into the same fucking dream. Like my brain was stuck on a loop asking are you still watching and the answer was unfortunately yes.”
“That’s horrifying.”
“Right? Like my subconscious couldn’t just give me the teeth-falling-out dream like a normal person. It had to go full Gothic horror.”
Alex leans against the counter. “Tell me.”
“It starts in the alley. I’m at the mouth of it. It’s raining—not regular rain, sheets of it. I’m soaking wet instantly and it’s freezing and I can feel it, Alex. The cold. My clothes sticking. Rain down my face.”
“Okay.”
“Something pulls me forward. Like a hook in my chest. I try to resist but I can’t. My feet just—move. Without permission.” I swallow hard. “At the end of the alley, she’s there. Dahlia. Her back to me. Long blonde hair. Black dress. The little black skirt he mentioned.”
Alex’s hand tightens on her mug.
“I start running. Trying to reach her. But the alley stretches. Gets longer with every step. Like a fucked-up cartoon. I’m sprinting and she’s getting farther away.”
“Does she move?”
“No. She just stands there. Waiting. Like she knows I’ll never reach her.
” I have to force the next words out. “Then he steps out. From the shadows. I can’t see his face—just the fur coat.
Massive. Expensive. He steps between us and I try to go around but he moves with me. Always blocking. Always in the way.”
“You can’t get past him.”
“No. And Dahlia’s still just standing there. Not running. Not fighting. Just—accepting it.”
“Because she’s already dead,” Alex says quietly.
“Yeah.” The word hurts. “Then Dom drops down from the fire escape like he’s fucking Batman. He’s holding papers. The NDA.” I meet her eyes. “And he walks up to me—I’m frozen now, can’t move—and he says, You signed this. You know what it means.”
Alex’s face goes pale. “Dylan—”
“He shoves the papers in my mouth. Makes me eat them. They burn going down. Taste like ash and blood and chemicals. I’m choking but he keeps pushing them in until I swallow. And then I can’t breathe. Can’t speak. The papers are inside me now. Part of me.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Then the water starts. Rising from the ground. Cold. So fucking cold. Hits my ankles, knees, waist, chest, neck. I’m drowning and I can see her still standing there with him behind her, both of them just watching me drown.”
“Do you drown?”
“I wake up before I do. Gasping. Every time.” I set my mug down. “Then fall back asleep and it starts over. Same dream. Same ending. Until I gave up and came out here to stare at a ring like a totally sane person.”
Alex is quiet for a long moment. That look on her face. The one she gets when she’s reading energy.
“The alley stretching,” she finally says. “That’s the investigation. The more you pursue her, the farther the truth gets. Because Dom made her disappear so completely.”
I nod slowly.
“You can’t reach her because she’s already gone. But she’s still there. Waiting. Still wants to be found.” Alex’s voice gets stronger. “And fur coat guy blocking your path—you can’t get past him because you don’t know who he is yet. Can’t see his face.”
“Okay.”
“Dom making you eat the NDA.” She pauses. Careful. “That’s about internalized silence. It’s not just that you signed it—you’ve consumed it. Swallowed it. Made it part of you. That’s why you can’t speak. The silence isn’t external anymore. It’s you.”
Fuck. She’s right.
Five years of consuming that NDA. Making it who I am. Not just something I signed—something I became. And now when I try to speak, try to report what I heard, my body remembers: this will burn going down. This will choke you.
The NDA didn’t silence me.
I silenced myself.
“And the water,” Alex says. “Dylan, you’re drowning in this secret.”
“I know.”
“But you didn’t drown. You woke up.”
“Because it’s a dream.”
“Or because you still have air. The water hasn’t won yet.” She squeezes my hand. “Though I’ll be honest, that’s some quality nightmare content. Your subconscious is really gunning for that Oscar.”
“My subconscious can fuck right off with its artistic pretensions.”
“Fair.” She picks up the Nine of Swords. Studies it. “Though I wish you were having nice normal anxiety dreams. Like the one where you’re back in high school and forgot you had a test.”
“Or the one where all your teeth fall out.”
“Exactly. Normal terror. Not dreams about drowning in secrets while your boss feeds you your own silence.”
We sit there. Two women in a pre-dawn kitchen. Holding hands across evidence and coffee mugs and tarot cards.
“What do we do?” I finally ask.
Alex pulls out her phone. “We start with what we know.”