Chapter Fourteen
Dimple paced the length of her apartment. She must’ve been going for hours now, calves straining with effort, but she could think of nothing but the woman who’d approached Priyal. There weren’t many rationalizations she could come up with. At least, not many on feasible grounds.
Explanation One: Salomé had bribed the Singhs into letting the case go.
The Singhs were unfathomably rich, however, so Dimple doubted there was any amount of money that could buy them.
Especially when their precious daughter was involved.
Although it was possible the company had managed to ascertain something else the Singhs desired more than money, offering them that instead.
If that was the case, Dimple had no concept of what such a thing could be.
Explanation Two: The Singhs had simply given up.
But Irene was their only daughter. They had always doted on her the way parents were meant to.
Moreover, the Singhs’ lawsuit had been met with nothing but support from the public.
Money wasn’t the issue because, once again, they had that in spades.
There was not a single thing, as far as Dimple could see, stopping them from moving forward.
Explanation Three: Salomé blackmailed the Singhs.
It was possible, yes, but Dimple couldn’t wrap her head around it. Even those on the highest of pedestals had their downfalls, but would a fashion brand go to such lengths? Could they go to such lengths?
Four: The Singhs had found something or someone else to blame for Irene’s death.
This was the final rationalization Dimple could invent.
It was also, to her horror, the most logical.
To cancel the lawsuit so publicly without utmost certainty that Salomé was not to blame would be beyond foolish.
The Singhs would be made a laughingstock if they tried to sue Salomé again after this.
Nor would it look good in front of a judge, especially following the comments they made in the published article.
And if the Singhs were this certain that something or someone else was to blame, that would mean that Irene’s case had been undoubtedly determined a murder.
Dimple took a seat at her couch, tucking her feet under her legs and pulling out a notebook.
Pen pushing thoughtfully against her cheek, she drafted a timeline.
January 23, Irene Singh dies.
January 26, private investigators appear, bringing news of Irene’s death.
January 27, accepted the lead role in Insomnia.
Morning of February 2, the Singhs announce plans to sue Salomé.
Evening of February 2, message from the blackmailer (Isaac Klossner).
Early morning of February 3, Isaac Klossner dies.
March 1, the Singh’s publicly announce their decision to rescind the lawsuit against Salomé. Additionally, Priyal is approached by an unknown woman claiming to be a friend.
With the facts laid bare, it became clear that if definitive proof had been found that someone was to blame for Irene’s death, it would’ve had to have been between February 2 and March 1.
Which meant it was most likely Isaac’s death that tipped them off.
Dimple couldn’t imagine how anyone could have managed to link the two.
Perhaps someone discovered that he’d catered Irene’s party the night she died, but surely there would’ve been no reason to look into him so closely?
It also became clear that whoever had approached Priyal could be investigating Irene’s case.
The thought alone made Dimple’s blood run cold.
This meant she was almost certainly a suspect.
For a brief, hysterical moment, she wondered if the proof Isaac had on his computer had somehow not been erased.
But she reminded herself that if that were the case, she would’ve been dragged away in handcuffs by now.
No, it wasn’t possible there was anything officially linking Dimple to Irene’s or Isaac’s death.
It was more likely she was one suspect in a pool of many.
But if the investigators kept pulling at these loose threads, the entire spool would unfurl.
She had to do something drastic—something to throw them off her trail entirely before they unearthed something she couldn’t explain.
As she scanned the timeline once again, she found herself drawn back to the woman who’d approached Priyal. That had to be the best place to start. Dimple opened the drawer closest to her and retrieved the black embossed business card. Andino and Taylor Private Eye.
On the front page of their official website was a picture of Atlas Andino looking fierce and Eli Taylor smiling brightly in front of their practice.
No sign of the woman. It was possible that the Singhs had hired another company to investigate after realizing that Atlas and Eli had come to a false conclusion.
Which would be a shame; the men had been all too easy to deal with.
Dimple spent the next hour researching the top private investigator agencies in California. Surely the Singhs would settle for nothing but the best. She found a few women-owned agencies, but none matching the description her assistant had given her.
Although, thinking back to it, Priyal had mentioned Arizona. Dimple typed in, Arizona Private Investigator and hit search.
There she was. The first photo that graced the screen, a young woman with a scowl on her face, black hair pulled into a ponytail almost as an afterthought. Dimple got the feeling she was meticulous about everything but her appearance.
The headline of the accompanying article read, Arizona’s Sweetheart: Governor Iyer’s Daughter Graduates with Honors, Licensed as a Private Investigator.
It was from six years ago. Her name was Saffi Mirai Iyer and she’d worked at Stronghold Private Eye, an agency based in Arizona that had permanently shut down about a year after she’d joined.
Some more digging connected Saffi, Atlas, and Eli’s names in various articles about cases they’d solved together. This had to be her, but Dimple sent a picture for Priyal to verify just in case.
When she received back a message with far too many exclamation points, Dimple knew her suspicions had been confirmed.
This woman—the one who’d approached Priyal claiming to be Dimple’s friend—was a private investigator.
Irene’s case had turned into a murder investigation and Dimple, somehow, was a suspect.
Instead of an uptick in the dread already coursing through her veins, she instead felt an inexplicable rush of an emotion she couldn’t describe.
One that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand upright.
She had the sudden and desperate urge to meet this woman.
To see who exactly she thought she was, issuing such a direct challenge.
There were some answers online, but Dimple knew better than anyone the skewed nature of public perception.
Saffi’s persona, however, was odd in and of itself.
Usually when one looked into the children of major political figures, there were no shortage of embarrassments to sift through.
Saffi, though, had only heaps of praise.
From community service initiatives she’d founded to the fact that she’d gotten into Harvard and gave it up in favor of staying closer to family (thus earning her the nickname Arizona’s sweetheart).
It didn’t matter that in every published photo of her she wore a scowl.
Saffi clearly knew how to play the game—how to be remembered.
Her interviews were as practiced as any scripted line Dimple had delivered.
A fellow performer, a fellow artist, and in the investigative field, of all spaces.
That wasn’t to say that Dimple couldn’t read between the lines.
She eventually ran out of archives of local Arizona publications to sift through, switching to the international ones instead.
Saffi Mirai Iyer was, according to several credible sources, one of the best private investigators in the world.
Dimple could only imagine how tired she grew of playing the same old archetypal daughter at home.
She wondered what Saffi’s life had been like behind closed doors.
Whether Governor Iyer ever raised his voice—or his fist. Whether he or his wife had a drinking problem.
Like a true performer, though, Saffi never slipped up.
Or maybe she had, and that was why she’d left the country. The show must go on.
Knowing who her pursuer was strangely calmed Dimple. Because that meant the best private investigator in the world still had yet to gather enough evidence to bring her in. The best private investigator in the world, at the end of the day, was as human as she was.
Dimple scanned her bookshelf. The text she extracted from the lowest shelf was heavy and stiff, having been untouched for several years. She brushed her fingertips across the top, sneezing as a cloud of dust erupted.
Advanced College Physics, the title page read. Dimple flipped the paper with her timeline over to its blank side and opened the textbook to the chapter she was looking for.
It had been a long while since she’d had to use this part of her brain, but the knowledge there had never deserted her.
It was simply locked away. Finding the key was the difficult part.
It lay in the margins of the annotated pages she flipped between, in the relevant formulas she marked down.
Soon enough, Dimple’s muscle memory took over and the textbook began collecting dust again on her coffee table.
Only once she was satisfied with the scrawl of numbers, equations, and Greek characters scattered across the page did she pause.
With her other hand, she ignited her lighter and watched, fascinated, as fire caught and began to consume, eating the paper alive.
Ash gathered at Dimple’s feet, the knowledge forever burned into her mind.
It was Dimple’s turn to make a move, and she would be doing so on her own terms.