"Classic discrediting approach," Naina said. "Before anyone's even accused anyone of anything, you establish the accuser as unstable."
"Yes. She understood what they were doing. She said the only way to fight it was evidence, and she had evidence, but she needed to be somewhere safe to think about what to do with it." Lakshmi's voice was steady and tight in the way of someone holding a lot of emotion back with deliberate effort. "She's been here. Not fine, but okay. She's been thinking about what to do. She's afraid to go to the police in Pune because she doesn't know how far the school's connections go. She's been — she misses her students. She talks about them every day."
"She changed Dev Malhotra's grade," Naina said. "On Tuesday night. She logged into the school system."
A small sound from Lakshmi's end — not quite a laugh, not quite a cry. "I told her not to," she said. "I told her it would leave a trace. She said that was the point. She said if someone who cared about the right things was looking, they'd see the trace and they'd know she was thinking about her students." A pause. "She was wrong that it was untraceable. She was right that someone was looking."
"The time," Naina said. "Ten-forty-seven PM. She used that time on purpose."
"She said Dev would know," Lakshmi said. "If he thought about it. She said he was smart enough to put it together."
"He did," Naina said. "Indirectly — he told me what the time meant, without knowing he was confirming the signal." She was quiet for a moment. "Lakshmi. I need Kavitha to come back to Pune. Not to the school — not yet. But I need her to go on record. I have the documentary evidence. She is the living testimony. Without both, this is documented but deniable. With both—"
"With both, it's a board exam fraud case with witness testimony and physical documentation," Lakshmi said. She had already thought about this.
