The rain followed Aryan home.
It streaked the windshield in jagged rivers as he drove through the city's late-night emptiness, the streetlights turning each droplet into brief shards of gold before they slid away. By the time he reached his apartment, his collar was damp from the short walk from car to door.
He didn't turn on the main lights.
Instead, he clicked on the small desk lamp in his study — its yellow circle of light pushing back the dark just enough to see the papers on his desk. Everything else in the room stayed in shadow.
The file was thick, the paper inside still smelling faintly of the police station's recycled air. He set it down and opened to the first crime scene photo.
Sameer Verma's body was sprawled across the bed, shirt half-open, the crimson on his chest glistening under the camera flash. His face was turned toward the wall, expression frozen mid-breath — as though the attack had taken him in the middle of speaking.
Aryan flipped to another photo.
The knife lay beside the body, the handle slick, the blade catching the light in a way that made it almost beautiful.
Another photo — the dresser mirror.
It showed a warped reflection of the room, the bed, the blood. And, just at the edge of the frame, something else. A figure.
Blurred.
Too tall to be Maya.
Too broad to be Sameer.
Aryan leaned in until his nose was almost touching the paper. The shape was indistinct, swallowed by shadow, but it was there — a presence behind the photographer.
He told himself it was a trick of the light.
Closing the folder, he pulled out the autopsy report.
Twenty-seven stab wounds.
The word "overkill" wasn't in the official notes, but it didn't need to be. Whoever had done this had wanted more than death.
A faint vibration buzzed against the desk.
His phone.
An unknown number.
He let it ring twice before answering.
Static greeted him first, then a voice — low, almost a growl.
"You're looking in the wrong places, doctor."
Aryan sat very still.
"Who is this?"
The voice ignored him.
"The truth isn't in the photographs. It's in what you've forgotten."
The call cut. The silence afterward felt heavier than the words.
He stared at the phone for a long time before sliding it aside and opening the folder again.
This time, his eyes went straight to the mirror photo.
That blurred figure.
He told himself it was nothing.
But deep down, some part of him recognized the posture, the way the head tilted slightly to one side.
It was his own.