Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
Saffi didn’t know why his nonchalance irked her so much.
She’d witnessed Andino’s lackluster attitude the entire time she’d been in America.
Hell, him being impatient to the point of negligence was the whole reason Saffi had been called to help.
He never failed to bring up her past failures but came so close every day to making the same mistakes she had.
And she was the one cleaning up his mess while he remained blissfully unaware.
Maybe she should just let him fuck up the case, let him see what it’s like.
Dimple was watching their back-and-forth very intently.
“What are you doing here?” Saffi asked.
If Dimple was annoyed that her reconnaissance had been cut short, she didn’t show it. Saffi really should’ve known that something as simple as a change in subject wouldn’t be the end of it. “The trailer for Insomnia came out today,” she said. “Have you seen it yet?”
Saffi and Taylor shook their heads, but Andino remained suspiciously unmoved. She’d almost forgotten that Dimple’s movie was due to come out soon. September, they’d said. That was only a month away.
Dimple graciously accepted the remote handed to her by Andino and clicked a practiced series of buttons.
The TV in the corner of the room that Andino and Taylor usually set to the most ridiculous channels imaginable suddenly went dark.
Chilling music washed across the room. Saffi turned to Dimple, suddenly eager to compare the woman on-screen to the one beside her, but Dimple pinched her in a pointed demand to pay attention.
Once Saffi looked up, though, she couldn’t look away.
There was no other way to describe it—the woman on-screen was beautiful.
She was caked in dirt and blood with the most twisted, demented grin on her face, and she’d somehow never looked better.
Saffi wasn’t one to subscribe to the concept of fate, nor to the notion that a person could be born to do something, but as she watched Dimple’s face flash across the screen, Saffi got the distinct impression that Dimple was always meant to do this.
To be put on screens and billboards. To carve out space for herself in this godforsaken world, damn anyone who stood in her path.
Suddenly, it all clicked—everything Saffi had scoffed at about actors and the film industry. When it culminated in projects like these, it made sense why so much time, effort, and money were put into them.
Distantly, Saffi realized there had been a conscious and wise effort to leave Chris Porter out of the trailer. But that only meant Dimple got double the screen time.
By the time the TV faded to black once again, every hair on Saffi’s body was standing on end. If she thought about it for more than half a second, she would realize that she had virtually no understanding of the plot. Somehow, she didn’t want to linger on that.
“That was incredible,” Taylor said in that easy, genuine tone of his. “You’re very talented, Dimple.”
“It’s been trending,” Andino muttered, attempting to sound casual.
“Has it?” Dimple asked as though she didn’t already know. “It’s been selected for the Toronto International Film Festival next month as well.”
But there was something odd in her tone, so Saffi turned to face her.
When their eyes met, all the breath left Saffi’s lungs at once.
This entire time, it was clear that Dimple had been looking only at her.
Her expression was like nothing Saffi had ever seen before—guarded, like a soldier preparing to be struck down, but also eager.
For some godforsaken reason, despite critical acclaim and thousands of fans falling at her feet, Dimple Kapoor wanted Saffi’s opinion.
She cleared her throat. “Not bad,” she said. Dimple relaxed at that, her shoulders unwinding.
Privately, however, Saffi still thought the trailer felt subpar when measured up against the performance Dimple had been putting on these past months. The one-woman show Saffi had front seat tickets to. She supposed she should feel lucky.
—
Almost two weeks later, after running into dead end after dead end, Saffi had come to realize that the biggest gap in her evidence was that Dimple herself had been a victim.
But the best way to catch a liar was to allow them to incriminate themself.
If Saffi could somehow prove that Dimple had lied about Hector attacking her, she would have a shot at convincing a jury.
She’d been in the middle of digging through her bag for a clean shirt when her office door burst open. Taylor came rushing inside—never a good sign.
“What is it?”
He didn’t speak right away, watching as Saffi turned her duffel bag upside down, shaking the contents free.
All of her worldly possessions spread out across the floor.
She was constantly moving from one hotel to another so she had no permanent address, but seeing the small amount of floor space her few possessions seemed to take up was a little jarring.
Saffi dug through the mess on the ground until she finally found a plain white button-down without any stains on it—her last one.
She would have to walk over to the laundromat soon.
Taylor didn’t seem all that interested in the way she began reorganizing her bag. Instead, he picked up a folded piece of card stock that had fallen out in the chaos. Saffi felt herself flush when she realized what it was.
“This is from three years ago,” Taylor muttered, staring down at the birthday card. “You kept this?”
Saffi placed her newly folded clothes back into the bag and snatched the card from him. She slipped it back where it belonged, unable to look at Taylor. The sound of the zipper was excruciatingly loud in the otherwise still office.
“I wasn’t sure you were getting them with how often you move around,” Taylor said sheepishly. “I was worried I was pouring my heart out to some confused stranger.”
“Well, I did. And I read them too, asshole. Happy birthday, have a great day hardly counts as pouring your heart out. Neither do the stupid little pictures you drew on the back,” Saffi said. “You really should consider taking an art class.”
Taylor blinked in surprise. “I didn’t draw those.”
Saffi frowned. “Then who did?”
“Atlas,” Taylor said as though it were obvious.
And, in retrospect, maybe it was. Saffi had never seen Taylor doodle anything.
He’d always been better with words. Andino, on the other hand, was prone to spacing out, drawing lopsided clouds at the corners of his papers.
However, Saffi had been under the impression that Andino knew nothing about the cards Taylor sent her every year, written entirely in his handwriting.
She felt a little guilty now for not realizing it sooner.
“Well, here’s another one for the collection,” Taylor said, holding out a card. “Happy birthday, Saffi.”
Saffi accepted it automatically, uncomprehending until she realized what day it was. Twelve fifteen in the morning on August 25. On the back of this card was another messy doodle, this time of a palm tree. Or, from some angles, a toilet cleaner brush.
“It’s not a collection,” Saffi muttered. “Is this what you came here for?”
“That and to let you know Atlas and I found a bottle of whiskey for the occasion, just like old times,” Taylor said. “Okay—maybe not exactly like old times. We splurged. I’m a little too old for bottom-shelf hangovers.”
—
The next morning Saffi woke up in the break room with a pounding headache.
Her back ached from sleeping on the floor and the sunlight peeking in through the blinds felt like laser beams. She couldn’t remember it being this bad when she was twenty-one.
Somewhere in the distance, Andino made the sound of a dying animal.
Feeling generous, Saffi dragged herself to her feet and poured three cups of water, handing one each to Andino and Taylor, which they accepted gratefully.
Only when she drank the entire thing did she feel semi-coherent.
She checked the time on her laptop, recoiling at the brightness, but was quickly distracted by the title of a trending news article.
“Shit.”
Her tone must’ve given something away because both Andino and Taylor slowly rose to their feet, coming to read over her shoulder.
Hector Olsen, “Ladies Killer”: Literal or Figurative?
More than an article, this was clickbait, its success hinging on its ability to agitate the masses.
They were publicly accusing the man of not only assaulting Shyla Patel, but of killing Irene Singh and attempting to kill Dimple Kapoor as well.
No reputable publication would ever get away with that.
Leaked by an “anonymous Hollywood insider.” Including intimate details about Olsen being dragged into the police precinct that sounded oddly like this “insider” had been in the room with them.
It didn’t feel like a coincidence that the moment Dimple Kapoor found out about Olsen’s trial being pushed back, so did the rest of the world. And no one was happy about it.
“I told you the public would find out,” Andino murmured, as though it weren’t his beloved idol who had leaked it in the first place.
“Shut the fuck up,” Saffi seethed, trying to remind herself that he didn’t know. Because of her, neither of them did.
Taylor, who’d been squinting down at his phone and rubbing his temples, added, “Social media is a battlefield right now. There are talks of protests. Nobody thinks it’s fair that his trial is being pushed back. Maybe this is a good thing if it means he’ll get prosecuted sooner?”
Saffi wondered if this many people banded together against Olsen when he beat his ex-wives. Why was it that when Dimple Kapoor spoke, suddenly the whole world listened? Again, Saffi had been nothing but a pawn in her grand scheme.
“Oh great,” Andino said. His work phone was pressed to his ear. “The Singhs left a voicemail.”
“Let me guess, they’re demanding we push for the trial to happen as soon as possible?” Saffi asked.
“It might work now,” Andino said.
“I know,” Saffi replied, no matter how much she wished she could argue.
“Olsen won’t be able to call in any more favors,” Taylor added. “Not with so much media coverage focused on him.”
“This is great,” Andino said. “The case is practically closed, we’ll all get paid, and you’ll be free to run off to wherever you want.”
But that was far from Saffi’s concern. With this leak, Dimple had effectively put an even shorter time limit on the investigation.
Saffi had, at most, until the end of September to find something undeniable; something that would make any judge stop in their tracks.
Because with the way things were looking now, a jury could very well convict Hector Olsen for Dimple Kapoor’s crimes.
But would that be so bad?
Saffi bit the inside of her cheek as hard as she could.
The metallic taste of blood grounded her.
Of course it would be. She’d already promised herself that she would never put anyone else unrighteously on death row.
With the new year looming closer, so was her father’s next senate election.
After five years abroad, she couldn’t announce her return just to ruin things for him now.
Though part of her wondered why she was so worried about his opinion when he’d never offered her anything but criticism in the first place.
Why are you so eager to leave your family behind? Do you hate us so much? he’d said when she’d shared the news that she’d gotten into Harvard.
When she’d told him she wanted to be a private investigator, not a lawyer, it was Clearly you have no appreciation for the things I’ve taught you.
But this nasty, vindictive part of her sounded suspiciously like Dimple Kapoor, so she promptly shoved it aside.