In Sunshine or In Shadow ✔ [Completed]

Chapter 25 - Confer With Me of Murder and of Death

"The defense implies that the investigation headed by Special Agent Kabir was a witch hunt from the beginning," Carol Smith explained, "that the team went after Mr. Sinha from the beginning. We know that it is not the case, they pursued multiple suspects and it was only through irrefutable evidence that they narrowed it down to the defendant.

"The DNA evidence proves Mr. Sinha attacked and raped Agent Riddhima Mehra. There can be no questioning that. Agent Kabir and his team did an admirable job finding and arresting the man responsible for this heinous crime. There is no cause for the investigation to be questioned."

Sinha's lawyer stood up. "Agent Riddhima is Agent Kabir's supervisor, from the very beginning this investigation has to be called into question. How can we expect this team to be impartial?"

"Where is your proof that Agent Kabir and his team were compromised?"

Riddhima watched again from the back, this time with Vansh sitting next for her. She shook her head disgusted. "I can imagine the arguments if they found out we are seeing each other."

Vansh met her eyes. "Our relationship has nothing to do with your case."

"You think his attorney would believe that."

"Another reason to agree with Shakespeare 'lets kill all the lawyers'."

She smirked at that statement. "Some days I can agree with that." Her phone buzzed then and she looked down to see that it was a text from Sara. "They got a lead from Lisa's phone records."

Vansh raised his eyebrows. "Hmm, let me guess, her married lover is a major donor to the clinic."

"We'll have to see if you're right," Riddhima said with a roll of her eyes. She and Vansh both quietly got to their feet and left the courtroom with the lawyers still battling it out. She wasn't supposed to testify until tomorrow anyways.

She hated this preliminary hearing, hated that this whole case could be thrown out because the best team to do it happened to be hers. Most of all she hated that she wasn't in control of this situation at all. But the part she could control was Lisa's case.

The connection with Lisa had formed almost immediately; all it took these days was for sexual assault to be involved. Then she saw the victim as something of a kindred spirit, another Lavinia in a world filled with them. While Riddhima had come to terms that she would never get over something like this, at the very least she could keep herself from going entirely obsessive over it.

Vansh and Riddhima walked into the bullpen only speaking about Lisa's case, neither one of them was willing to bring up the other case that was on their minds. "You have the name of Lisa's lover?"

"Yes," Sara said and held up a list. "And six others."

Riddhima raised her eyebrows as she took the list of phone records. "All of them are married?"

"Yes and talk to her regularly."

Vansh smiled. "How many of them are major donors to the clinic?"

"Three."

Riddhima gave Vansh an annoyed look. "We're going to go talk to Mona again, see if she can narrow this list down even further." She turned around with the list in her hand and ignored Vansh's knowing smirk, wondering for the millionth time why she was sleeping with that man.

●●●●●●●●●●

She still felt some trepidation as she walked into the Safe Haven clinic again, mostly because she wanted to pretend that she didn't belong here. The past year had helped her to come to terms with her rape but she still felt self-conscious, it wasn't something she wanted people to know about. Kind of like her relationship with Vansh, as annoyed as he was that they had to keep it a secret, she wasn't ready to give Ranbir a stroke quite yet.