Deadly Games

|08|: Everything is connected

Ryan woke up timidly, looking at Tiara who was sleeping peacefully. He unclasped her arm and rested it on his pillow. He picked up his clothes and got dressed. The night before, he clutched the sleeping pills bottle in his palm, he decided to knock Tiara's conscious and steal the contents of her investigation, he went for change of plan, got swayed with his emotions and slept with her.

He closed the bedroom door carefully. He entered the living room and warily scanned around, he looked for another room where she may have kept things related to the investigation. He thoroughly checked the drawers, boxes, suitcases and put back how it was before.

He sighed and held his waist, his gaze fell on the fireplace, which was covered by a wooden board. He knelt down, pulled out the board. The fireplace was a passageway to another room. He crawled beneath the fireplace and entered the room, which was Tiara's workplace. There was a murder board on the wall, polaroids of murder scenes, newspaper reports, photographs of board members were attached and connected with red strings.

He tried to open the drawers of the desk, but they were locked, instead he clicked pics from his phone and saved it. His photograph was circled by red marker twice and thrice on the murder board, deducing that she had her suspect on him.

Tiara shifted beneath the bed covers, she grasped the bed sheets, sensing he was gone. She jerkly got up and looked at the clock on the nightstand, it was 7: 39 AM, she folded the covers and opened the bedroom door, entering her living room.

"Ryan" She uttered, he was standing near the kitchen counter, pouring coffee in two mugs, with omlette and oats in two plates.

The scent of fresh roasted coffee teased her nose, she grinned and responded, "I thought, you were gone"

He walked towards her with the coffee mug and handed it to her. "How could I've, when I had a sleeping beauty next to me"

She snorted and took a sip of the freshly brewed coffee, she winced, as the hot liquid touched her tongue. "Shit!"

He kept his coffee mug down on the table, "Are you okay?"

"Fine" She lied, kept her mug on the table and went to the bathroom.
She applied the toothpaste on the brush and brushed her teeth rigidly. She gurgled the water and spat it on the sink. After wiping her face with the towel, she sipped the coffee.

After she finished drinking her coffee, she thanked him.

"I hope you have the breakfast" He took his coat and exited her apartment.

She had the delicious breakfast he made, then she knelt in front of the fireplace, pulled out the board, and moved to the passageway to her secret workplace. She inserted the keys in the drawer and took out all the copies of the files of investigation.

She took out a blue pen and wrote -
Ryan Merchant???

After hearing the story, she couldn't join the points according to her theory. She scanned the faces of the members of the organization, most of them were dead, who could've hold a grudge against them.

Her phone rang in her denims pocket, she held it near her ear and pressed the call button, "Yes, Siddhanth. Did you get any information?"

"There is something you should come and see" She did like the intriguing sentence and hurried to his home, where he called the meeting.

She entered his apartment, which was a lot more cozier and large than her apartment, which had one extra room. Her colleagues were already seated on the sofa, a display slide was set up infront of the window curtains.

"What is it?" Tiara asked and sat down next to Ranjana.

"Watch this" Siddhanth pressed the play button on the slide.

It was a video of the murder victims bribing an administrative official, another clip showed Neeraj Mathur arguing with the victims. The video was muted, so they could hardly interpret anything.

"Where did you find this?" Tiara raised her question, they landed on one of the major evidence of investigation.

"The tip was anonymous, someone parcelled to me today at my doorstep." Siddhanth answered

"That means someone else knows about the inside details of the investigation other than us" Afreen pointed at the clip on the display slide.

"That's right, but who would.." Tiara paused in the middle of her sentence, "I think I know who can lead to the killer. You guys work on any existing family members, relatives of Neeraj Mathur and report to me"

"I don't understand.." Jake was cut off by Tiara

"Do you know why someone wants to help us now by sending this clip, because this someone knows who is the killer. And the killer has a grudge against all the board members, this clip proves that Neeraj Mathur's intentions for his company were not right, even if he is dead, someone else is carrying out his dirty work." Tiara explained it to them.

Tiara drew the door open and entered her boss's office, the stilettos cackled on the granite floor. She put the file on his desk, as he picked it up and nodded to her.

"Another thing, I just want to ask you something" Tiara didn't hesitate, as she cleared her throat before asking.

"If it's about last night, I assure you everything will be professional at workplace, and...." Ryan tried to clear the misunderstandings.

"It's not about that, I did have fun last night, but my main concern is my work. I just want to ask you a few questions about my research"

He grinned, as if he knew she was going to ask, "We can do that at my place"

"I look forward to our meeting" She shot a gleaming smile before she left his office.

Thank you 😊

Signing off,

Jennyjhelu