The confession inside the abandoned factory answered one question.
It did not answer the most important one.
Who was the mastermind?
The men had worked for money.
Someone else had designed the plan.
Someone else had ordered the attack.
Someone else had benefited from Lakshmi Rajyam's reported death.
Back at the lodge, Sathyamoorthy spread every piece of evidence across the table.
The doctor's phone.
Copies of official documents.
His handwritten notes.
The attackers' statements.
Newspaper reports.
Lakshmi looked at him.
We still don't know who gave the final order.
He nodded.
Because the real person never appears in public.
He makes others do the work.
Silence filled the room.
Then Sathyamoorthy suddenly smiled.
Not because he had solved the mystery.
Because he had found a different way to reach the mastermind.
Lakshmi noticed.
What are you thinking?
He closed the notebook.
We're chasing someone who never comes into the open.
So...
we make him come to us.
Lakshmi looked puzzled.
How?
Through a story.
She frowned.
A story?
Sathyamoorthy nodded.
The person behind all this knows the real events at Kandukuru.
If I publish a fictional story that secretly describes what actually happened there...
only the real conspirators will realize someone knows the truth.
Lakshmi slowly understood.
You're going to use your writing as bait.
Exactly.
For the next two days, Sathyamoorthy wrote continuously.
Not as the famous anonymous novelist Ashok Chakravarthy.
Not as a bank manager.
He used a completely fake identity that had never appeared anywhere before.
The article looked like a short fictional serial.
Its title was simple.
The Woman Who Refused to Sign
The story never mentioned Lakshmi Rajyam by name.
It never mentioned the state.
It never named any minister.
Instead, it described a fictional leader escaping an attack near Kandukuru, betrayal within her own security team, a hidden truth inside a doctor's research, and a conspiracy built around a signature that never came.
Only those who had lived through the real events could recognize how accurate the details were.
He submitted the story anonymously to a regional newspaper.
The editor found it strangely compelling and published it in the weekend edition under the heading:
A Fiction That Feels Too Real
Within hours, the story spread across Andhra Pradesh.
Readers debated it online.
Some called it brilliant fiction.
Others insisted the author knew something about the Chief Minister's disappearance.
Television debates even discussed whether the serial was inspired by recent events.
At the lodge, Sathyamoorthy quietly watched the reactions.
Lakshmi smiled faintly.
People are reading it exactly as you expected.
He shook his head.
Not everyone.
I'm waiting for one specific reader.
Elsewhere, inside a secured government office, several senior officials gathered around a copy of the newspaper.
One officer placed it on the table.
Read the fourth page.
The room fell silent as they finished reading.
One of them spoke first.
These aren't guesses.
The writer knows details that were never released publicly.
Another official nodded.
The reference to Kandukuru...
the convoy...
the hidden research...
None of this was in the media.
A third man slowly closed the newspaper.
Find the author.
Immediately.
One officer hesitated.
The article was submitted under a false name.
No address.
No verified identity.
The senior official stood up.
Then trace the editor.
Find the submission records.
Payment details.
Printing logs.
Digital metadata.
Anything.
He looked around the room.
Whoever wrote this story...
knows something about Lakshmi Rajyam.
And if he knows the truth...
he becomes more dangerous than any witness.
Orders spread quickly.
Quiet inquiries began.
Editors were questioned.
Submission records were requested.
Investigators started searching for the mysterious writer whose fictional story contained facts only insiders should have known.
Back at the lodge, Sathyamoorthy folded the newspaper and smiled slightly.
The trap had been set.
He wasn't waiting for readers.
He was waiting for the people who were afraid of the truth.
And somewhere in the city...
the mastermind had just learned that someone else knew the story behind Lakshmi Rajyam's death.