“Right?” She grabs my hand—third time tonight. “You know what’s insane?”
“What?”
“I’m more scared of you going in there without me than I am of getting caught.”
My chest tightens. Not the ring. Something else. Deeper. I squeeze her hand. “Same.”
“Okay so we’re both idiots.”
“The best idiots.” I pass the joint back. “The kind that solve murders and probably die trying.”
“At least we’ll die together.” She flicks the joint into the street with unnecessary drama. “Paréa—you know, partners in everything. Crime and death included.”
“Very comforting, Alex.”
“I try.”
The weed is humming through my system now. Not enough to be stupid, just enough to take the edge off the fear and replace it with this floaty feeling that everything might be fine even though nothing is fine.
Which is probably the point.
“Come on, my guy’s waiting for us.”
“Your guy,” I say as we walk toward the next alley. “You have a guy at every club in Philadelphia or just the murder scenes?”
“Just the murder scenes. I’m very niche.”
This alley is bigger than the hookup alley—wide enough for delivery trucks and a dumpster the size of a small car. Also busier. Three people smoking by the service entrance, a couple making out against the brick wall, someone on their phone pacing and gesturing wildly.
The couple against the wall—her back pressed to brick, his hands in her hair. Consensual. Wanted. Everything Dahlia’s last moments weren’t.
The ring feels like it weighs a thousand pounds. I have to look away.
Definitely not made for discreet activities, this alley.
There are, in fact, specific hookup alleys in this city. Philadelphia has a whole infrastructure for poor decisions.
This isn’t one of them.
We walk past the line at the front entrance—easily fifty people deep, all of them dressed better than me and colder than me and definitely not investigating a murder—and head toward the service door around back.
Every woman in that line has done the math. Which shoes can we run in, which friends will notice if we disappear, which exit is closest. We don’t talk about it, but we all know. The ring around my neck is just proof of what happens when the math doesn’t work out.
The bass from inside the club vibrates through the sidewalk. Through my heels. Into my bones.
Alex pulls out her phone, sends a quick text, then leads me to a heavy steel door with peeling black paint. No sign. No handle on the outside. Just a door that looks like it hasn’t been opened since the Reagan administration.
Then it opens.
Alex’s on-again, off-again boy toy stands there. David. Of course it’s David. Alex collects Davids like some people collect frequent flyer miles.
“Hey, beautiful.” He lunges for her waist, fingers already grasping, that particular hunger of a man who texts “you up?” at 2 a.m. and actually expects an answer.
This is Alex’s superpower and her curse—making men believe they matter for exactly as long as she needs them to. I’ve watched her do it since high school.
Watched her perfect it in college.
Watched it hollow her out in tiny increments, like she’s paying rent on our friendship with pieces of herself, and I’m the landlord who keeps accepting payment.
