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)
My fingers curling into my palm, I headed back inside to do a workout using my own body weight; I’d started exercising as a kid in order to burn off the rage I couldn’t acknowledge. Not then. Now I just liked it.
As for the rage…I’d dealt with it.
I’d just walked back outside after a quick shower to freshen up when Ravi appeared with a tray. “Bula! I thought you’d be awake. Breakfast for you. I know Diya beta likes bread, but we didn’t have any fresh, so Kushma made you roti, and eggs from our chickens—she made them with onions and chili, but she said she can do an overseas-style omelet for you if you want.”
My heart twisted—Diya had made eggs for me that way, taught me how to roll them up in the flatbread called roti, so that it became a savory wrap. “It sounds delicious, thank you.”
Ravi put down the tray but didn’t stay to chat, saying he had to get his boys to school. “It’s a long drive every day, but education, you know.”
When I took the lace cloth cover off the tray, I discovered coffee and a plate of sliced papaya and what I thought might be guava, as well as the roti and eggs. I was glad for the absence of mango. Though the coffee was instant, it still provided the necessary caffeine hit, but I slammed into a roadblock when I tried to eat the eggs.
Diya’s laughter in the kitchen of my condo, the way she’d told me to watch as she flipped the egg “like a maestro”—only to splatter it all over the floor.
We’d laughed like lunatics while cleaning it up, just two people who were stupid in love. My wife had been so different back then, so full of a radiant light. Coming home to New Zealand, I realized with the gift of distance, had stolen a piece of that light from her, replacing it with shadows black and ominous.
Why?
Was it the same reason she’d spoken Ani’s name when she thought she was dying?
Was it why her parents were dead? Because official confirmation or not, I knew the senior Prasads had to be dead. What other reason could there be for two respected doctors to vanish off the face of the planet on the same day their home burned to the ground?
Head chaotic with questions to which I had no answers, I ate the fruit and roti, then buried the eggs in the backyard, so as not to insult my hosts. I made a note to drop the mango under the tree, too, just another fallen fruit.
“What’ll we find if we dig up your metaphorical backyard?” Callum Baxter’s hard green eyes drilling into me in that tiny interrogation room where he’d held me for far too many hours. “How many women have you scammed?”
Dropping broken foliage over the small area I’d dug up to make it blend in with everything else, I went inside to wash my hands…and only realized I was gritting my teeth when I looked in the mirror. “Fuck you, Baxter, you piece of shit.”
He hadn’t won then, and he wouldn’t win now, not even in my head.
Chapter 30
Private notes: Detective Callum Baxter (LAPD)
Date: Jan 1
Time: 01:07
I can’t believe we’re into the new year and Tavish Advani is walking around free. Fuck, he’s probably at some New Year’s party now. Meanwhile, I’m still trying to track down how and when Susanne Winthorpe died.
Their names haunt me.
Virna Musgrave.
Jocelyn Wai.
Susanne Winthorpe.
All dead.
All with only one man in common.
I’m going to get that bastard if it’s the last thing I do—that’s my goddamn New Year’s resolution.
Chapter 31
A grizzled man of maybe seventy sat in a rocking chair on the front porch of the blue house a five-minute drive from the Prasad home, a cigarette hanging from his mouth, and his head a shining baldness but for two silvery stripes down the sides.
“Kamal?” I asked after exiting the car when he just watched me with dark eyes that didn’t blink enough for my liking.
Cop, definitely a cop.
“I’m Tavish,” I said when he didn’t respond. “Diya’s fiancé.” As far as I knew, the Prasads hadn’t told anyone that we were already married, and I’d honor their wish with the people here until Diya woke and we could talk about what to do going forward.
Stopping in his rocking, he took the cigarette out of his mouth. “You bring them home.” He coughed after that raspy order given in heavily accented English. “Sarita and Rajesh and Bobby. Ashes should be scattered on their home water.”
Kamal clearly had none of Ravi’s hope when it came to the three missing family members. “Diya will make that decision,” I said. “When she wakes up.”
His expression twisted. “Bad?”
“Bad.”
Exhaling, he got up. And though his back was a little bowed, he walked easily enough as he turned to go into the house. “Yash’s wife made lemonade.”