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)
But Ackerson didn’t back down. “Perhaps not, but it does give me an excellent idea of your client’s predilection for violence. Though it seems he usually chooses older women.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake! Why don’t you look at the bully in the family?” I yelled, having waited until the right moment. Growing up with a narcissist for a mother had taught me how to manipulate people without them ever being aware of it; it was all in the timing.
Ackerson sat back. She was too smart to smile, but it was clear that she thought she’d broken me. “Clarify that,” she said.
“Bobby.” I fisted my hand on the table. “Ask his classmates how he was as a boy. Not his friends, the other children. He sure as fuck was a controlling bastard of a husband.
“Check with Shumi’s doctor, because even if she never made a police complaint, she probably needed medical attention at some point.” The latter was another gamble, but one with a good chance of paying off given all the information I had about Diya’s older brother; a boy who enjoyed bullying other children wouldn’t think anything of bullying his slavishly devoted wife.
If anything, he’d probably enjoyed it even more. After all, he’d known Shumi would never call him out on it.
That betraying twitch of her left eye, the signal that I’d startled her. “Are you saying Vihaan ‘Bobby’ Prasad was an abusive husband?” she said, even as Ngata said my name in a tone that told me to shut up.
“Yes.” I leaned forward. “Which you’d know if you’d done any actual investigating rather than deciding it had to be the outsider who did it.” Despite my words, I wasn’t so sure of her motives anymore, because just before, when she’d mentioned Virna, her voice had risen. Not by much, but enough.
How old was Ackerson? Fifties? Younger than Virna by more than a decade, but close enough to feel a sense of kinship with her. Out to nail the man she thought had scammed, then murdered a rich older woman desperate for love.
Gut instinct stirred, telling me to push on that vulnerability, but I stayed on the track I’d already laid down—letting her believe that I was ignoring my lawyer because I was a hotheaded idiot.
“That was rage, what went on in that house,” I said. “I don’t feel strongly about any of the family except for Diya! They’re just people to me, people I tried to get along with for her sake, but people I didn’t really know. Why the fuck would I stab my sister-in-law? Shumi was nice to me!”
“On that subject,” my lawyer interjected, “have you located Bobby Prasad’s remains?”
“The scene is still under forensic investigation.”
A faint smile from Ngata. “So it’s possible the younger Prasad committed this crime, then walked out to start a new life. I assume you’re keeping an eye on his bank and phone accounts for signs of life?”
“Don’t tell me how to do my job, Mr. Ngata, and I won’t tell you how to do yours.”
“I want to go see Diya now.” I got to my feet.
Ackerson didn’t argue, and I walked out with my lawyer. Who sighed once we were out on the sidewalk, under the bright green leaves of some tree I couldn’t identify. “You’re supposed to let me speak. Anand assured me you know how to keep your mouth shut.”
There was little traffic on the road just then, and what looked to be pale orange poppies—interspersed with small white flowers I couldn’t name—bobbed their heads in the plantings on the median. A woman pushed a stroller on the opposite sidewalk, while an elderly man stepped out of a café with a take-out cup in hand.
As I watched, he unhooked the lead of a scruffy brown dog from an outdoor chair, and the dog sat up, tail waving.
People carrying on with their lives as if mine hadn’t gone up in flames only days past.
“I know, I know,” I said to Ngata. “Sorry, but she’s so focused on me that she’s missing the giant elephant in the room.”
“You got away with it this time, but don’t do it again.” He squeezed my shoulder. “And be careful what you say to her. She puts on the thick tunnel-visioned cop act, but that woman has a top-tier closing rate—and her cases are winners for the prosecution, so she isn’t just about closing cases; she gets the evidence, locks her suspects down tight.”
“I’ll remember,” I said, shaken.
I’d fallen for the idiot cop act, had come close to treating her with the very contempt my father had warned me about.
“You have to be extra clean at this point.” Ngata’s gaze was suddenly as hard as granite. “Your identity hasn’t leaked to the media yet—not in terms of your past in the States—so keep a low profile and stay away from Ackerson. The instant she approaches you again, you call me. No more cozy little chats. Got it?”