“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.
