CBI,

 Same day,

"Me!" She whispers.

Everything fell in silence for a minute.

"Exactly, you! Nirvana is the book you've written a decade ago if I'm not wrong!" Akash looks at Ananya as he threw the words that were roaming around his head.

"Yes, exactly a decade ago, I have this written a decade ago, when I was 26." Ananya strokes her forehead and remembers the day when she decided to write Nirvana and publish it.

"Look at this Novel," Akash sighs and hands over the Novel to Ananya.

"It's mine but the book cover is not the original," she said scrutinizing it.

Maybe that's why she wasn't able to recognize her Novel when she saw it at the crime scene.

"He must be knowing the binding work as well. He totally changed the book cover to a plain white," Ananya points out pursuing her lips.

"Yeah, that's another point and guess what we've found?" he raises the curiousness in everyone's head.

"What did you find?" Nikhil raises his brow parting his lips a little.

Akash gulps and huffs, "A white rose that was painted red with blood."

"What the fu-," he earns a curse from Ananya and Nikhil.

Yeah, they cursed together.

"What's happening? What does that mean now?" DJ shakes his head, releasing a breath.

"We'll have to find out," Akash shrugs and continues after a few seconds, "Moreover, the blood on the white rose matched with Nia's and Vishal's blood respectively. Raina gave me the report an hour ago. We cross-matched and the result is positive."

K's head is not in this room anymore. Nusrat had a neutral expression.

Ananya was frowning and Nikhil was scowling. Well, the words are different but the expression is the same for both the husband and wife.

DJ had his white hat on his head.

"So, the killer painted white roses with Nia's blood and put it in the Novel, that's what it meant, isn't it?" Nikhil asks for clarification.

"Maybe," Akash whispers pursing his lips.

"And point to be noted, the killer has sent both the coordinates to Ananya while I and Nusrat got single coordinates," DJ adds to their thoughts.

"Yeah!" Akash agrees, nodding his head.

"DJ Sir got Tilak Nagar's coordinate where we found Vishal's body," Ananya points out the fact.

"And Nusrat got Moti Nagar's coordinate where we found Nia's body and the coordinate was sent from Vishal's number," Nikhil huffs adding.

"In between all these Ananya is the common link and DJ Sir and Nusrat fit somewhere in the middle." Akash makes an assumption.

Ananya looks at Akash when he says that.

"What must be the connection?" DJ asks, frowning.

Akash has a more important question to ask, so he does.

"Do you have any enemies, Ananya?"

"No, I don't think-" she was cut off by her husband.

Nikhil was glaring at her. It was the first time a personal matter came into the limelight when they were engrossed in professional work.

"There's one. He has been sending locations to Ananya for two years now," Nikhil shrugs as he adds that, shaking his head.

"He was even sent to jail," he adds another point raising his hands in the air.

Ananya sighs and opens her mouth, "He was a psycho lover, always behind me sending locations and showering gifts. He was arrested for harassment."

Well, this was new information for the team. They were unaware of it. It surprised them except for K.

"Why does he exactly sends locations?" Akash frowns while he asks.

Ananya takes a deep breath before answering.

"Nikhil and I were newly married then. I got the locations and we thought it might be some kind of criminal but when we reached the location-" she was cut off by Nikhil.

"It was decorated with flowers. He made the location so romantic to propose to her even after knowing she's married to me." He gritted his teeth, fisting his palms remembering the day.

This was the first he let a possessive husband in him jump out of his conscience when he was in their office.

"He didn't stop sending locations or showering gifts on her. Ananya has slapped him on that for behaving like a psycho and I had a fight with him too." He twists his lips as the day left a bitter sensation in his heart.

"He was soon sent to jail for harassment," Ananya gives the information to her team.

When he was behaving like a psycho, she complained to a local police station and he was arrested.

"Why do none of us know this?" DJ raises the most important question.

"Yeah, and we are CBI Officers. We could have dealt with him," Akash adds looking confused.

"K knows and we thought to keep it under wraps as it was personal," Ananya states the fact simply.

Nikhil nods at her statement agreeing with her. It was their personal matter.

Nobody was surprised when Ananya said K knew that. Everyone is aware that K is her best friend. So, it was obvious he would know.

"Neil was released a few months ago and started sending the locations to Ananya again," Nikhil pauses and continues, "And when these two coordinates came from another, an unknown and untraceable number, I thought it must be from Neil again."

"But turned out it was the killer." Ananya sighs.

"But how are we sure your psycho lover, this Neil cannot be the killer of Nia and Vishal," DJ raises a valid question.

"Exactly, he can be the one, there's a possibility," Nikhil points out.

Well, although he didn't know the two new coordinates will take him to serial killings, he thought those coordinates could be from Neil again, from a new and untraceable number. That's it. Who knows if he actually killed Nia and Vishal?

"I think we should take him into custody," DJ said after a minute of thinking.

"But we don't have any proof. These are just our assumptions," Ananya frowns.

Without any strong proof, how can they take him into custody? That was her thought.

"There's a possibility that these assumptions could be true," Nikhil says looking at Ananya, almost glaring at her.

Ananya ignores his gaze.

"There's a possibility that these assumptions could be false too. What then?" She asks no one particularly.

"We'll take him into our custody for questioning. We'll not arrest him yet," DJ clarifies.

Akash nods at that.

"But still that would be informal. Without a strong lead-" she was cut off by Nikhil.

"He has a criminal record. That's enough to doubt and question him in our custody," he explains shrugging his shoulders.

"And another point to be noted is he has a degree in cyber security." Nikhil shakes his head as he says that.

Akash sighs at that and starts sharing his view, "In that case, if I'm not wrong, Vishal's phone has no trace of sending the coordinate to Nusrat. And the rose has the victims' blood-" he was cut off by Nikhil.

"And the autopsy says Vishal has been dead for more than 12 hours and Nia has been dead for more than 14 hours. So, when you people got the coordinates, they were already dead."

"It does mean it's the killer of Nia and Vishal who sent the coordinates." Akash declares without a doubt.

As soon as Ananya remembered DJ getting the coordinate from someone, she started checking the phone number.

"And the coordinate has been sent to DJ Sir from Nia's number," Ananya passes the new information.

K immediately takes Nia's phone from Ananya's hand and connects Nia's phone to his terminal.

"There's no trace of sending the coordinate from Nia's phone," K juts his lips. It was clear that Nia's phone was hacked too.

"This can only mean that this is a serial killing and the killer should have been a hacker along with being someone who knows binding the books," DJ concludes.

At least something was clear. With the new information getting into their heads every few minutes, this was a good result for their brainstorming session.

"And Neil is an expert in it," Nikhil states the fact.

Before they could discuss this further, Lolark barges into the cabin.

Everyone looks at Lolark.

"I found something in the Novel." There's it. Another new information that could put their brains into the white hat again.

"What is it?" Ananya asks. She will soon get a headache if this goes on.

Neil and his psycho behavior, two new coordinates, an untraceable number, her fight with her husband, the Novel issue, a red rose, and more to come it seems.

Lolark shows the novel, "this was the novel we got from Vishal's crime scene. And this book has some letters highlighted on the 4th page and 5th page."

Ananya immediately takes the novel Akash has given to her from the desk and checks it.

Ananya after checking Nia's Novel, "It has the same thing too. Some letters in the 4th and 5th pages of the book are highlighted." She gulps.

"Now what is this again? Is he a killer or a puzzle," K asks irritated.

Seems like a person expert in Mind Games!

"Whoever he is, we shouldn't care. Let's just go to the investigation room and analyze these clues," DJ commands putting an end to the conversation in Ananya's cabin. Her cabin has become an investigation room for the past few minutes.

"What about Neil?" Lolark asks.

With his name again, Nikhil and Ananya remembered their fight in the morning. She got the two coordinates from an unknown and untraceable number. Nikhil thought it was Neil again and Ananya thought Neil might not be the one. And they fought over the topic. If Nikhil had his reasons, Ananya had hers.

"Akash, get some of our best inspectors and send them over to Neil's address," he commands.

"Can I have his number from which he sent locations and his home address too?" DJ asks looking at Ananya.

Ananya nods and opens a file on her phone.

She gives it to DJ and DJ checks the address and sends it to Akash.

Akash goes as per DJ's commands.

The rest of them walks to the investigation room in their office. Everyone is lost in their own thoughts.

Investigation Room

They see Raina sitting and working on her laptop.

DJ looks at points written by Akash.

Meanwhile, Ananya and Nikhil settle themselves on the chairs there and go through the Novel together.

K sat with his iPad working on the untraceable number Ananya has been working on. He puts his legs on both sides. Hacking and Investigating.

"Now we need to know what that letter in the Novel says," DJ starts and makes two portions on the whiteboard. One for Vishal and another for Nia. He adds the points gathered in his head.

"In Vishal's case, the Novel has O, R, I, A, N on the fourth page, and on the fifth page, it's A, V. These are the letters." Ananya checks the next pages and finds nothing.

Nikhil was in Nia's case, so he starts, "In Nia's case, the Novel has N, A on the fourth page and on the fifth page, it's L, H, A, V, I, S, K, R" he frowns at the letters and then whispers, "Vishal!"

DJ heard that and to their surprise, if you solve put it in order, it leaves you with a Name and that is Vishal. DJ highlights the point.

Nikhila and Ananya get engrossed in their Novels finding out if there's anything that they have missed noticing.

DJ looks at Vishal. A single thing they could decode and tries to find out the link.

Raina go through Nia Arora's and Vishal Sarkar's profiles and everything she had gathered, their professional and personal lives minute to minute details that could give them any clue.

Neil's Home,

Akash reaches Neil's house at the address given by Ananya and knocks on the door. Only to realize it was locked. Neil wasn't there in his home.

He asks Neil's neighbors.

"I think he wasn't there in his house for two days," a neighbor of Neil says.

Akash thanks him, asks him to inform him if Neil comes, and leaves the area.

It was time for them to leave for their home as Akash reaches CBI. They've been working from morning and didn't realize it was beyond their office timings now. 

So, they wrap and get back to their homes.

NiYa's Mansion

They both were tired when they reach their house. They grab their night wears, get freshened up one after another, and have their dinner in silence. Their maids were already out in the servant's quarter. 

Usually, they would walk together in their garden before they sleep. Today was one such day where fought and they will have to pacify each other before they get back to normal.

Nikhil doesn't like it a bit if they would fight and sleep with their backs to each other. Ananya wasn't any less in such thoughts.

"I'm sorry," they both say together and to each other as they enter their bedroom.

They smile. It is their routine.

They fight. They make up. They fight. They make up. They fight again.

And this doesn't have an end between them. Although it doesn't happen that often, it does happen nonetheless.

"I'm sorry I didn't mean to scream at you," Nikhil apologizes. Ananya remembers his scoldings and turns her face away.

He grabs her chin and turns her face towards himself.

He sighs at her grumpy face and cups her cheeks.

"I'm sorry for scolding but you know I lose my temper when it comes to that Neil matter," he says looking into her eyes.

"I'm sorry too. I should have understood your concern," she pouts.

He smiles and they hug each other before getting on the bed to sleep.

Their day was tiring, mostly for Ananya. So, she fell into a deep sleep soon in her husband's arms while Nikhil thinks about their day's happening patting his wife's sleeping head.

Their day was a true mess! He soon fell into a deep sleep with his wife in his arms.

Around midnight, when Nikhil and Ananya were in deep sleep. Ananya's phone beeps with a notification.

Only if they weren't in a deep sleep, maybe they would've found who is the killer, or maybe not.  

To be continued..,

Let me know what you think of today's update. 

Awaiting your views!

-polymath_land

-14/09/2022