They told her to call the police. That's what good girls do, isn't it?
Call the police. Cry. Fall apart.
She did. On cue. On time. Perfectly.
When the door opened, she expected some tired, old officer. Some bored man who'd seen too many broken things already.
But instead, he stepped in.
Detective Aaran Digvijay.
His gaze moved slow, steady, as if taking a silent photograph of everything: the blood, the silence, the way she looked so perfectly helpless beneath the cheap kitchen light.
"Miss Rhea," he said, polite but detached, his voice like cold glass. "You found the body alone?"
She nodded, because that's what innocent girls do.
She bit her lip. Let her eyes shimmer. Tilted her head just enough to look breakable.
He crouched down near the body, fingers tracing the outline of blood where it mixed - red staining the floor like honey spilled from her sister's favorite jar. A slow, sticky mess.
"Terrible," he murmured. "He deserved worse."
Then he glanced at her - not pitying, not soft. Calculating. Curious.
"You've had a hard night, haven't you?"
Her lips trembled as she whispered, "I didn't know what else to do."
But inside, her heart smiled.
Because she already knew what came next.
The investigation. The sympathy. His quiet concern turning slowly, sweetly into something warmer.
She had planned every step of this. Down to the tear rolling, perfectly timed, down her cheek.
What she didn't know-what she couldn't possibly suspect yet-
was that he had been watching her long before tonight.
And he already knew exactly who she was.