Taylor cleared his throat awkwardly when they were finished eating. “So,” he began, “how’ve you been?”
“Busy,” Saffi replied. “You?”
“Good, good,” Taylor said, nodding.
He gave Andino a look, elbowing him in the side when he didn’t respond. The fact that he thought she wouldn’t catch the motion, especially when five years ago she was the one who’d invented the game of secretly elbowing Andino during boring meetings, was insulting.
“Um, yeah, good,” Andino said, coughing. “Great even.”
The three of them stared at one another for a moment.
“So, what do you think?” Taylor asked, gesturing to the case files strewn across her desk.
The relief washed over her. Cases, she could manage. Small talk was another beast. “It definitely was not an accident.”
They both stared at her. “You know?”
That was not the reaction she’d been expecting. “Know what?”
They exchanged glances. “There’s been another death,” Taylor said. “Irene Singh was murdered. There is no question about it anymore.”
Saffi leaned forward in her chair, intrigued.
“At the start of the investigation, a waiter who was there the night of Irene Singh’s death called in a tip. He insisted that if something happened to him sometime within the next week, then we needed to check his online drive,” Taylor explained. “Not long after that, he fell down four stories and has since passed.”
So he died in the same way the actress had. A coincidence? It was possible, but not likely. “I assume you checked the drive?” Saffi asked.
“It was wiped clean,” Andino said.
Saffi hummed. “It was definitely murder. At this point, anyone with a brain could tell you that much. Probably the same killer who got the actress. Why didn’t you check his computer before he died?”
“We were getting calls like that all month. Two separate people claimed they gave birth to Irene Singh’s reincarnation—two!” Andino said. “It was obviously an accident; we had no reason to believe the waiter was anything more than paranoid or attention-seeking.”
“Obviously an accident,huh?”
“Shut up,” Andino grumbled. “I’m still pissed off we did all those interviews for nothing. The killer probably left the premises the second the murder happened. It’s what I would do.”
“Not likely,” Saffi said.
“Would you like to elaborate on that?” Andino asked, a hint of irritation poking through. Saffi had forgotten how fun he was to rileup.
“You can’t control the narrative from outside the room,” she said thoughtfully. “This person is so methodical, they killed the waiter too. They could’ve stopped at deleting the evidence, but that wasn’t enough for them. It’s about control. And they’ll do anything to keepit. That’s what makes them so dangerous.”
“Wait,” Andino began skeptically. “If you didn’t know about the waiter, how did you know it wasn’t an accident?”
“Singh fell backward,” Saffi said, “down the stairs in a house she’s lived in for over a decade. She wasn’tthatdrunk. She must’ve been speaking to someone. She must’ve been pushed.”
“How do you know she fell backward?” Andino asked.
Saffi retrieved a photo from the file and set it down on the coffee table facing the two men.
“The dress has a tear in the back,” Taylor said in understanding. “Probably ripped it with her heel before she fell.”
Saffi leaned back in her chair. “Our killer is someone the victim knew, but not in a positive sense. A rival, probably. And if I had to guess, I’d say the victim and the killer are very similar.”
“Why do you say that?” Taylor prompted.
“In some of the interviews it was mentioned that the second floor of the mansion is off limits. It’s a well-known rule. But the perpetrator went up regardless. I doubt anyone with a lot of respect for the victim would blatantly ignore the rules like that.”
