Chapter 20: Clouds in his head
"What do you think?" Arlen asked and Ravi looked at him. He was talking to him, asking what he thought about the case. He was not smiling though, his voice was neither as soft nor encouraging as it had been with Lisa.
It was the same cadence as they had been yesterday, as if there was a straight line drawn between the two of them.
He did not mind the line, Ravi said to himself as he looked down on his paper, feeling the burning gaze of those blue eyes on him. Expectant.
Arlen had beautiful blue eyes but right now, Ravi did not like the emotion that was swimming in those orbs.
Ravi moistened his throat, blinking several times as he focused on the question. He looked at the white paper in his hand containing the woman's financial intimates and stared so deeply, wishing the lines would rearrange themselves and some clues would spring out from somewhere and fill his brain.
It would be like those movies that he watches on the Weekend, the high IQ protagonist would paint a mental picture of the who, the why, and the how of the crime. Everyone would hoo and ahh and clap.
Nothing that had not already been said came to mind.
"What do you think about the case? How do you propose we do next?" Arlen asked again, there was a bit of steel in his voice, forcing him back. He was not usually like this with his subordinates but this Officer West and his lackadaisical attitude for some reason got under his skin. He was always so calm, so indifferent, as if he was at a pizza shop and not at the police station, he met those blank eyes and he could not help pushing.
There was nothing but clouds in Ravi's head, the more those blue eyes pressed him down like a mountain, the pressure, the expectation in the gaze was so familiar and so frightening.