Chapter Twenty-Three
It seemed Dimple Kapoor was making a habit of letting herself into Saffi’s office. She sat on the desk, same as before, but Saffi refused to give her the satisfaction of her attention. Instead, she continued to pace as she studied Dimple in her peripheral.
The actress always sat so properly, her shoulders squared and chin tilted up. Had she always been that way? Saffi imagined a small child holding her head up high as the weight of the world bore down on her. Discomfort pricked at her skin like ants until she banished the thought.
Saffi worried how much Dimple had figured out from the fight with Andino.
It had been eating at her far more than the fallout of the fight itself, which had been inconsequential.
Andino had apologized for calling Saffi a bitch—either Taylor’s doing or of his own volition, she still wasn’t sure—and things were more or less back to normal.
For the rest of the agency, at least. An unnerving hush blanketed her office now. The news was still playing at a soft volume in the corner and Saffi watched Dimple’s attention draw up toward the TV. This scene was too familiar, almost eerily so.
“Can I help you with something?” Saffi asked, unable to take it any longer.
Taylor had informed her that Dimple’s training was nearly complete, but Saffi still wondered how she had the time to come bother her alongside the auditions, interviews, and nefarious schemes she was surely busy with.
With her brace removed and the skills she now had to safely go undercover, it was only a matter of time before their stalemate would come to an end.
Dimple clearly had a plan, but so did Saffi.
It would come down to who was better prepared.
“Sit down,” Dimple said, strangely gentle.
It infuriated Saffi enough to keep her standing, arms crossed, but the way Dimple laughed made her regret it.
“Even now, you always have one foot out the door,” she said.
Saffi was sitting before she’d even realized what had happened, hands fisted, nails digging crescents into her palm. The gall of this woman. She didn’t know the first thing about Saffi.
“Do you always argue with Atlas?” Dimple asked, leaning closer. She was either oblivious to or uncaring of Saffi’s anger.
This was somewhat expected, but the question still sent another spike of anxiety through Saffi’s veins.
Anxiety and defensiveness. But she would never let that show.
Dimple was clearly practiced in using people’s emotions against them.
So she allowed a manufactured calm to settle over her features.
One that her father had helped her perfect.
He’d always said that Saffi’s turbulent emotions would be her downfall.
“We’ve known each other for years,” she explained. “It’s what we would call our normal.”
“That is far from normal.”
Saffi narrowed her eyebrows. “I don’t see how that’s any of your concern.”
“It isn’t.” Dimple shrugged, immediately letting it go.
That was a little too easy. Now Saffi was curious where she’d been planning on going with that.
She sighed, rubbing a tired hand over her face. “Andino knows how to irritate me better than anyone.” She almost said He knows how to hurt me, but that was something she would never admit. “And I’m not much better. It’s almost like a game at this point.”
“Does it ever affect your work?” Dimple asked. It seemed to be a genuine question, but it was nearly impossible to tell when the actress was hiding something. Luckily, Saffi had learned to read between the lines.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Unfortunately for you, I know what I’m doing. I’ll catch this killer.” I’ll catch you went unsaid.
Dimple didn’t respond right away to her challenge. She seemed to be gathering her thoughts, gearing up for something big. Saffi got the feeling she was about to find out the real reason Dimple had decided to interrupt her evening. And it wasn’t to gossip about her coworkers.
“If you were to catch this person,” Dimple asked slowly, “what would happen to them?”
That was all it took to send ice through Saffi’s veins. This line of questioning couldn’t be a coincidence. Dimple knew, or at least had an idea, of what she had worked so hard to hide.
“Death row,” Saffi replied, voice even.
Dimple laughed humorlessly. “Catching a killer only to kill them. How hypocritical.”
“There’s a moratorium,” Saffi tried, but her resolve was beginning to crumble. “Nobody’s been executed in California since 2006. They’re trying to get rid of it altogether.”
“So you don’t believe in the death penalty,” Dimple said thoughtfully. “Somehow, that’s even more hypocritical.”
“What do you expect me to do?” Saffi snapped. “I can’t exactly go up to a killer and ask them to kindly kill somewhere else, preferably a place where the death penalty doesn’t exist.”
Dimple’s eyes glinted with understanding and Saffi grimaced, knowing she’d played right into her hands.
“Where did you live for the five years you were abroad?”
Saffi scowled. “Don’t act like you don’t already know.”
“I can guess.” Dimple hummed. “France? Norway? Hong Kong? Portugal? Anywhere without the death penalty. Am I right?”
Saffi didn’t respond, which Dimple took as her answer. “I figured it out, don’t I get a reward?”
Saffi leveled Dimple with a glare. She wasn’t sure if she was more humiliated or pissed off that Dimple was making such a mockery of the very thing that haunted her every waking moment.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that, I’m only joking,” Dimple said. “Why move so far away, though? There are many states that have abolished it altogether.”
There was no use denying it any longer, but Saffi couldn’t help the sheer stubbornness that overpowered her, keeping her mouth shut.
That only seemed to intrigue Dimple further. “I could guess, but I’ve seen how angry that makes you.”
Saffi’s hands were shaking, so she crossed her arms, pressing them close to her chest.
“You needed a fresh start, I suppose that’s reasonable,” Dimple said, as though she’d plucked the words right out of Saffi’s mind.
How did she do that?
“It makes sense. After all, you did kill someone,” Dimple said and Saffi’s shoulders stiffened. “You were na?ve. You thought you could handle it, but you were in over your head.”
“That’s not true,” Saffi said. “That case was assigned to me—I never asked for this.”
“But you wanted it, didn’t you? You wanted to prove yourself, so you cut some corners. And you might’ve closed the case faster than anyone else, but that just meant the wrong person got put on death row.”
“I didn’t cut any corners,” Saffi snapped. “The evidence I gathered was enough to convince an entire jury. It’s not my fault the investigator in charge was such a lazy sack of shit, he wanted to take credit for a rookie’s work without even fact-checking it!”
She was breathing heavily now. The outburst was supposed to wipe the smirk off Dimple’s face, to show her just how subpar her investigative skills were, but the smug look on her face was not promising. Saffi’s heartbeat stuttered in her chest, kicking into overdrive.
“So if you understand that none of it was your fault, then why do you keep punishing yourself for it?” Dimple asked.
She’d done this on purpose. Gotten the details wrong to infuriate Saffi into defending herself. Her father had been right—her emotions had gotten the better of her yet again.
With a sigh, Saffi pushed loose strands of hair away from her face.
All of a sudden, she was too tired to feel anything but the buzz beneath her skin.
The main reason she kept her past hidden was for fear of how others might view her.
It was different with Dimple, though. Saffi was more worried about how she might use the information against her, which was futile since she clearly already knew most of it.
More than that, Dimple was asking. Not even Andino and Taylor had cared to hear her version of the events.
Saffi had always wished she could explain this to someone who’d understand or could give her a valuable perspective like her father.
By some strange twist of fate, maybe Dimple could be that person.
“I did kill someone,” Saffi said. The words came out like sandpaper, but Dimple didn’t so much as blink. “An innocent woman. A mother.”
Saffi’s arguments with Andino had reached a breaking point around that time.
They were both so competitive and eager to please—to be seen as equals in the judgment of the senior investigators.
Only Taylor had been smart enough to realize that it would never happen.
Saffi had no doubt that leaving the agency behind to start their own had been his idea.
“Due to the nature of the crime, and the fact that the victims’ families had more than enough money and resources to throw around, her execution had been expedited.
It wasn’t until months later, after she’d already been killed, that I looked into it again and realized how wrong I was,” Saffi continued.
She could still remember the way her stomach had dropped.
“I went to my supervisor with the new information, but he forbade me from telling anyone. He’d taken all the credit for the case, so he would get all the backlash too.
I couldn’t live with myself, though, so I reported the miscarriage of justice and, like a coward, I ran.
Stronghold suffered a major hit to its reputation and shut down. I was never supposed to come back.”
Dimple hummed. “You had the wrong suspect, but Atlas and Eli—their theory ended up being right?”
“And Andino’s never let me live it down.” Not that she needed the reminder. “Don’t be fooled, though. It was our first murder investigation and none of us had any idea what we were doing. I’ve spent the last five years learning everything I could so I’d never make the same mistake again.”
“Is that why you work so much, then?” Dimple asked thoughtfully. “Because you’re trying to make up for what happened?”