“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.”
Nine
The coffee makerwon’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?”
