Mission Forensic
Part 20: The Curtain Lifted
The stairwell breathed with damp plaster and the faint smell of rust. Each step up felt like trespass, the old wood creaking under their weight, the silence amplifying their presence. Catherine’s fingers grazed Edward’s sleeve as they climbed, the brush so slight no one else would notice, but it was enough to steady the quickened beat of her heart.
At the landing, the air felt heavier, as though the flat itself exhaled through the thin glow leaking around its curtains. A single door, its paint peeling, stood before them. Before Edward could raise his hand to knock, a voice—calm, measured—spilled out into the corridor.
You came quicker than I thought.
The four exchanged a look. Catherine’s pulse spiked. Edward met her eyes, the weight of reassurance in his glance saying what words could not: I’m here.
The door swung open.
The man was almost ordinary in his plainness—lean, middle-aged, hair shot with grey, his clothes nondescript. Yet his eyes held a stillness that unsettled, the composure of one who had already calculated every move they might make.
“Mr. Vohra,” Shawn said, his voice taut.
The man inclined his head, smiling faintly. “Names matter less than purpose. But yes—if you must call me something, let that suffice.”
He stepped back, gesturing them inward with mock courtesy.
***
The flat was stripped bare of personality—just a desk, a single lamp, a shelf stacked with files in rigid order. But against one wall stood a corkboard thick with photographs.
Catherine froze. There they were—Edward at the lectern mid-sentence, herself leaning over notes, Shawn laughing at something in the courtyard, Ahana bent over her laptop in the library. And worse—candid shots, intimate moments never meant for another’s gaze. Her resting her head on Edward’s shoulder on the Vistara flight. Edward carrying two trays of tea across the café. Private. Violated.
“You’ve been watching us,” Edward said. His voice was even, but Catherine knew the steel in it.
Vohra’s smile sharpened. “Observation precedes truth. Isn’t that the principle you live by? I only applied it to you.”
“And why us?” Catherine asked, finding her voice though her throat felt tight.
“Because you are not like the others.” His gaze moved between them, unsettling in its certainty. “Because you dig where you should not dig. And because there are people—powerful people—who want to know what you will uncover before you even reach it.”
“Who?” Shawn demanded.
Vohra tilted his head, as though amused by the simplicity of the question. “If I gave you that answer, the game would end before it began.”
The silence thickened, broken only by the low hum of the lamp. Catherine’s hand found Edward’s, hidden in the folds of her stole. His grip closed over hers—firm, protective.
Ahana’s voice was steady, almost cold. “Then the game ends now. Tonight.”
For the first time, Vohra’s composure shifted. Barely—but it was enough. His hand drifted toward a stack of papers on the desk.
Edward was faster. He stepped forward, catching the man’s wrist in one sharp, decisive grip. Their eyes locked—two steady flames measuring one another.
“No more photographs,” Edward said quietly. “No more files. Whatever shadow you serve—carry back this message: we are not prey.”
For a moment, it seemed Vohra might resist. But then his lips curved—not into a smile, but something thinner, edged with irony. Slowly, deliberately, he pulled his hand back.
“You’ve declared yourselves players,” he said softly. “But remember—players can be removed.”
Shawn moved at once, sweeping the photographs from the corkboard. Pages fluttered like startled birds, scattering across the floor. Ahana unplugged the lamp, plunging the flat into dimness. Catherine gathered the files, tucking them under her arm with a swiftness born of fury.
And Vohra? He didn’t fight. He simply sat back in the shadowed chair, eyes gleaming as though this was the outcome he had expected all along.
“You’ll see me again,” he murmured. “But not here. Not like this.”
***
They left him there, a figure in the half-dark, the rain drumming harder against the curtained window.
The lane outside was washed clean, rain pooling in shallow mirrors where the lamps burned. Behind them, the shuttered shop stood like an abandoned stage, its single curtain of light extinguished. Vohra was finished here—his photographs torn down, his files in their hands, his careful anonymity dismantled.
Yet even in defeat, he had left behind a presence, the echo of his words—players can be removed—lingering like smoke.
Shawn broke the silence first. “One man gone doesn’t mean the story ends. There’s always someone waiting in the wings.”
Ahana gave a small, tight nod, clutching the folders to her chest. “Then we keep moving. And we don’t look back.”
***
At the crossroads they parted, Shawn and Ahana vanishing into the rain with their burden of evidence, while Edward and Catherine turned toward home. The cab windows fogged as the city slid past in neon streaks, but neither spoke much. Their silence was not emptiness; it was the heavy pause after a storm, charged with everything unspoken.
Their flat felt warmer than usual when they stepped in, as though walls and books and small comforts knew how to hold them close. Catherine sank onto the couch, letting her drenched stole fall away. Edward placed the files carefully on the table, but his attention lingered on her, not the evidence.
“You’re shaking,” he said softly.
“I’m only tired.” She tried to smile, but it faltered into something more fragile.
He knelt before her, cupping her hands in his, rubbing them gently until the cold eased from her fingers. “You don’t have to be strong all the time, Cathie. Not with me.”
Her eyes lifted, rain still jeweled in her lashes. “Promise me then. No matter what’s waiting—we don’t face it alone.”
He leaned close, brushing a kiss against her lips, not hurried but steady, sealing the vow in the hush between them. “Always together.”
The rain softened outside, dwindling to a faint patter against the glass. The city, restless and endless, seemed to exhale. Within their walls, only warmth remained—love against the night, certainty against the unknown.
And in that stillness, as Catherine rested her head on his shoulder, she felt the world shift again—not ending, not breaking, but folding back into rhythm. Tomorrow would come with lectures, with library hours, with Shawn’s dry jokes and Ahana’s quiet brilliance. College life would resume its cadence, as though nothing had changed.
But they knew better. Something had begun. And when it chose to rise again from the shadows, they would be ready—side by side.
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