Chapter 10
Ten
Twenty minutes later, my laptop sits open on the kitchen table with Alex and I crowding around the open screen.
I can feel the obsession over Dahlia building inside of me.
Alex leans forward. Her eyes scan the spreadsheet I built. Color-coded rows. Filters. My neurodivergent brain organizing horror into neat columns.
She points to a column labeled missing. “How many?” She sounds scared.
“Eighty-seven.”
She looks up. “Eighty-seven?”
“Women reported missing in Philadelphia County since January first.” I can’t look at her. “That’s not even a full month, Alex.”
The number sits there. Eighty-seven.
Body count. That’s what it is. Eighty-seven women who walked out of their lives and vanished. Eighty-seven families still waiting. Eighty-seven names in a database I built at 4 a.m. because I couldn’t sleep.
But none of them are her.
“That’s like—” Alex’s voice cracks. “—what, three Serial podcast seasons worth?”
“That’s not how—”
“I’m coping with math. Let me have this.”
I look at her. Really look. She’s doing that thing where she makes jokes so she doesn’t scream.
“That’s just reported,” I continue. “Doesn’t count the ones no one files for. The ones no one notices are gone.”
“Dylan—”
“Three women every day, Alex. Every single day. At least!” My laugh is broken. “And we’re supposed to just—what? Accept that?”
“Stop.” Alex reaches across. Takes my hand. Forces me to look at her. “Breathe.”
Oh. I wasn’t.
We sit there. Her hand warm over mine. Pulling me back.
“Okay.” She pulls back. Sits up straighter. That thing she does when she’s terrified but refusing to show it. “Show me what you found.”
I pull up the spreadsheet. My organizing system. Red for still missing. Yellow for found alive. Gray for found deceased.
Forty-three are still red.
“You’re not looking for her,” Alex says quietly. “Are you?”
“I can’t.” The words taste bitter. “It’s too soon. She won’t be in here yet.”
Alex’s face does something complicated. “What do you mean too soon?”
“It’s Sunday morning. She died Friday night—technically Saturday morning, around 2 a.m.” I pull up the timeline I built. “Even if someone realizes she’s missing—which they might not for days—they won’t file a report immediately.”
“Why not?”
“Because the police tell people to wait. Give it 24 to 48 hours. She probably went home with someone. She probably just needed space. She probably forgot to charge her phone.” My hands are shaking. “That’s what they say. Every time. Wait. Don’t panic. She’ll turn up.”
“But she won’t.”
“No. She won’t.” I close that spreadsheet. Open another. “So I’m not looking for her. I’m looking for the others.”
Alex stares at the new spreadsheet. “The others.”
“Unsolved murders. Strangulations. Blonde women found in alleys. Philadelphia, last two years.”
I turn the laptop fully toward her. Let her see what I’ve built.
Seventeen cases. Names. Photos. Dates. Locations. Status.
“How many?” Her voice is barely a whisper.
“Seventeen unsolved strangulations of women in Philadelphia County since 2023.”
Seventeen.
Worse than the eighty-seven. Because these women didn’t just disappear.
They were found.
“Seventeen women strangled and their killers never caught.” I scroll through the cases. “Seven were blonde. Four were found in alleys. Two in Center City near clubs.”
“You think he—”
“I think Dom has been doing this for a long time.” My hands are shaking now. “And I think that guy isn’t his only client. Prices are going up. That’s not just inflation, Alex. That’s demand. But did he kill them?” I shrug, deflated. “I don’t know.”
She stares at the screen. At the photos. Seventeen women who looked like her. Like me. Like anyone.
“I did it again,” she whispers. “That’s what he said. Not I killed someone. Not I made a mistake. He said I did it again.”
“He’s done this before. Multiple times.” I pull up my notes. The exact words from the confession. “I don’t know how this keeps happening, Dom. Those were his exact words. How this KEEPS HAPPENING.”
“So we’re looking at—”
“A serial killer. With a body disposal service.” I gesture at the seventeen cases. “These are just the ones where bodies were found. Where Dom’s cleanup wasn’t perfect. Where something went wrong and a jogger found remains or a dog dug something up or the dumpster got checked.”
“And the woman from Friday—Dahlia—”
“Won’t be found. Because Dom learned from these mistakes.
” I close the laptop before I throw it across the room.
“That’s what I’ve been learning. That’s what these databases teach you.
How many women disappear. How rarely they’re found.
How completely someone can vanish. I could be wrong, but my gut is telling me I’m not. ”
Alex is quiet for a long moment. Processing. That quality she gets when she’s reading energy—except this time she’s reading data.
“So when will she be reported?” she asks finally.
“I don’t know.” I press my palms against my eyes. “Maybe tomorrow when she doesn’t show up for work. Maybe next week when her rent is due. Maybe never if she was alone enough. Some women disappear and no one files a report. No one looks. No one cares enough.”
“That’s what Dom counts on.”
“Exactly. That’s why his business works.” I pull up the eighty-seven again. “This many women go missing every month. The system is already overwhelmed. Police are already drowning in cases. One more blonde woman who went to a club and didn’t come home? She’s just a statistic.”
“Unless we make her more than that.”
“How?” My voice breaks. “We don’t know her name.
I’m only calling her Dahlia because it’s all I have.
Don’t know where she lived. Don’t know who would miss her.
We have a ring with hair that’s degrading in a Ziploc bag and a confession we can’t report because of an NDA and absolutely no way to prove any of this happened. ”
Alex stands. Starts pacing. Hands moving. Gesturing. That manic energy.
“So we build the case anyway,” she says.
“Alex—”
“No, listen.” She’s talking faster now. “We can’t find her yet. Fine. But we can find the pattern. We can track Dom’s operation. We can connect the victims. We can build evidence that when she IS reported—when someone finally notices she’s gone—we have something to give them.”
“We can’t go to the police.”
“Not yet. Maybe not ever. I don’t know.” She’s still pacing. “But we document everything. Every detail you remember. Every case that matches. I work in accounting. I have access to all the financials.”
She stops. Faces me.
“We need a murder board.”
I just stare at her.
“Like in the podcasts. And—okay fine—so I went with the IKEA version but—”
“You bought a murder board.”
My hands are still wrapped around Ron Swanson. The ceramic warm and solid. Real.
“A mobile whiteboard that happens to flip.” She’s talking faster now.
Hands everywhere. “For office supplies. Which Dom is reimbursing because POETIC JUSTICE, Dylan. He can literally fund his own investigation. If there’s a hell—and based on this week I’m pretty sure there is—he’s going straight to the circle that makes you pay for evidence of your own crimes. ”
“That’s incredibly specific.”
“Dante would approve.” She’s bouncing now. That nervous energy. “Three hundred forty-seven dollars of blood money. Every receipt I save, every expense report I file—it’s all going toward the case that proves what he is.”
I almost laugh. Because it’s brilliant and insane and so perfectly Alex.
“You’re funding our investigation with his body disposal profits.”
“Exactly.” Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “He thinks he owns us through NDAs and bonuses and remembering our fucking Thai food orders. He doesn’t know we’re building his prison one office supply at a time.”
“What are we putting on this murder board?” I ask. “We don’t even know her name.”
“So we start with what we DO know.” She sits back down. Grabs my legal pad. Starts writing. “Dom runs a body disposal service. A client is a potential serial killer. There are other victims. We have seventeen unsolved strangulations. We have the confession you heard. We have the ring.”
She’s making a list. Organized. Strategic.
“We map Dom’s operation. Track the payments. Connect them to dates. See if any of these seventeen cases line up with the financial activity. Find the pattern.”
“And then what?”
“Then we wait.” She sets down the pen. “We monitor the missing persons databases every day. We wait for Dahlia—or whatever her real name is—to be reported. And when she is, we have a case file ready. Evidence of pattern. Proof of serial killing. A timeline that connects him to multiple deaths.”
“We still can’t go to the police.”
“Maybe not. Maybe ever.” She squeezes my hand. “But we build it anyway. Because she deserves that much. They all deserve that much. These seventeen women, and Dahlia, and whoever comes next.”
“There will be a next one.”
“I know.” Her voice breaks. “Which is why we have to try. Even if it’s just documenting. Even if it’s just bearing witness. Even if all we can do is make sure someone knows. Someone remembers. Someone cares that they’re gone.”
I look at my spreadsheets. Seventeen unsolved murders. Eighty-seven missing women. One ring in a Ziploc bag.
“When does the murder board arrive?” I ask finally.
“Wednesday.”
“We set it up in my room. Map everything out.”
“In the meantime, you keep monitoring those databases. I’ll dig deeper into the financial records at work. See if any payments line up with these cases.” She taps the seventeen. “If a client killed these women, Dom charged him. And if Dom charged him, it’s in the records.”
“Banks don’t lie.”
“Exactly.” She stands. Starts gathering mugs. “We use our actual jobs to investigate. Financial analysis and legal research. Everything we can do without breaking more laws than we already have. After next week. I think we need to observe and be safe this week like I said yesterday.”
The ring burns in my pocket. Evidence I’ve already tampered with.
“We’ve crossed a line,” I say quietly.
“I know.”
“We can’t uncross it.”
“I know.” She rinses the mugs. “But we can keep going forward. Figure out what we’re building toward.”
My phone buzzes.
We both jump.
Calendar reminder: Sunday Dinner - Dad’s - 5 PM
“Shit.” Alex looks at her own phone. “Dylan, we have dinner in two hours.”
My stomach drops.
Right. Sunday dinner. Mandatory.
“I can’t go to your dad’s.”
My hand goes to my throat. I don’t realize I’m doing it until Alex’s eyes track the movement.
Alex’s face does something complicated. “Dylan—”
“He’ll take one look at me and know. You know he will.
” My hand is still at my throat. I force it down.
“He’ll do that thing where he hugs me and asks how my week was and I’ll just—I’ll crack.
I’ll tell him everything because he’s the only father I’ve ever really had and I can’t lie to him. Not about this.”
“Shit.” Alex sits back hard. “You’re right. He’ll see it on both of us the second we walk in.”
“We have to go anyway.”
“I know.”
“Because if we don’t—”
“He’ll show up here with food and questions and that look he gets.” Alex gestures vaguely. “The one that says tell me what’s wrong, korítsι mou, I’ll fix it.” She does an impressive impersonation of her Greek dad.
“And we can’t have him here. Not with—” I gesture at everything. The ring. The laptop. The murder board arriving Wednesday. “—all this.”
“No.” She stands. Starts pacing again. “So we go. We eat. We perform normal twenty-seven-year-old drama. Bar exam stress. Work bullshit. Boy problems.”
“You don’t have boy problems.”
“I’ll make some up. David’s always good for fictional drama.” She’s already planning. “I’ll say he’s being possessive or whatever. Dad will go all Greek and protective and it’ll distract him from the fact that we’re investigating a serial killer our boss is protecting.”
“When you say it like that it sounds insane.”
“That’s because it is insane.” She checks her phone. “But it’s also Sunday and your Greek dad is expecting us and if we don’t show he’ll drive here with enough spanakopita to feed an army.”
“He’s not my Greek dad.”
“Dylan, he’s been feeding you since you were twelve. You literally cried into spanakopita last month and told me he was the only father you ever had.”
“Why do you remember that?”
“Because it was true and also because wine makes you sentimental.” She crosses to me. Does that thing where she grabs my face. “We can do this. We’ve been performing our whole lives. This is just one more show.”
“This is different.”
“I know.” Her voice softens. “But we don’t have a choice. We go. Be seen. Act normal. Then come home and start building the case.”
I look at her. At this woman who’s been reading my coffee grounds since we were teenagers. Who bought a murder board and charged it to Dom. Who’s in this with me even though it could get us both killed.
“Okay,” I say finally. “We go. We perform. We survive.”
“We survive,” Alex echoes.
Neither of us sounds convinced.
The water is rising. My dream told me so. Alex’s interpretation confirmed it.
We’re building a case for a woman who isn’t even missing yet. Tracking a killer we can’t name. Investigating crimes we can’t report.
And in two hours, I have to sit across from the only father I’ve ever really had and pretend everything is fine.
We’re building a case for a ghost.
And Monday, I have to go back to work and smile at Dom like I don’t know what he is.
Like I don’t know what I’m becoming.