Chapter Nineteen #2
Arizona hadn’t required any permits for concealed carry, so Saffi was left out of the equation.
She was glad for the excuse. Even though she’d learned the basics in her home state, she hadn’t ever felt the need to carry weapons.
All but one of the cases they’d been assigned in Arizona had been petty crime.
And it was especially unnecessary abroad.
It probably should have made Saffi feel uneasy knowing that there was a gun somewhere on the premises, just out of reach of Dimple Kapoor, but firearms weren’t exactly her style.
“That won’t be necessary,” Kapoor said after a beat. “I was just curious.”
“Any other concerns?” Taylor asked.
“I don’t suppose you’ll tell me who the suspects are?” Kapoor asked.
Again, they deferred to Saffi. She pushed off the wall and went to sit on the table beside Kapoor, who bumped her elbow with Saffi’s thigh.
“Well?” she asked the interns.
All three of them straightened. She was certain one of the boys almost saluted before thinking better of it. In the end, they stared blankly at her.
“What do you think?” she asked them. “Should we tell her?”
One of the boys stammered out, “Yes.”
“Why?”
“So she knows who to look out for?”
“Wrong,” Saffi replied. She didn’t have to turn around to know Taylor was wincing behind her back. Judging by her shaking shoulders, Dimple Kapoor was holding back laughter. “Any other guesses?”
The girl raised her hand.
“I’m not your teacher,” Saffi said.
“You shouldn’t tell her,” she answered, notepad in a tight grip. “Because the suspect could be innocent, for all we know. We want to induce an authentic reaction in case the real culprit is not someone we’re expecting.”
“What’s your name?” Saffi asked.
“Mia Martinez.”
“Gold star, Martinez. That is one reason.” Of course, the real reason was that Dimple herself was a suspect—not that Saffi expected the interns to know that.
Martinez beamed, her iron grip on her notebook relaxing.
The boys seemed dejected, but disappointment was a vital part of investigative work.
The best PIs had to get comfortable with it or else they’d make the same mistakes as the stubborn Saffi of her past. However, she couldn’t help but give them an encouraging nod.
That seemed to ease the corners of their frowns.
“I see,” Kapoor said. She’d been studying Saffi, but she turned back to Andino and Taylor. “And what if I go through this training and decide I don’t want to do it in the end?”
“Then you’ll have wasted our t—”
“That’s perfectly within your right,” Taylor said, cutting Saffi off.
Kapoor took a moment to formulate a response. “From what you’ve told me, this killer sounds manipulative and intelligent. I don’t know if I stand a chance against them.”
“Wow, Kapoor,” Saffi muttered, leaning down and speaking low enough for only the actress to hear. “I’m all for self-love, but this is a bit much.”
Kapoor’s expression didn’t so much as twitch, but there was a tenseness in her jaw that hadn’t been there before. Saffi couldn’t help her amusement. There was a certain thrill to be sitting in a roomful of people, winning a game that nobody but the two of them knew the rules of.
“But,” Kapoor continued, “if there’s a chance I can help, then I will.”
—
They finished the meeting with a tour of the building.
No man had ever made paper clips and staplers sound as exciting as Andino.
His chest puffed up every time Kapoor complimented something of his, cueing Saffi and Taylor to exchange unimpressed expressions.
Taylor didn’t seem to notice, though, that Kapoor reacted similarly whenever Andino chose to wax poetic about her work.
It was minute, but the twitch of her lips gave it away.
Egomaniacs, the both of them.
The tour concluded outside the agency, where a cool breeze greeted them. Dimple paused to call a cab, which prompted Andino and Taylor to head inside, but Saffi remained. She rocked back on her heels, hands stuffed into her pockets.
“Do you hate communications or something?” she asked eventually.
When Kapoor looked up in confusion, the sunlight hit her eyes just right, igniting a kaleidoscope of brown and gold. She had extremely long, dark eyelashes that cast shadows against her skin. Saffi supposed she could see why someone might want to put her on a movie screen.
“You gave up a full ride to a great university,” she continued. “I figured you weren’t the biggest fan of your major.”
If Kapoor had been surprised by Saffi’s knowledge, she didn’t show it. She did, however, take her time before responding. As though considering her words carefully.
“Communications is fine,” Kapoor replied. “Just not my passion.” She reached into her bag and held up a thick bundle of papers, the corners of which lifted with the wind. It had the weathered look of a well-loved book.
The large “[Confidential]” mark splashed in ink across the front gave away that it was a script. Nobody would give two shits about it if it were blank. Saffi wouldn’t be surprised if actors stamped it themselves to be sure everyone in a twenty-mile radius noticed.
“Communications is no one’s passion,” Saffi deadpanned.
“But what I don’t understand is how you came to that conclusion.
You hadn’t taken a single communications class.
Your coursework was all over the place. Organic chemistry, physics, English—hell, even computer science.
” Kapoor tensed for a fraction of a second, but Saffi still caught it.
The endless phone calls and trips down to the university to acquire those transcripts, while a truly harrowing experience, had been worth it.
“You’ve done your research,” Kapoor said. It felt vaguely mocking. “What is there to say? I enrolled in those courses because they sounded interesting, but,” she shrugged, “I was out of my depth. It doesn’t matter how many lectures you attend if you don’t retain the information.”
Saffi grinned. “You’re lying. You aced all of them, I saw your transcript.”
If she hadn’t studied liars and criminals for nearly a decade, she would’ve thought Kapoor was completely unaware of being caught out. But the way her body stilled for a fraction of a second spoke volumes.
“Grades are nothing but ink on paper. Perhaps my true skills lie in plagiarism.”
“I don’t doubt that for a second, but that doesn’t explain why you would lie about it.”
But Saffi already knew why she’d lied. Kapoor was an actress, she enjoyed manipulating people’s impressions of her to her liking.
Maybe that was why she’d chosen the communications track.
It was vague and unassuming enough, at least for those who didn’t bother to look deeper at the classes she’d been enrolled in.
Saffi thought back to the shelves of VHS tapes at Kapoor’s apartment, not a speck of dust on them. Or maybe it was that Kapoor had wanted to give the traditional college route an honest effort, trying a bit of everything to see what stuck. And it was her true passion that won out in the end.
This was something Saffi could understand: putting your all into a passion until it consumed you whole. But the problem with that was that it would eventually leave you hollow inside.
Saffi hadn’t been expecting an answer, so it startled her when Kapoor spoke again.
“Perhaps I feel bad,” she said, looking up through dark lashes. Cars honked on the busy street nearby, but the sound faded into background noise. “Perhaps I’m turning over a new leaf.”
“You act like I don’t know you.”
Kapoor gave her a small, almost sad look in return. “It is never a good thing to be known.” It was the first thing she’d said that sounded like the truth.
The sound of crunching gravel heralded a cab pulling into Andino and Taylor’s parking lot.
They put their conversation on pause, tracking the vehicle until it came to a stop in front of them.
There was so much left to say, but neither of them spoke again.
Saffi thought that would be it, but Kapoor stalled in closing the door, poking her head out again.
“You were right,” she said, twin dimples on either side of her face. “This is fun. Don’t ruin it.”
Saffi watched as the car peeled out of the parking lot, blending seamlessly into midday traffic.
She knew better than anyone the look of a woman carrying the weight of her past. Kapoor didn’t seem all that concerned that Saffi was looking into her college years, so her secrets likely didn’t lie in her coursework.
She did, however, seem alarmed at the level of access Saffi had managed to obtain.
Saffi was on the right path, she just had to keep digging.
She didn’t notice the new presence beside her until Taylor spoke. “Sorry—have you seen a blue folder?”
Saffi nearly jumped.
“I swear it was just on my desk. It wouldn’t be a big deal, but the printer’s out of commission and I have to get this finished within the next half hour.” Taylor sounded haggard.
When Saffi turned to face him, he looked even worse. She took pity on him, knowing he was in a rush to leave the office.
“Kapoor’s paperwork?” she asked. “I took care of that yesterday.” There was no use in waiting when she already knew Kapoor would agree to help them.
Taylor opened his mouth, as though to reply, but nothing came out. He shut it with an audible click, brows furrowed.
“Why?” he asked eventually.
“Don’t you have plans tonight? For once in your boring life, I might add.” He continued to stare at her with suspicion, so Saffi sighed and added, “I figured I could cut you some slack on your birthday. You only turn twenty-nine once.”
Taylor blinked in surprise. “You remembered?”
Saffi gave him a look.
“Sorry, I just figured you forgot when you said you didn’t want to come out with us.”
It wasn’t as though Saffi hadn’t considered it.
But she wouldn’t fit in with Andino and Taylor’s new friends, whoever they were.
It wouldn’t be the same as the three of them getting utterly plastered on cheap whiskey for every occasion they could come up with.
And she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from comparing it.
Besides, she’d been dying to get the two of them out of the office so she could finally implement a half-decent filing system.
“Thank you,” Taylor said, breaking her from her thoughts. “I appreciate it, really.”
“Don’t get used to it,” she muttered.
Infuriatingly, Taylor’s smile only grew brighter. “So, what do you make of her?” He gestured at the space where the car had just been.
Saffi shrugged. “I’m not you. I don’t make anything of anyone.”
She liked to think she was similar to her father in that regard. Her job was to gather evidence and the law would take care of the rest. It always did. Inserting too much personal bias into the narrative would only end in disaster. And Saffi did not play losing games.
Saffi bristled at the look Taylor gave her. “What?”
“Nothing, just…you’re not usually that antagonistic. Not even with Atlas.”
“The hell is that supposed to mean?”
A thoughtful expression crossed Taylor’s features. “I can’t tell yet whether you hate her or respect her, but it’s clear she gets under your skin.”
He was already heading back inside before Saffi had the chance to be properly offended.
“You coming?” he asked over his shoulder. It was his birthday; she wasn’t allowed to start an argument with him today and he knew it.
Saffi almost followed him, but when the shade hit her cheeks, robbing them of their warmth, she hesitated. A kaleidoscope of brown and gold. She stepped back into the sun.
“Maybe later,” she mumbled, wondering just how much antagonism it would take to know a woman who did nothing but lie.