The Girl & The Ghost || Arshi FF

Chapter 16 - Theory

The following days were spent sitting in front of the laptop, after Khushi got back from office, to gather as much information as they could about Arnav's life. He was an only child. His birth mother had passed away when he was a toddler. He was unmarried, a tidbit which internally delighted Khushi. Arnav was 7 when his father remarried. Arnav's stepmother had a daughter of 10, Anjali, from her previous marriage. A few years later his stepmother passed away, due to a terminal illness, leaving behind her small family of teenaged Arnav and Anjali and their father.

Khushi would retire for the night but in the mornings when she woke up, Arnav would still be looking up and reading articles. This went on for the entire week till on the following Saturday, he derived a conclusion.

"I am sorry, what!" Khushi choked on her water when he had told her his theory.

"Murder." He repeated, grimly. "I think I was murdered. My death was not an accident."

She wiped the water that she had spilt on her top. "What in the world would make you think that?"

"I have been reading extensively and repeatedly everything that I could find about me," he responded, "I was the only heir to the business empire."

"So was your sister, Anjali," Khushi interjected.

"As per quite a few tabloids, the only reason Anjali was even given important portfolios was because she was family. She didn't have much talent and apparently, I, and some members of the board of directors, were not very happy with her work. There were rumors that we didn't get along well, especially after my father made her the COO. A few months later, my father passed away in the accident," Arnav used finger quotes to describe the word, "She was handed over the CEO post, her only contender was me. Since I was vocal about my opinion of her, she needed to take me out before I could sway all the directors to my side. "

"Where did you read all this?" Khushi scrunched her nose.

"I did a lot of research. Read each and every piece of news, saw all interviews of me, my late father's and her," he hissed the last word.

"These are all, like you said, rumors," she interjected, "These newspaper make the story more controversial to sell the news. I am sure they must have said something about you too."

Arnav pursed his lips, then spoke in a low voice. "They called me a workaholic who was arrogant with anger issues."

Khushi stifled a laugh. "See, that is only... partially true. They got the arrogant part right."

Arnav was not amused.

"Geez! It was a joke, lighten up," she raised her hands trying to diffuse the growing tension.

Arnav shook his head and resumed, "As I was saying, I have read and watched numerous interviews of Anjali and she always talks about me as a 'valuable asset' 'important to company' but never anything personal. This shows that she didn't like me."

"Or maybe that she is a private person and doesn't like expressing her sentiments publicly?" Khushi offered.

It fell on deaf ears.

"And months before my death, my father was killed in a road accident too, same as me. That's too much of a coincidence," Arnav concluded.

"Are you seriously saying that your sister planned to murder her brother and her father?"

"Step-brother and step-father," Arnav replied pointedly, "Though she always refers to my father as father but I am referred to as step-brother."

"So because she calls you by your actual relation, she murdered you?" Khushi raised her eyebrows in disbelief. "This is very soap-opera-ish."