Chapter Seventeen
Saffi wished she could say that she’d completely forgotten about her little spat with Andino when she got back to the office later that day, but it was stuck in the back of her mind, warring for attention.
She’d taken a cab back, nearly vibrating with unused energy.
The entire course of her conversation with Kapoor had felt like mining for gold.
The actress spoke almost with an accent—not in a way that made her sound like she was from a different country, but as if she belonged to a different century altogether. Her voice reminded Saffi of the old Hollywood films Andino forced her and Taylor to watch.
She’d been intending to avoid the men for the foreseeable future, but when Saffi stepped into the break room for a coffee, she was met by them both at the same time.
They sat across from each other at the lone rectangular table, turning to face her as soon as the door swung open.
All three of them froze for a moment. The overhead light flickered. Then—
“We picked up the police files for you,” Andino said, gesturing to the unopened folders strewn across their table. He’d never been one for the silent treatment, but his voice was unexpected, nonetheless.
The tension broke and Saffi crossed the room to pour herself a coffee. “Thanks,” she said, stilted but not unwelcoming.
“Also,” Taylor said, somewhat hesitantly, “we ran into Dimple’s assistant at the hospital. She seems to think you and her employer are friends.”
“Obviously, I lied.” Saffi shrugged, leaning against the counter. The mention of Kapoor had her itching to pick up the files, but she held back.
“I keep telling Eli we should lie more,” Andino said.
“Yeah, Taylor,” she encouraged. “Lie more.”
Taylor looked between the two of them incredulously. Even Andino couldn’t hide his surprise.
“We agree on some things, me and this clown,” Saffi said.
“Hey!” Andino protested.
“So how was Dimple Kapoor?” Taylor asked before they could delve into yet another argument. It worked to distract Andino, who sat up straight in his chair.
To be fair, Saffi’s conversation with Kapoor had ended in a stalemate.
While she was even more certain now that the actress was guilty, Saffi had gained no incriminating evidence and desperately needed to figure out her next move.
The good thing was that Kapoor had made a big gamble, inventing a new villain out of thin air.
It would take a lot of effort on her part to keep up that charade.
But Kapoor would be on high alert around Saffi from now on, which would make it difficult to catch her slipups. Where it had been beneficial to work alone before, Saffi had a new plan in mind. One that could use Andino and Taylor’s ignorance to her benefit.
“Kapoor didn’t see her attacker,” she said. “I’ve established that the waiter was killed because of the information he had, but other than the phone booth, anything to do with him is a dead end. I want to look into everyone involved in Insomnia who was also at both parties, just to cover my bases.”
Taylor seemed touched, although his brows were furrowed in concern. “Thanks for the update, but I meant Dimple the person, not Dimple the case. She was just targeted by a serial killer. I’d imagine she’s pretty shaken up.”
Saffi rolled her eyes. “Let her fans do the crying and fretting. She’ll be fine.” As far as she had gathered, the public knew that Kapoor was in the hospital but had no idea the severity of the situation or that there was a killer at large.
“They don’t know anything about her,” Andino blurted and then recoiled as though he hadn’t meant to speak. “I just meant this stuff is all surface level. None of them actually care if she’s okay.”
Saffi exchanged a curious glance with Taylor, whose expression told her not to bother asking. It seemed as good a time as any to finally bite the bullet.
“So, no one saw what happened at the party?” she asked. “No cameras?”
Both men paused, exchanging identically bewildered looks. Then, as though afraid she’d change her mind, Taylor’s fingers flew across his keyboard and Andino ripped through the police files. “I’m not sure, but we can find out pretty easily,” Taylor said.
So they’d honored her request to stay off the case. It was equal parts touching and shameful. Were Saffi in their place, the files sitting right in front of her, she wasn’t sure she would’ve been able to resist.
It wasn’t just that Andino and Taylor could be useful now. Saffi had severely underestimated Kapoor. She had no doubts that the woman could kill her and make it look like an accident. Were that to happen, there would be no one there to pick up the pieces. Unless she let them in. Well, to an extent.
“The police report says she was on the balcony by herself,” Andino confirmed. “A few people heard her body hit the ground, though, and came running. They were the ones who called 911.”
“What are your thoughts?” Taylor asked, but it was clear that he actually meant, What made you change your mind? The answer he wanted was that it was their talk that did it. But she would be letting him down yet again.
“This is the first time a victim has survived,” Saffi murmured. “It would be stupid not to use that.”
“What do you mean?” Taylor asked.
“If you attacked someone and they lived, what would you do?”
“Anything to make sure they didn’t speak,” Andino said.
“Exactly,” Saffi agreed.
Taylor’s eyebrows raised in understanding. “You want to use her as bait.”
“When you put it like that, it sounds so sinister,” Saffi said. “But, essentially, yes.”
It wasn’t as cruel as it sounded; there was protocol for this.
They would have to get Kapoor’s consent and properly train her beforehand.
This, of course, was really a means for Saffi to study the actress up close.
Andino and Taylor were there to lure her into a false sense of security.
As interesting as things were right now, there always came a point where Saffi began winning so thoroughly that the game bored her once again.
She wanted to enjoy this while it lasted.
Taylor didn’t say anything, but from the way he glanced at Andino it was clear he didn’t approve. Saffi turned to Andino, expecting opposition, but he was so intently typing away at his laptop that it seemed he’d barely heard her.
“Weren’t you the one begging to help with the case?” she asked, irritated.
“Please don’t start another argument,” Taylor pleaded under his breath.
“Huh?” Andino said, glancing up. “Hold on, I have something I want to show you. A suspect, but he doesn’t exactly match the profile you created.”
Curiosity piqued, Saffi gestured for him to show her.
The man on Andino’s screen appeared to be in his sixties, although it was very possible he looked old for his age. Pale, wrinkled skin, and a receding head of gray hair. He was tall, though, and sturdy.
“Hector Olsen,” Andino said. “He’s a big-name director in Hollywood, known for a lot of popular movies in the past couple decades. He’s also known for a lot of sexual misconduct. Physical and verbal abuse too.”
“Alleged,” Taylor corrected.
“Not all of it,” Andino said.
“And?” Saffi prompted.
Andino started typing again. “There have been rumors he wanted to direct Insomnia, but Bardoux got there first.”
“That’s a motive against the production of the movie, but why would he take it out on the actresses instead of Bardoux or the producers?” Taylor asked.
“This is what Hector’s ex-wives look like.” Andino’s screen this time displayed four side-by-side pictures of young South Asian women. “He was accused of abuse in three cases and in one of those, his ex-wife Laila Olsen claimed he pushed her down the stairs.”
“Oh,” Saffi said. “That is alarming.”
How could she have missed him? Maybe this really was her stubbornness rearing its ugly head, too desperate to prove herself to consider any other options.
Her stomach flip-flopped with guilt. But at the same time, she knew what she’d seen when she met Kapoor at the hospital. The actress’s desperation was palpable.
“Was he at both parties?” Taylor asked.
“He was definitely at Irene’s,” Andino said. “I don’t know about this recent one.”
Saffi remembered the interview Andino and Taylor had conducted with Olsen after Singh’s death. It hadn’t revealed anything of note other than the fact that he was a pompous asshole, but Saffi could’ve guessed that by looking at his picture.
“We need to find out if he was at that party,” she said. “And also follow up to confirm if he really was passed up for Bardoux.”
“I’ll get the interns on it,” Andino said.
Taylor grinned. “Brings back memories, doesn’t it?”
Saffi rolled her eyes and Andino groaned, but there was an undercurrent of fondness to it.
The way he’d said it, Saffi almost wondered if they’d decided to hire three interns on purpose.
She should’ve been horrified to find that all three of them were stuck in the past, tethered to one another, but there was also a comfort in that.
She herself still wasn’t sure if it was Andino and Taylor’s presence that she’d missed or if it was the simplicity that came with being a girl in her early twenties.
And yet somehow, the three of them had managed to fall back into their old rhythm.
Maybe Saffi had been too hasty in cataloging the differences their years apart had created.
Maybe, at their core, they were all still the same kids with dreams too big for their bodies and freakishly compatible working styles.
Regardless, between them was the unspoken knowledge that things could never truly go back to the way they’d been. Saffi almost withdrew again, but this time she resisted. Dimple Kapoor had thrown herself off a balcony simply because she’d wanted, so desperately, to hold on to something.
An actress murdered two people in cold blood to further her career and Saffi was too afraid of rehashing things with her old colleagues to collaborate on this case with them.
It was probably that absurd comparison that gave Saffi the courage to bring her laptop and files into the break room instead of going back to her office.
What was the harm, really? It wouldn’t kill anyone.