“Anything to make sure they didn’t speak,” Andino said.
“Exactly,” Saffi agreed.
Taylor’s eyebrows raised in understanding. “You want to use her as bait.”
“When you put it like that, it sounds so sinister,” Saffi said. “But, essentially, yes.”
It wasn’t as cruel as it sounded; there was protocol for this. They would have to get Kapoor’s consent and properly train her beforehand. This, of course, was really a means for Saffi to study the actress up close. Andino and Taylor were there to lure her into a false sense of security. As interesting as things were right now, there always came a point where Saffi began winning so thoroughly that the game bored her once again. She wanted to enjoy this while it lasted.
Taylor didn’t say anything, but from the way he glanced at Andino it was clear he didn’t approve. Saffi turned to Andino, expecting opposition, but he was so intently typing away at his laptop that it seemed he’d barely heard her.
“Weren’t you the one begging to help with the case?” she asked, irritated.
“Please don’t start another argument,” Taylor pleaded under his breath.
“Huh?” Andino said, glancing up. “Hold on, I have something I want to show you. A suspect, but he doesn’t exactly match the profile you created.”
Curiosity piqued, Saffi gestured for him to show her.
The man on Andino’s screen appeared to be in his sixties, although it was very possible he looked old for his age. Pale, wrinkled skin, and a receding head of gray hair. He was tall, though, and sturdy.
“Hector Olsen,” Andino said. “He’s a big-name director in Hollywood, known for a lot of popular movies in the past couple decades. He’s also known for a lot of sexual misconduct. Physical and verbal abuse too.”
“Alleged,” Taylor corrected.
“Not all of it,” Andino said.
“And?” Saffi prompted.
Andino started typing again. “There have been rumors he wanted to directInsomnia,but Bardoux got there first.”
“That’s a motive against the production of the movie, but why would he take it out on the actresses instead of Bardoux or the producers?” Taylor asked.
“This is what Hector’s ex-wives look like.” Andino’s screen this time displayed four side-by-side pictures of young South Asian women. “He was accused of abuse in three cases and in one of those, his ex-wife Laila Olsen claimed he pushed her down the stairs.”
“Oh,” Saffi said. “That is alarming.”
How could she have missed him? Maybe this really was her stubbornness rearing its ugly head, too desperate to prove herself to consider any other options. Her stomach flip-flopped with guilt. But at the same time, she knew what she’d seen when she met Kapoor at the hospital. The actress’s desperation was palpable.
“Was he at both parties?” Taylor asked.
“He was definitely at Irene’s,” Andino said. “I don’t know about this recent one.”
Saffi remembered the interview Andino and Taylor had conducted with Olsen after Singh’s death. It hadn’t revealed anything of note other than the fact that he was a pompous asshole, but Saffi could’ve guessed that by looking at his picture.
“We need to find out if he was at that party,” she said. “And also follow up to confirm if he really was passed up for Bardoux.”
“I’ll get the interns on it,” Andino said.
Taylor grinned. “Brings back memories, doesn’t it?”
Saffi rolled her eyes and Andino groaned, but there was an undercurrent of fondness to it. The way he’d said it, Saffi almost wondered if they’d decided to hire three interns on purpose. She should’ve been horrified to find that all three of them were stuck in the past, tethered to one another, but there was also a comfort in that. She herself still wasn’t sure if it was Andino and Taylor’s presence that she’d missed or if it was the simplicity that came with being a girl in her early twenties.
And yet somehow, the three of them had managed to fall back into their old rhythm. Maybe Saffi had been too hasty in cataloging the differences their years apart had created. Maybe, at their core,they were all still the same kids with dreams too big for their bodies and freakishly compatible working styles.
Regardless, between them was the unspoken knowledge that things could never truly go back to the way they’d been. Saffi almost withdrew again, but this time she resisted. Dimple Kapoor had thrown herself off a balcony simply because she’d wanted, so desperately, to hold on to something.
An actress murdered two people in cold blood to further her career and Saffi was too afraid of rehashing things with her old colleagues to collaborate on this case with them. It was probably that absurd comparison that gave Saffi the courage to bring her laptop and files into the break room instead of going back to her office. What was the harm, really? It wouldn’t kill anyone.
