Arya Roy, the Killer's third victim! Khushi fixes it in her mind.

Paschim Vihar,

Delhi Police is already on the field when CBI arrives. Delhi police take their leave soon after as CBI takes over them.

The media is already cleared around the crime scene. They're a little away now.

"I told you media should not be seen anywhere here," DJ whispers looking at some of the constables who arrived there before them to shoo away the media.

"They're bugs around the body, sir. We tried and they wouldn't budge. We were just able to take them out of the crime scene," the constable says remembering the way he and some of the Delhi Police shooed the media away from the crime scene.

The media is on fire!

"Make sure they don't post any of these pictures on Media, warn them," Akash instructs the constables. They nod at him. They walk into the crime scene.

DJ and Arnav look at the body. Arya Roy's face is recognizable but some parts of his body are disfigured. Anyone can, without a doubt, say that the man was tortured to death.

"God! His body looks so horrible," Arnav exclaims putting on his glove and mask.

"Not just looks, even the smell is horrible," DJ adds putting on his gloves and face mask.

There were so many cuts, scratches, and wounds on his body. His body is smelling already. He was thrown onto a road beside garbage after all. And a small boy's cries grabbed the attention of people near them.

Arnav and DJ analyze the body while Akash and Lolark search for clues around the premises, wearing their gloves and masks. Khushi helps them in searching too. And soon they find a book lying around the corner a few meters away from the body, hidden by the cloth. They find broken pieces of glass. Khushi scrutinizes the book, it's the same one, and had a bloodied rose in it.

"Akash, it's the same pattern. Let's get these seized."

Akash nods his head and Lolark is already seizing them.

"Khushi," Arnav screams out for her. His voice was low and with a mask over his nose, it can lower.

Khushi still can hear. She grew her habit to hear even the lowest whimper of her husband, staying with him for so long now.

"Yes?" she walks to the place where they were analyzing the body. She has put on her mask and gloves already.

"Here is his phone, check this," he thumps the phone into her hands as Khushi takes it and gets engrossed in retrieving the data.

In a few more minutes, the body was taken to their forensic lab. Arya Roy's family is in tears a little away from the crime scene and the media is all over them now.

CBI

Nusrat is waiting for the body to arrive. DJ and Arnav along with Nusrat start their autopsy on Arya Roy.

While they were performing the autopsy on Arya Roy, Khushi, Akash, K, and Raina are in the investigation room. A new clue is added to their whiteboard.

Raina, on the other hand, collected Arya's every detail on the internet itself, he's famous after all. And what she isn't able to collect was already collected from his family and friends who were a little emphatic and were ready for questioning.

It's been an hour since the body arrived. Arya's Roy family was sent back to their home after questioning.

Arya Roy is a famous businessman in his late 20s. He loves traveling, reading, and writing.

"He has bought your book, Khushi Madam," Raina says after examining the information.

"There's a Nirvana in his collection," she adds.

"And he seems quite fascinated with your book," K chuckles checking Arya's social media profiles.

"What does that mean?" Khushi frowns and is standing in front of the board and analyzing the new information.

"He has some of your quotes posted in his social media profile, and there were a lot of likes and comments on those posts." K gets up to show the posts to Khushi.

Khushi is lost in her thoughts looking at it.

"To be invisible, you've to be visible first, and then only you can be invisible."

"Simple should be so simple that it shouldn't look that simple to anyone."

These are some of his posts on the quotes, from Nirvana.

"Check Nia's and Vishal's social media accounts, especially their posts or even tag lines," she instructs after a while.

K starts working on it.

In Nia's profile, there's nothing more than her pictures of family friends or party pictures, or some famous quotes.

Then a quote catches his eye.

"Khushi, look at this!"

"This quote is from your book only, right?"

"Nothing has everything in it and I'd never prefer everything that comes in nothing." K recites.

This is the same quote she got from the killer.

She sighs. "Check for Vishal too!"

"Yeah. I'm on it already," he exclaims typing on his iPad already.

After a few minutes, K frowns looking at the post, "It is not exactly a post but he recited a scene from the movie in one of the reels."

"What about the scene?" Khushi asks and K makes her listen to it.

"It's one of the dialogues from my book, isn't it?" she frowns.

"Yeah, and guess what he claims it to be a film scene," K shows her the caption of Vishal.

"It's not from a movie. I didn't give anyone the copyrights to adapt my dialogues or quotes," she exclaims shrugging, completely perplexed.

"I'll watch this movie and see where's the scene from." Khushi nods at him while he starts searching for the movie and plays it. Jumps from one dialogue to another quickly.

"So, there is a common connection between these three," Khushi makes a note of it on the whiteboard.

"And the connection is Nirvana, your book's quotes and dialogues," Raina adds and Khushi has already noted it down.

That's new information again. Akash notes it down looking at a lost Khushi.

Arya Roy! Yes, Khushi is lost again, in her thoughts.

According to their decoding, the third victim must have A, R, I, O, and N.

And Arya Roy has R and A but I, O, and N are missing.

They misinterpreted the logic!

"Tell me about Nia Arora and Vishal Sarkar, again," she asks Raina.

Raina looks up and nods.

She takes a file from her desk.

Vishal is a Product Design Engineer in an IT firm, Vytech Private Limited, and a bachelor, who lives alone. His family is from Mumbai. Loves to play soccer and loves watching movies, and hang out with his friends on weekends. That's it, not much. He is an eight-to-eight guy who is sincere in their work."

"What about reading?"

"No, he doesn't have any hobby of reading or writing," Raina denies.

"But he does have the habit of making reels as we've seen," K exclaims stopping his movie player.

K huffs before starting, "A movie has your quote and dialogues without your permission, Khushi. Some of Nirvana's lovers protested including Arya Roy who was a fan of Nirvana. It was kept under wraps and the media doesn't have any idea of it. Soon they will be removing these scenes from the movie. This was recently released and wasn't that hit," he passes the information. As soon as he was done finding out the exact scenes, he didn't waste any time in finding things about him from his friend who's a part of cinema. It was kept as a secret inside the four walls.

"How didn't you get to know about someone else using your content?" Raina raises a question.

She gulps. "It was a decade ago I published it and now my phone number, address, and every detail or profile I've given to publishers is changed."

"Bank account?" K raises another question.

"It was closed a long ago."

"So, even if publishers know this but they weren't able to contact you because you've changed your entire details!" Raina wanted clarification.

Khushi nods and takes her phone to call the publishers.

And after a few minutes, when she finished talking with them, she informs them.

"Publishers knew about this issue and they weren't able to contact me."

She remembers the conversation. She had skyped the editor who was assigned to her a decade ago. They assured her the filmmakers will take remove the scenes.

Khushi isn't worried about somebody copying her content anymore. She was more worried about the content written by her which is the connection between people who were dead and who are about t die.

K doesn't ask her for anything more as he knows the reason behind her changing her entire contacts is personal.

"Nia Arora?" Khushi comes out of her thoughts. Finding the next victim is more important and for this to happen, she needs to correct their misinterpreted logic first.

"Nia Arora is an Analog Layout Engineer, lives with her family in Delhi but 1 hour away from the Moti Nagar where we found her dead body. She likes movies, and music, and loves to read books sometimes. I asked her family for her book collection but there's no Nirvana in her collection," Raina shifts her concentration on Nia Arora's details.

"But she did post a quote of Nirvana," Akash exclaims.

"Maybe she bought it but the killer would have taken it with him or she lost the book, there's a possibility. She likes reading, unlike Vishal," Khushi guesses.

"I thought the same. So, I've asked her family if they know from which store she buys the books."

"Which store?"

"Amazon! She buys them online. I checked her purchase history and there was no order of Nirvana Book," Raina replies.

"That only leaves us with one option. She has seen the movie too," Akash states shrugging.

"He's right!" K exclaims checking the date of her post.

He looks up at Khushi, "She posted it around the time when this Movie was released.

"Let us draw the conclusions we had till now," Khushi takes the marker, ready to write down the points.

"First victim, Nia Arora loves reading but didn't purchase Nirvana Novel. The assumption is that she might have watched this movie," Akash adds one point.

"Second Victim, Vishal Sarkar loves watching movies. He made a reel out of the dialogue of the same movie which has Nirvana's dialogue," K adds the point.

Khushi's eyes were on the board and her ears were on their words.

"Third Victim, Arya Roy loves reading and writing. He is one of the fans of Nirvana," Raina speaks out.

"What about the words the killer is leaving on the Novel's pages?" Akash asks looking at the points Arnav has made in the morning.

"We misinterpreted the logic for sure." Khushi shakes her head sighing.

"And this time only you got the coordinate. Nobody else has got it from our team," Raina states the fact.

"We'll analyze that too but let's find the logic for these words, first." Khushi looks at the words again.

And before they could work on it, DJ and Arnav walk in after completing their autopsy.

"What does Autopsy says?" Khushi throws a question.

"Nothing major. He was tortured to death, and had so many cuts and burns on his body." Arnav sighs, tired after the autopsy.

"It's been 12 hours since he died," DJ adds facts.

"What's the status?" Arnav asks looking at the board.

DJ and Arnav were soon filled with the needed details, enough for them to carry the investigation forward.

"Where's Nusrat," Raina questions.

"She's busy with the formalities," DJ informs Raina.

Arnav wasn't concentrating on their conversation anymore. His focus is on the board now.

"In the morning, we've written the possibilities from Vishal's book, right? Let's take it out," Arnav says searching for the notepad.

Khushi finds the notepads that were on the desk.

"But we're done with the halfway only," she reminds him of their investigation in the morning.

"Write them down. We have misinterpreted the logic. We need to find what's in Vishal's book and what's in Arya's book," he huffs rubbing his face.

She opens them and writes down all the possibilities on the other side of the whiteboard.

And when she was writing them down, she observes the letters again.

"From Vishal's book, Y is missing from these letters to form Arya Roy if we go by the logic that left only single letters," she implies.

She looks at O, R, I, A, and N.

"Nia! What if it's Nia?" Khushi whispers.

DJ and Arnav look up at her and the possibilities they've written on the board.

She doesn't wait for their nod.

She writes Nia Arora on the whiteboard and coss-matches it with the letters.

"As we deciphered on this Vishal Sarkar's name on Nia's book, he hasn't repeated any letters twice. So, based on it if we decode Nia Arora's name, there should be one N, one I, one A, one R, and one O,"

"One N, tick." Raina marks the word, taking Vishal's book.

"One I, tick.

One A, tick.

One R, tick.

One O, tick!"

Rain marks all of the letters and there's nothing left to mark anymore on Vishal's book, except for the fifth page which they have 2 letters A and V.

Now they know what the fourth page's letter from Vishal's book meant and what the fifth page's letters from Nia's book meant.

"It's Vishal Sarkar's name in Nia's book. And Nia Arora's name in Vishal's book." Khushi concludes.

There's no denial now.

Two letters in both books are still a secret. Letters on another page in both books that are cracked gave them the needed conclusion.

Now this leaves another question in Khushi's mind.

"Why would the killer leave Nia Arora's name who was already dead with a person who dies 2 hours later than her? What's the use?" K voice out Khushi's thoughts.

Yeah, why would someone leave the clue in Vishal's book? And that too with someone who was about to die.

It'd been understood if he left Arya's name instead of Nia's in Vishal's book, just like the way he did with Vishal's name in Nia's book.

"He's playing with us," Raina mutters.

Khushi shakes her head. "No, he is manipulating us. He is leaving a clue for his next victim but we just can't see it," she is frustrated.

"There's no point in leaving Nia's name in Vishal's book," Arnav exclaims.

What's the killer's logic? What a mind player!

"No! There's a point. He must be leaving his next victim's name. We just can't see it, damn!" Khushi's frustration has leveled up.

"But the clues exactly form the names, Vishal Sarkar and Nia Arora. What's hidden in it? Nothing," K exclaims denying Khushi's point.

Nothing!

She remembers the quote from her Novel.

"Nothing has everything in it, K. It can't be nothing without something," she speaks out her thoughts.

Her words confuse K and Raina. DJ and Arnav are deeply thinking about what Khushi said.

"Let us analyze Arya's Novel now. We might get something and that should help us crack the logic," she sniffs exclaiming.

If she's going in the right direction, she can save the fourth victim.

Akash is working on it for the past few minutes, so, he replies, "Arya's book has I, A, D, U, T, N on the fourth page and G, A on the eleventh page. Blood on the rose is cross-matched with Arya and it's positive as Sameer says."

"And for the third victim which is Arya, except Khushi, no one got the coordinate," Arnav observes.

"Why did he send the coordinates to Nusrat and DJ when Akash, K, Raina, and Arnav are there? He can send it to anyone. Why only Nusrat and DJ? And for Arya, he sent to no one except me. There's some logic," Khushi takes a deep breath signing.

Everyone else looks at each other.

"There's some connection other than this Nirvana. We aren't seeing it. What must be that?" Khushi walks down the room thinking.

"Whatever it is. The fact is that killer is ten steps ahead of us," DJ exclaims, loosening up his collar a little.

"Where are you lost, Khushi?" Arnav asks as she suddenly stops walking.

"I'm just thinking we're sitting here and trying to decode the clues and find out who's the killer but the killer," she chuckles, sarcasm visible on her face, and continues gulping, "but the killer might have killed his fourth victim already and waiting for the right time to send the coordinate."

Well, that's the truth. They're here sitting and guessing and there's the killer who's already on the hunt for his next victim. The media is roasting CBI for their negligence as usual. Debating if they could or could not. Only if they knew they were losing their sleep over this.

Cops aren't the mind readers to know what's is the mind of the killer and then they would stop the killer. They have their own mind, they have to think, analyze, guess, cross-match, think, analyze, guess, and cross-match and the cycle repeats until they find the cross-match positive.

It isn't that easy. They're doing their best possible.

"True. But let's not waste our time over these thoughts and let's continue working on this thing," DJ threw Khushi's sarcasm away.

"Yeah, so, where were we? Connection! What must be the connection?" Khushi thinks.

"Let's write Khushi Gupta's, Nusrat Saeed's, and DJ sir's names on the board. They're involved somehow. Maybe we could crack this then." Akash takes another marker keeping the novel aside.

"Before that, we need to crack what's in Arya's book. Vishal's name is left in Nia's book. So, the fourth victim's name must be left in Arya's book. Let's leave thinking why Nia's name was left in Vishal's book." Khushi bites her lips.

"Alright!" They agree. That's the fact, too.

I, A, D, U, T, N.

"What if it's Tina?" Khushi guesses.

"Let's check google for Tina and try searching for the surname starting with D and U and that should have T, A, I, or any single letter that is in Novel," Arnav starts working on it already.

The rest of them starts their work too.

Khushi remembers something.

"DJ Sir, I think you should leave Shyam. I've completed checking his mobile and there was no trace of sending the messages from that device. In fact, today's coordinate was sent to me from Shyam's phone number when Shyam's phone is just with me," Khushi explains.

DJ nods and gets out of the room to do the needed.

Arnav, although dissatisfied, says nothing.

Custody Room,

" Sorry for the inconvenience caused by us, you can leave," he gestures constables to release.

Finally, Shyam was proven innocent.

"I might be a psycho lover but I'm not a killer to kill anyone who isn't even related to Khushi or me," Shyam says as he gets out.

Investigation Room,

"There's one Tina Dutta who's an actress," K exclaims and that pauses everyone else's movements.

"And I think she is the fourth victim," K continues.

"How can you be so sure?" Akash asks.

"Tina Dutta fits the puzzle," Khushi who was calculating says.

The puzzle was fit, indeed.

"Why?" Akash argues.

"Well, she's the actress in the film and the same film copied Khushi's dialogue," K supplies the information.

Now, that's another great piece of information they've got to know.

DJ comes back and Khushi's phone beeps again, this time from the same unknown number.

"You thought you got the wrong man? Hahaha!"

That shocks her.

What the hell!

To be continued..,

Let me know what you think about the update!

-polymath_land

-09/10/2022