SidNaaz Imagines

Chapter Twelve

Shehnaaz jhooth nahi bolti. Koi bhi jhooth bol le, magar woh kabhi nahi..

Siddharth was perplexed. Shehnaaz was standing in front of him, her head bowed. The chaos in the office was something inexplicably hell-like. Everyone was screaming and shouting  accusations, while in the midst of it stood her, Shehnaaz, unblinking, unmoving, mute. 

This was not so much of a big deal. Why was she like that?

Siddharth wanted to hear her defend herself. He wanted her to say something, anything to help him make sense of the whole situation. 

"Shut-up! Shut-up, right now. This is your workplace, not a fish-market. We won't reach any conclusions this way, you understand?" Siddharth said firmly. 

For the next few seconds, there was complete silence in the office. Siddharth walked up to the cubicle where Shehnaaz worked and saw a number of tabs open on her computer. 

"Have you logged in or out of anything, since this started?" Siddharth asked Shehnaaz who shook her head, still not talking. 

"Has anyone touched this PC afterwards, at all?" 

Shefali raised her hand, "I was trying to go through the browser history, in order to find something more. I was told not to. I was the one who opened the Mail tab."

Siddharth nodded. 

"First of all, that's never a good idea. You could've butchered any evidence that we still had the chance to get at. Second, if she had done it, she'd not be foolish enough to leave the history on there. She's the tech genius of SGI. Give her some credit." 

Shehnaaz smiled weakly at Siddharth. There was still hope. 

Shehnaaz took a step towards her cubicle and Siddharth stepped aside, giving her enough room to access the contents of the cubicle if she needed. "I didn't do it Siddharth." She said quietly. "I didn't. I swear."

"Stop lying to him, We all saw that the leaked designs were traced back to you." Paras exclaimed. 

Siddharth looked at Shehnaaz, who shook her head. "I didn't." She whispered. 

"I'm not saying that you did." Siddharth said gently, typing away at the keyboard. "I gave you access to those designs a week ago, correct?"

"Yes." She mumbled. She opened the drawer and extracted a few sheets of paper. "I needed to get them printed for reference and record."

Siddharth leafed through the papers, "Yeah." 

"Sir, The Dhimans clearly made a fortune with those stolen designs, they might have split a part of profit with her." Someone said from the back of the room. 

"Excellent theory, Rajni." Siddharth responded.

"We'd definitely get something if we dug through her bank records." Someone else suggested. 

"We've already traced the source E-mail back to her computer, what more proof do you even need?" Sharon exclaimed impatiently. "She's friends with a highly placed guy over there."

Shehnaaz sighed, Siddharth looked amused at the newest piece of information. "What was that?" 

Sharon smirked. "I've seen her a few times with the guy. They.. they might have been planning the whole thing weeks in advance." She said looking pointedly at the girl who gasped. 

"I always knew she was a bitch. She'd do anything for the bucks.." Param seconded the thought.

"Sir, I think we should call the cops." Shefali said firmly.