Chapter Thirty-Nine
The scene Saffi had walked in on was a bloodbath. Someone gasped, maybe it was her, maybe any of the other occupants of the trailer.
She shut the door behind her. Andino had seen the letter and gone to her office. Saffi wasn’t sure what he’d put together, but it was clear that he’d realized Dimple Kapoor wasn’t as innocent as she seemed. He had always been one for direct confrontation.
Dimple didn’t jump at her presence like Andino did, but the clench of her jaw gave away her surprise.
“Saffi,” Andino choked out. “Be careful.”
There was so much blood. Priyal appeared to have bled out and Dimple Kapoor was the one holding the gun. None of the puzzle pieces fit.
“What the hell happened?” Saffi found herself asking.
Dimple very pointedly did not look in her assistant’s direction. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
She was right. Saffi didn’t believe her. Andino was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a killer.
“I didn’t mean to,” Andino choked out.
The room spun.
“Oh, so now that distinction is important?” Dimple asked. “After you gave Saffi so much grief about putting that woman on death row? And me about Mia? At least we weren’t the ones holding the smoking gun.”
Martinez. So it was true. “Did you know—?”
“No,” Dimple insisted with so much vehemence, Saffi almost took a step back. “What I don’t understand is why you had her follow me when you knew.”
She didn’t finish, but Saffi could understand where she was going. When she knew how dangerous Dimple was. When she knew the bounds of her ambition. When she knew her attention would be focused solely on Saffi. Less than an accusation, it was a plea of desperation.
“I did have her tail you,” Saffi admitted hoarsely. “But only at the party. I tried to send her home after. She told me she left.”
“So she lied,” Dimple said after a beat. “Sounds like someone I know.”
“Saffi, what?” Andino asked. “You sent Mia after her?”
His words barely registered. It was such a bizarre development, standing here discussing their equal share in someone’s untimely death.
Both accepting their part of the blame. Except it wasn’t really that strange, when she thought about it.
To be known, maybe it wasn’t as terrible as she’d imagined.
Saffi had Dimple’s attention on her and suddenly her feet were planted firmly on the ground. “I know you’re upset with me right now, Saffi, but you must understand I have my reasons.”
“He killed Priyal,” Saffi said simply.
Dimple blinked at her easy acceptance.
“I’m not upset with you,” Saffi said. “Mia Martinez’s death was just as much my fault as it was yours. And the article—you were keeping your promise, weren’t you? In your own fucked-up way.”
Many people had been brutally honest with Saffi throughout her life, and she’d always accepted it as best she could. It was much rarer to see someone stand unflinching against her own brutal honesty. To lay bare the truth and receive the same in return. What was that if not justice?
Dimple’s eyes sparkled and she took a step closer. “You understand. You see it, don’t you? That we’re the same. I know you do, I can read it on your face.” She laughed in disbelief. “Saffi, it doesn’t have to be you or me anymore. It can be you and me.”
Saffi opened her mouth to voice her confusion before she realized that wasn’t true. She knew exactly what Dimple meant. It didn’t feel like they were on opposite sides anymore, not really. They felt more like accomplices.
“What the hell is going on here?” Andino mumbled with a humorless laugh.
Saffi looked at him and then to Dimple. It suddenly occurred to her that this was Dimple Kapoor without her mask.
There was no trace of lie or deception in the small space between them.
Saffi had wanted so desperately to see this side of her, and rightfully so.
The embodiment of fire itself. This was Dimple Kapoor driven to murder. It was fascinating.
“Don’t kill him,” Saffi said.
Dimple sighed something weary, but she did turn away from Andino. “If that’s still how you feel, then I clearly haven’t kept my promise.”
Then she did something completely unexpected.
Dimple walked over and pressed the gun squarely into Saffi’s palms. It was cold as ice and clean despite the fact that Kapoor’s other hand was covered in blood.
If she hadn’t wrapped Saffi’s fingers around the handle, she would’ve dropped it on instinct.
At her visible confusion, Dimple leaned in. “You asked me how you can move on,” she whispered. “This is how. Let him go.”
“I can’t,” Saffi whispered, horrified. She tried to push the weapon back into Dimple’s hands, but she refused to take it.
“It’s your choice,” Dimple said.
When she stepped away, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, Saffi realized that this was Dimple’s way of returning the power to her.
She would let Saffi deal with this however she saw fit, whether that meant putting a bullet through Atlas’s heart or through Dimple’s.
How long had it been since someone had trusted her judgment so completely?
When Saffi didn’t get right to work, Dimple made an over-the-top gesture for her to get on with it.
The amount of stubbornness in this room would only pave the way for disaster.
Letting Andino live would mean turning Dimple in.
She’d be choosing the man who did nothing but remind Saffi of her worst mistake—the same mistake he’d also been about to make before she’d shown up to help.
The man who’d cared more about a delayed check than he did about bringing the right criminal to justice.
The one who, even now, after killing an innocent woman in cold blood, refused to see Saffi’s perspective.
The one who’d asked for Saffi’s help and then, in turn, been jealous of her skills.
A hypocrite. The one thing Saffi hated more than anything else.
When had Andino turned into one? Or maybe he’d been one all along, and she’d just been too blinded by the memory of the boy who wrote minus ten for excessive arrogance at the top of all of her essays and doodled cacti on her birthday cards.
Seeing her approach, Andino gave a sigh of relief and began rising to his feet, but Saffi clamped one hand down on his shoulder and forced him back to his knees.
Andino’s mouth opened and closed in horror, but he couldn’t seem to figure out what he wanted to say.
It wasn’t a bad view, entirely. She’d never been in the position to look down at him before.
“What the hell are you doing?” Andino asked, equal parts anger and fear.
If he had found out about Saffi’s crimes for the first time today, just like her parents had, would he have reacted similarly?
Saffi could imagine it. Him cursing her and cutting her off.
Very rarely did someone understand another’s predicament unless they too had been subjected to it. Dimple seemed to be the only exception.
“How did you piece it all together?” Saffi asked. “Not even Taylor could.”
Andino’s eyes flicked down at the gun in Saffi’s grip. She wasn’t pointing it at him, but he seemed to recognize the implied threat. “That’s because you gaslit him,” he replied.
“You helped,” Saffi said. It was true, even if he’d been unaware at the time.
“Don’t act like you weren’t playing both of us.” Andino glared up at her. “Eli was right, and you let him think he was losing his mind. What—were you afraid we’d take the spotlight from you? Afraid we’d solve the case faster than you ever could?”
“I work better alone,” Saffi said.
“You were working alone when you put that woman on death row,” Andino spat.
“And you were working alone when you killed Tiwari.”
“Fuck you,” Andino said. “You’re aiding and abetting the woman who killed Mia!”
Saffi saw red. She’d been the one holding this damn investigation together, the one who’d been hunting the right suspect when Andino had been more than happy to write things off as an accident.
To think he had the gall to bring up Martinez when he’d just killed Tiwari in cold blood.
She lifted the gun and pointed it to the underside of Andino’s chin.
Her finger wasn’t on the trigger—even now she couldn’t fathom actually hurting him—but the fear in his eyes as he was forced to look up at her was gratifying.
Saffi felt twenty-three again, standing in the middle of an airport in Arizona. This, without a doubt, felt like it should be a momentous occasion. Once again, she had the na?ve notion that Taylor would burst through the door, the only chance in hell they had at understanding each other.
But Taylor did not come. It was foolish to think he would.
“Answer the question,” she demanded. “How did you figure it out?”
“I saw the letter she sent,” Andino said, suddenly compliant. Dimple made a sound of disapproval in the background. “It came at the same time the article was released. Seemed like too much of a coincidence. It got me thinking about what Eli had said, so I logged in to your computer.”
Saffi blanched. “How did you know the password?”
Andino huffed something close to laughter. “It’s the same from five years ago. You think it’s so clever, don’t you?” he scoffed. “You told us once when you were drunk.”
Even if that was true, it wasn’t easy to remember.
Her father had instilled the importance of cybersecurity into her from a young age, so her password was a stochastic combination of letters and numbers.
No dates, no references, no correlation to anything in her life.
It was this reminder of exactly how many years Saffi had known Andino—reminders of exchanging drunk secrets and laughing until odd hours of the morning—that left her feeling ill.
She angled the gun away from Andino’s face.
Still held in place, but no longer a direct threat.