CBI

Same day,

"Maybe or maybe not," she whispers.

K nods his head huffing.

"God! I need a break. I'll go for coffee, you want one?" K gets up from his chair yawning and stretching his arms after a minute of silence.

Khushi nods her head and turns towards her terminal. She wasn't the one who could accept defeat easily. She tries tracing the unknown number. It's a fact that she wouldn't sleep until she traces the number.

When they had to work together, either Khushi goes to K's cabin or K comes to Khushi's cabin. Today was one of those days when K had to walk into Khushi's cabin.

When K was about to walk out, Khushi screams, "K, wait for a second!"

"What's up?" he stops and walks back still, facing his front to the door.

"We didn't retrieve the contacts just for the sake of it. Give some of the contacts to constables, they'll inform their families," she says looking at K, giving him the file. The file has Nia Arora's and Vishal Sarkar's details and contact numbers they've got from their phone numbers and mobile data after retrieving it back.

"But Akash Sir?" K raises the doubt.

"No need. We'll be late if we wait for him," she sighs.

"But I think he's in the investigation room," K adds looking at Khushi doubtfully.

"So, what? He might be busy with his work. We just can't wait," she says as she turns towards her terminal only to get lost in it again.

K sighs and moves out with the file.

Moti Nagar

After Nusrat leaves for the office, Lolark starts asking people if anyone saw someone around an abandoned house. The results weren't satisfying.

He sighs disappointed.

"At least her face wasn't destroyed and we have her Mobile. Good, we'll get to know who is that soon." He looks around one more time and calls one from some of the constables he has got with him.

"Amit," he screams for the constable who stood aside.

"Yes, sir." He walks towards Lolark and Lolark sighs him to take out of the vehicle while lighting his cigarette.

Amit nods and does as he said.

Tilak Nagar

While Lolark took care of the things in Moti Nagar, Akash left for Tilak Nagar with some of his team. He enquired the people about the house and the man who lives there.

Even though he didn't exactly get the desired results, that was enough for the case to move forward.

The man who was murdered there is Vishal Sakar, a Product Design Engineer in an IT company. He lives alone and has a bachelor's life away from his family. He gets his passport and Adhar from his home. After some more formalities, he returns back to CBI.

He has the needed information, and that was enough for him.

As he arrives at CBI, he gathers Raina, Lolark who has just arrived, and some more from his team. They sit in the investigation room and analyze the evidence they've gathered.

Two Books.

A few pieces of Broken Glass.

"Open the book and check it once," Akash commands, turning towards his team after writing down the pieces of evidence with a marker on the whiteboard.

"Let me check," Raina takes up the book from Vishal Sarkar's section and opens it.

"What's that?" Lolark looks down, his gaze following the way.

"What's what?" Akash frowns.

The leg of the table is a hindrance. He couldn't see what has fallen down. But Raina and Lolark can. The Book is long forgotten. After all, it has fallen down from the book and the subject looks interesting.

Lolark bends down and takes it up in his hand.

"This!" His gaze didn't falter as he says that.

Raina sighs.

Akash squints his eyes and looks on.

It's a rose, a red rose, with no peduncle. They are just sepal-supporting petals.

Akash was about to write down that too on the whiteboard.

"It's not a red rose," Lolark frowns as he touches the petals.

"What does that mean?" Akash raises his eyebrows and Raina bites her lips now touching the Rose.

"It's a white rose but it's covered with blood," Raina says examining the dried rose which is in Lolark's hands.

"What? Blood?" Akash's looks scream unbelievable.

"Yes and it has dried too," Lolark passes the information.

"Why would someone keep a bloodied rose in their book?" Akash raises the question. He is confused, and so is everyone. Nonetheless, he notes it down on the whiteboard.

"Who knows if it's the book of victims or the criminal?" Raina raises the question.

"Send it to the lab and get the blood on it tested. If it matches Vishal's blood, we should know it's the criminal's sign," Akash sighs and looks at Nia Arora's section.

"We got the same kind of evidence from Nia too, isn't it?" he asks thinking as his sight didn't leave another side of the maybe-same coin.

"Yes, sir. I'll check that too. Give me a minute," she says as she takes out the book from the desk.

She opens the book as Lolark looks on.

After a few minutes,

"It's the same thing, sir," Raina answers gulping, looking at Akash.

He hones his nose. "Send that too to the lab," he orders and notes down the point.

Raina gets up to do the same. She seizes the roses separately, marks them, and goes to the lab.

"I hope it's not any serial killing," Lolark huffs sighing as Raina walks out.

"I hope so too. Let's see," Akash says and turns towards the board. He notices whatever he had written on it and tries to connect a dot if there's any.

Meanwhile, Lolark looks at the content inside the book.

He reads a few pages.

"It is a Novel and I think I read it somewhere," Lolark frowns thinking hard. Where did he read it?

Akash who listened to Lolark looks at him frowning.

"If it's a Novel, why it's Cover is plain white with no title name or author name," Akash asks looking at the plain white cover.

Lolark, who skipped the front papers, gets back to them and reads them.

"I remember it now. I have this novel in my home and it has a different book cover. It's just not plain white and it's" he huffs pausing and looking at Akash.

"And it's?" Akash repeats Lolark's words.

"What are you waiting for? Continue?" he moves his hand and rests them on his waist.

"It's written by Ananya and the Novel's name is Nirvana," he whispers.

"What?" Akash screams.

"I'm not kidding. I've read her book. It's hers." He gulps down his nervousness.

"Check that other book too," Akask commands.

Akash couldn't help but note down the Novel's Name and its Author's name.

"It's the same. Same book, same author, and plain white cover which is not original," he says caressing his jaw.

Akash rolls his eyes sighing, "What's this? Looks like a serial killing."

"Looks like it," Lolark says and adds after a minute of thought, "Khushi Madam got the coordinates of two places, Moti Nagar and Tilak Nagar."

"While Nusrat got only one," Akash continues Lolark's rest of the words.

"And that one is Moti Nagar," he completes Akash's conversation.

Akash sighs and notes down the points.

Khushi's Cabin,

"Here you go! Your Coffee," K enters her cabin with two coffees in his hands.

Khushi signs to him to keep it aside as she works on her terminal.

She's so engrossed in it that she doesn't hear when Akash and Lolark came.

"Khushi," Akash sniffs and calls out for her.

His hands held the evidence they got from the crime scenes.

"What's up, dude?" K asks as he sees Khushi lost in her work.

Her Workholaic nature will kill everyone one day! He thought sighing and nodding his head.

He looks at Akash and Lolark. Why did they come now?

"Need to talk with Khushi Madam," Lolark adds to his thoughts.

"About what?" he says aloud.

And before they could talk, he starts, "Okay. About Nia Arora and Vishal Sarkar? Vishal's phone has no trace of sending the coordinate to Nusrat and we retrieved Nia's phone. Except for her friends and family's contact, nothing looks majorly wrong."

"Her contact numbers? And Vishal's too, Did somebody informed their families?" Akash asks.

"We already gave it to Ram, Bro. He contacted their families." He air-quotes.

Akash nods looking at Khushi who is still not out of her world.

"Khushi Madam!" Lolark was about to tap Khushi on her shoulders when Akash stops him.

He signs a no.

K looks confused looking at their signature language.

Akash takes Lolark out and when they were about to walk out, Khushi walks out of her world.

"Hey," she greets them with a smile.

Akash smiles back, "We just came to get victims' contacts."

"Oh, okay," she smiles and looks at K who is frowning.

"They were about to talk something with you, Khushi. I don't understand why Akash stopped Lolark at the last moment," he says looking at her with confusion just as Akash and Lolark walk out.

"Really?" she frowns.

"Yeah," he drags the word.

Khushi thinks, jutting her lips, shrugs when she doesn't get it, just like K, and then turns back to her terminal to work on the untraceable number. It seems so difficult to trace to one location.

This is challenging the hacker in her and she couldn't help but take it to her heart and work on her mind, quite restlessly.

Outside Khushi's Cabin, Lolark and Akash walk the way down to the investigation room when Lolark stops Akash.

"Why didn't you let me ask Khushi Madam, sir?" he asks.

He is confused. His Akash sir is the one who has decided to talk to Khushi Madam. They were about to. Khushi was lost in her world and he can't understand what made his Akash sir turn back at his decision just when Khushi was about to turn. They'd have asked if not for Akash's sudden change of mind.

"We'll ask. But before that let us report to DJ, sir," he says.

Akash changes his mind and thinks to discuss with DJ Sir before proceeding further.

Lolark sighs but nods and they walk to the room only to be greeted by a waiting Raina.

In the Lab,

DJ, Nusrat, and Arnav finish their autopsy on Vishal sarkar. It's been more than 12 hours since he died. They concluded that. He was dead and the cause was the sharp cut on his stomach that destroyed his internal organs and bled him to death. Cuts on the rest of the body parts seem given to him after he was dead. Probably a psycho who would have killed him. He was given anesthesia before that, probably and this isn't confirmed yet. They had to wait for the Toxicology report, although they, in their minds, are sure that it was anesthesia.

They start on Nia Arora's autopsy. And after an hour, they've gotten the same result. It's been more than 14 hours since she died and was left abandoned on the road beside an abandoned house. She was dead and the cause of it was a deep neck cut. She wasn't given anesthesia and any kind of external chemicals weren't found in her body. She had too much blood loss from the cuts she had on the rest of her body parts.

Finally, they're done with the autopsy after three hours.

DJ sighs and cleans himself up, taking a break, stretches his arms, and takes out his phone. It was switched off.

"Oh, God! I forgot to charge it since yesterday," he mumbles and puts it into the plug to charge the battery.

Nusrat and Arnav relaxes. Arnav cleans up and stretches his arms and neck. Nusrat was about to go out and have a coffee when she heard DJ.

"What's this?" he screams.

Arnav who was about to message his wife looks up at DJ.

"What happened, sir?" he frowns.

"I've got a coordinate in the mid-night yesterday," he says. He was expressionless.

"What?" Arnav was shocked. Nusrat wasn't less. Who wouldn't?

"I think we should get it traced it!" Nusrat was the first one to come out of shock as she says that.

"Yes, let's go to Khushi," Arnav whispers and they were soon out of the lab walking down the way to Khushi's cabin. It isn't so far.

Khushi is in her cabin still trying to trace the untraceable. K is giving a hand in it. They both were engrossed in their work when they jerk as Arnav barged in.

"What the fu-," Khushi was about to curse when Arnav cuts her off.

What's with him barging in from the morning? Can't he walk? She sighs.

"DJ sir got a coordinate. Trace it at once," Arnav commands ignoring his wife's gaze or better say glare.

Khushi takes DJ's sir phone as K looks up at it. She soon traces the location.

"It's Tilak Nagar and this is another but the same coordinate I got on my phone," she informs.

"You've got the coordinates?" DJ frowns.

"Yes, sir. You weren't there, so, you don't know," she says shrugging.

"It means you've both the coordinates while Nusrat and DJ sir got it individually," Arnav delivers his findings.

Khushi nods.

"But why he has sent both the coordinates to you? And the same coordinates were sent to DJ Sir and Nusrat individually. Why?" K raises the question.

"Only criminal knows," Arnav counters.

"We can know too." They hear Akash.

Yeah, Akash has come to get his coffee when he sees Arnav barging into Khushi's cabin. So, he follows.

"I think whoever the criminal is, has something personal to do with Khushi," he declares and earns a shocking glare his way.

"What do you mean by that?" Khushi asks, scrutinizing his face. In a way, making him nervous.

But the truth is the truth and he has to say it.

"The books we've from both the victims are actually Novels," he stops and takes a deep breath.

"Come on, damn it! Out with it, already!" Arnav is impatient.

DJ held a curious gaze. Nusrat's was questionable. K looks confused.

"The Novel is Nirvana and the author is-" he was cut off by Khushi.

"Me!" She whispers.

Everything fell in silence for a minute.

To be continued..,

How's the update? My work has got completed just now and I don't know what else to do, so here's the second part.

Let me know what you think.

Any thoughts you want to share?

Awaiting your views!

-polymath_land

-6/10/2022