Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 106422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 532(@200wpm)___ 426(@250wpm)___ 355(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 532(@200wpm)___ 426(@250wpm)___ 355(@300wpm)
“Tavish Advani.” It was reflex, no thinking required—because obviously, they were already well aware of my identity.
“Why don’t we head downstairs to talk further,” Ackerson suggested after two people in street clothes passed us with curious looks, likely visitors on the way to a patient room. That interruption was followed by a doctor rushing past, his lab coat flapping.
My shoulders locked. “I don’t want to be away from Diya.”
“The staff member we spoke to earlier said she’ll be in surgery a while longer. You’ll be back well before then.”
Despite her reassurance, it took all of my willpower to get up and walk even the short distance to the doors, then down the flight of stairs to the sprawling atrium…which was no longer drenched in sunlight, the world outside far darker than I’d realized. So many hours, Diya in surgery the entire time.
My stomach—empty, I realized, but with no real sensation of hunger—twisted.
We halted next to a wide wall away from any foot traffic.
“You found a change of clothes.” Ackerson indicated my scrub top.
“A nurse gave it to me, told me to change. I guess my bloody T-shirt was unhygienic.” It felt surreal to talk about clothes while two—possibly three—people were dead and the love of my life lay critically wounded in a surgical suite, while her sister-in-law fought for her life in another room.
Ackerson nodded. “We might need your T-shirt for evidentiary purposes. Is it in the waiting area?”
“No, I put it in the trash can inside the toilets near Emergency.”
Ackerson gave her colleague a nod and he walked off in the direction from which I’d entered this part of the hospital. “You really shouldn’t have been allowed to leave the scene,” she said in a mild tone of voice. “You’re a witness to a crime.”
“I would’ve fought you if you’d tried to stop me.” I folded my arms. “No way in hell was I about to let Diya go alone in the ambulance when she was bleeding and unconscious.” When she could’ve fucking died before ever reaching the hospital.
“I understand that. Were you the one who called Shumi Prasad’s parents?”
“I figured they should know.” I wasn’t liking the direction this was going—her tone might be mild, but the questions held a faint undertone that rubbed me wrong. I knew what my father would say: Shut up and get a lawyer. But I also knew how that would look this early into the investigation.
I had to take another tack.
“Do you think I had something to do with this? How? I wasn’t even there.” It didn’t take any effort to tinge my voice with disbelief and shock. I might be the son of an Oscar-winning actress, but at this instant, I was also a grieving and angry husband with a wife who might not make it out of surgery alive.
Ackerson ignored my question. “Why weren’t you at what—assuming Bobby Prasad was present—seems to have been a family meeting?”
I’d been trying not to think about that, trying not to remember how the Prasads had reacted after they first learned of our elopement. Diya hadn’t even told them until we were already on the plane for the flight to Auckland, the tarmac at LAX in constant motion as planes taxied out or rolled into the gate.
Message sent, she’d shut off her phone. “Oops,” she’d said with a wink. “Guess the onboard Wi-Fi isn’t working.”
I’d walked out of biosecurity on this end to three grim faces—and Shumi’s squeal of joy as she rushed over to hug Diya. She’d been holding a sparkly balloon with Congratulations written on it in silver glitter, which she’d attached to Diya’s suitcase.
My new sister-in-law had managed to whisper that “the parents” were “big mad” before her husband and the elder Prasads reached me and Diya. I hadn’t needed the warning, not after glimpsing their faces, but I’d appreciated her loyalty to Diya all the same.
“Diya’s family is close,” I said today to this detective who was looking for a reason to blame the outsider. “Shumi and Bobby—or just Shumi like you said—probably dropped by to have tea or coffee and chat about the party.
“And there was so much leftover food to snack on. Containers stacked up on the counters and stuffed into the fridge.” Sarita and Rajesh had told the catering and other staff to take what they wanted, but that had still left multiple unopened boxes, so Bobby and Shumi had taken some, while the rest came home with us.
“Both my mother- and father-in-law had the whole weekend off—available only for patient emergencies. Everyone was at home and able to relax together.”
“Except you.”
My mind wanted to torment me with thoughts of what could’ve been, what I could’ve done had I been in the house that morning. “Diya,” I said, fighting past the incipient guilt because it would just make me easy prey for this cop, “asked me to drive to a bakery in the city center to pick up a box of samples in flavors she was considering for our wedding cake.”