The living room looked untouched, as if no violence had ever occurred here. The curtains softened the daylight. The tea cups sat quietly washed. The books on the shelf remained in their neat rows. Only the faint trace of bloodstains near the floorboards - cleaned, but not forgotten - whispered of the brutality that had taken place.
Aaran stood alone now. His colleagues had finished their work and left behind their theories and paperwork. He let his gaze travel across the scene slowly. The murder had been both deliberate and brutal. Not rushed. Not panicked.
The reports said blood loss, cardiac arrest.
No signs of forced entry.
No clear motive.
A crime that, on paper, seemed coldly professional.
Yet he could tell it wasn't the work of a professional. It was personal. Meticulous.
---
The whispers had already begun among the team.
"She writes thrillers... she knows how these stories go."
"A writer with this much imagination could stage something like this."
"Still... she doesn't seem the type."
Aaran said nothing.
In the interview room, Rhea had been calm, her expression soft, her answers precise.
> "No, I didn't know him well. He wasn't someone I had reason to keep in my life."
No lies. No connections. Nothing direct they could press her with.
Her gaze never wavered. Her posture never faltered.
If she felt the weight of suspicion, she wore it like silk on her skin.
---
Later, alone in his office, Aaran sat with the photographs spread before him. He studied them under the pale glow of his desk lamp.
The cause of death was clear:
Blood loss. Cardiac arrest triggered by trauma, fear, and the slow unraveling of his body's ability to fight.
No defensive wounds. No struggle.
Aaran recognized what others would overlook - the quiet cruelty of it. The victim had been paralyzed but awake. Forced to feel everything. To watch death approach in slow, merciless steps.
That detail alone told Aaran everything he needed to know.
This wasn't random. This wasn't reckless.
This was hate. Cold, patient, and exact.
He traced a finger across the edge of the file. The others weren't asking the right questions because they didn't see what he saw.
---
Rhea hadn't shown fear. Not once.
Not in her words. Not in her eyes.
What others mistook for innocence, Aaran knew was calculation. A woman weaving a story with her silence, guiding others to look where she allowed them to look - and no further.
She had made mistakes, of course. Small ones. A misplaced timeline. A half-cleaned surface. Nothing anyone else would notice.
Not yet.
But Aaran noticed.
And he said nothing.
Not now. Not yet.
---
He closed the file with care, fingers lingering on the photograph of her composed face.
> A perfect crime is never truly perfect.
And some stories aren't finished until the final page is written.