Chapter Seven
Chapter
Seven
The next morning, Appa grunted at the television as he tore off a piece of uthappam and dipped it in peanut chutney. “Putta, isn’t that the new client you mentioned?”
Naina looked up from her iPad, midway through reading a report for work, while her own breakfast lay untouched.
On the news channel, a reporter was interviewing the protestors outside Preethi Acharya’s house.
An old photograph of a handcuffed, sobbing Preethi was displayed in the top right-hand corner.
“Turn it up,” Naina said, teeth gritted, and Appa reached for the remote.
“They’d better put her in jail for life,” one man said in Kannada, scowling, while his friend continued lifting his poorly alliterated placard that said No Pity for Petty Preethi. “Or better yet, give her the death sentence. Kill the killer!”
“Kill the killer!” another woman with him shouted, raising her fist.
Appa tsk-tsked. “These fans are feral. You’re gonna have your work cut out for you.”
Naina finally swallowed a bite of uthappam. “Looks like it,” she said in a shaky voice, tuning back in to the broadcast.
The reporter looked between the three friends. “But what about ‘innocent until proven guilty’?”
The first man let out a sarcastic laugh. “If she’s innocent, why has she locked herself in her house? What does she have to hide?”
Naina grabbed the remote from beside her plate and switched off the television, her muscles tensing.
“Are they kidding? Who in their right mind would step outside their house and walk straight into a mob, whether they’re guilty or not?
Fucking bullshit!” She stood, heading to the kitchen to discard her half-eaten breakfast.
“Putta, don’t waste food!” Appa called out from the dining table. “You know the secret ingredient to my cooking is love.”
“Thankfully, you have plenty more love to give,” Naina teased as she washed up at the sink and wiped her shaking hands on a towel. “I have to run, right into the heart of that mob. We’re visiting Preethi’s house.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“Uh.” Naina coughed. “My new colleague.”
Appa’s ears perked up. “Is it a boy?”
Naina shot him a glare amid packing her laptop bag. “That’s irrelevant, Appa.”
“Ah”—he clapped his hands and whooped—“so I’m right!”
She ignored him and rummaged through her workstation by the corner of the living room. “Have you seen my laptop charger anywhere?”
“Underneath your journals,” he said, licking chutney off his fingers. “Anyway, if you won’t tell me about this boy, I’ll just have to give Anil a call and ask him for the ‘juice,’ as you youngsters say.”
“For the tea,” Naina corrected him. She shoved the charger into her bag, slid her feet into her loafers, and yelled as she headed out of the apartment, “And don’t you dare talk to Anil!” She slammed the front door behind her, Appa’s laughter carrying all the way to the elevator.
At Sunstag, Naina sat beside Tejas at the corner table, and they discussed the case in low voices.
Preethi Acharya was out on bail despite having a murder charge, because Iqbal and Kumble pulled some strings with their influence.
But she would be taken into judicial custody next week, a few days before the trial began.
Naina had asked around and discovered that Preethi’s former lawyers had given up on the case after taking note of the public vitriol against their client.
“Can you believe the shit people are saying online?” Tejas said softly as they went through social media together. “And here I thought only actors had obsessive fans.”
Naina shook her head and sipped her Americano. “Pai’s movies might have…concerning themes, not that most cinema buffs have a problem with that, but he’s in a league of his own as a director. Every Kannada superstar has worked with him.”
“Crazy,” Tejas mumbled. Next they put their heads together and went through the previous attorney’s notes, which glaringly lacked any groundbreaking information.
Tejas read out the pointers in a low, rumbly, sexy voice, making the hair on the back of Naina’s neck stand, and when Tejas’s fingers brushed her skin as he reached for the pen resting beside her elbow, she actually jumped. Fuck.
“Um, I’ll be back,” she mumbled, heading for the restroom without looking his way.
There, she steadied her breathing and splashed water on her face.
“You can do this,” she told her reflection, gripping the edge of the sink.
“Just because you’re attracted to him doesn’t mean you have to act on it. It doesn’t mean you will. So—”
The door swung open, and a woman shot her a funny look before disappearing into one of the stalls. With a sigh, Naina washed her hands and returned to their table.
Tejas was chuckling at something on his phone, from which shrill meows played, louder than the pop music from the café’s speakers.
Before Naina could stop herself, she blurted out, “Is that your kitten? Astrid, right?”
Tejas’s neck whipped toward her, bringing the scent of pine with it. “You remember Astrid?”
“Well, yeah,” Naina mumbled, giving him a quick shrug before focusing on her half-empty coffee mug. “Your camera roll was full of her videos. I bet everyone at the hostel remembers her.”
“Yeah, she’s memorable for sure.” He smiled, then cocked his head at her. “Do you still talk to the others from Goa?”
“Uh, no.” Naina tightened her hands over her mug.
She wished the answer was yes, because she’d carry the moments spent with her hostel mates in Goa in her heart for a lifetime.
And yet…she’d deleted their phone numbers the second she’d returned to Bangalore, knowing Tejas had their info too.
If she’d stayed in touch with Raziya, Jonah, or Aleksy, she would have found a way back to Tejas sooner or later.
And that would have derailed her decision to never, ever, ever fall in love again.
She’d come so close to it in Goa. All the amazing things Tejas did for her, despite having known her for barely two weeks. He’d made her feel right at home, in that hostel, in his arms, almost upending her decision to keep things strictly casual.
Love was dangerous; love was unreliable. Unlike her career, where her efforts, diligence, and hard work took her places, relationships sank no matter how much she tried to keep them afloat.
No. Naina was better off alone.
“I don’t talk to them anymore, either,” Tejas said, and she returned to the conversation.
“I tried staying in touch for a few weeks, but then things fizzled out. Honestly,” he sighed, “Goa was a fever dream. I came back with memories, a few souvenirs, and a bunch of photographs, but somehow, it didn’t feel real. Maybe because we never—”
“Goa was a long time ago,” Naina said sharply, downing the rest of her coffee in one go. “I think it’s best if we keep things professional now.”
“Oh, you’re one to talk,” he fired back, a tick in his jaw. “We’re colleagues who are working to stop an innocent woman from going to jail. You need to get over whatever grudge you’re holding against me and stop giving me the cold shoulder.”
“It’s not a grudge. I just don’t want to talk to a colleague about irrelevant things like my past.”
“Our past,” Tejas pointed out.
Naina hissed through her teeth, deciding to change the topic. “We should get back to the case. Can you call Preethi and let her know we’ll be arriving soon?”
Tejas huffed audibly. “Sure.”
An hour later, Naina wiped sweat off her forehead and checked her email as the auto rickshaw sped toward Preethi Acharya’s house in Sadashivanagar.
Next to Naina, Tejas was ruffling his curly hair and smiling, seemingly enjoying the toxic, polluted air of Bangalore’s traffic-heavy streets. He looked like he’d forgotten about their little fight at Sunstag. Was he always so…sunshiny? She let out a soft chuckle and returned to her phone.
He must have heard her, because he tapped her on the shoulder. “I can’t get over how perfect the weather is here.”
“Perfect?” She tried not to pull a face. “It’s way too hot for October, and the smog from all the vehicles—”
“You think this is hot?” Tejas tossed his head back and laughed; Naina tried not to gawk at that small but familiar dimple creasing his cheek. “Mumbai is sticky and humid all year long, and Jaipur had the most scorching sunlight when I was a child. Pleasant weather in October is a blessing.”
“Oh, right, Iqbal mentioned you were neighbors in Jaipur. I didn’t know that’s where you’re originally from.”
Tejas’s face blanched. “Because of your silly rule.”
“It wasn’t silly—”
He scoffed as the auto rickshaw slowed in traffic. “Maybe not for you, since you never saw me as anything but a means to get over your ex.”
She decided not to reply and instead turned to the auto rickshaw driver, who was chuckling at a YouTube video on his phone. “How far are we, anna?” she said, speaking to him in Kannada.
“Five minutes away,” he answered as he checked the map. Then his face soured. “Madam, are you going to that murderer’s house?”
Naina’s eyes narrowed. “That’s up to the court to decide.”
The driver tutted and took a right turn when the traffic lights turned green. “Who else could it be? Rohith sir did her a favor offering her the lead role in spite of their history, and look how that turned out for him. May he rest in peace.”
Despite the media and public attention, she didn’t think an auto rickshaw driver with no ties to the film industry or the legal system would be so opinionated—or outspoken, for that matter. “Just drive,” she snapped.
Tejas frowned, since he probably didn’t know a word of Kannada. “What’s he saying?”
“Later,” Naina said. She flipped through the copy of the charge sheet and sighed.
The evidence against Preethi wasn’t ironclad, but given the high-profile nature of the murder and Rohith’s long-standing reputation in the industry, the court would want to ease public pressure and wrap up the case quickly—even if it meant sending an innocent woman to jail.
The driver stopped the auto. “You’ll have to walk from here,” he said, pointing ahead. “There are too many people outside her house, and I’m not going near an angry mob.”
Naina nodded. They paid the fare and got out, walking toward the lane that led to Preethi’s house.
Even from a distance, the screams and shouts of people and police were clearly audible.
She rolled her eyes and filled Tejas in on everything the auto driver had said.
“Can you believe his audacity? It’s been a week since the murder, and he’s already decided she’s the killer. ”
“Well.” Tejas kicked a pebble with his shoe as they rounded the corner. “At least this gives us an idea of public perception outside of social media. That, and the commotion up ahead.”
Naina gasped; the situation was worse than she’d seen on the news.
People swarmed outside Preethi’s two-story bungalow, holding placards and banners that ranged from Justice for Rohith Pai to Burn the Bitch in both Kannada and English while journalists and camerapeople filmed the whole thing.
Two policemen stood by, keeping an eye on the protest and reprimanding the mob whenever their language turned ugly.
“You ready?” Tejas whispered.
Naina lifted her chin up, her eyes narrowing. “Ready.”