“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. WhichDom 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, wehave 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.”
