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 Indo-Fijian colleagues tell me that’s unusual in their community, where even unrelated people can become family over time—especially so when we’re talking new immigrants. The Prasads seem to have made no attempt to forge connections within that tight-knit group.”
I knew she was right. It was why Los Angeles had a Koreatown and Little Armenia among other neighborhoods. Because people sought the comfort of the familiar, others who could make a new land feel like home. It had been years before I’d realized that the man my paternal grandfather called his brother was no blood relation whatsoever; the two had just met on their first day in America and become fast friends.
“Maybe they were just snobs,” I suggested, though I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach that this was about hiding a single terrible family secret.
Ani.
A secret so damaging that the family had become a closed bunker.
“They invited plenty of doctors and other professionals to the engagement party.”
“But they didn’t talk to any of those professionals,” Ackerson insisted. “Even Dr. Rajesh Prasad’s closest colleague—one of the two other partners at the firm—could tell me nothing about his so-called friend that wasn’t public knowledge. Said he always felt as if he was being held at arm’s length. The Kumars, too, are in the dark about the family’s internal dynamics.”
“You have to know I’m not the person to ask. I barely knew them.” Sarita talking about her love of beautiful high-performance cars, Rajesh telling me about his lawn, all I had were fleeting snapshots…and the horror of what I’d learned in a tropical nation of aquamarine seas and palm trees. “Could be their real friends are back in Fiji, and they stay in touch via email and during the times they visit.”
No one would’ve done what Kamal had done and covered up the murder of a child just because the Prasads were a respected family. There’d been more there, a bond of friendship of some kind.
“If you think of anything else, call me,” Ackerson said.
“Sure.” Despite my agreement, I had no intention of dropping my defenses and becoming friendly with the detective; in all likelihood, she was probably playing me. Baxter had tried that, too, right back at the start.
Look, just talk to me, Tavish. I’m not here to stitch you up—I just want to know what happened to Virna.
However, once I was back beside my wife, the rhythm of her breathing deep and even in sleep, I thought about what she’d told me of her family’s controlling tactics—and what I’d learned on my own.
Kalindra cut off because she was a bad influence. Risha acceptable only because she’d lived under their control while in this country and was otherwise on the other side of the world. Shumi permitted because she had, as her own mother had so callously put it, followed the entire family around “like a little pet.”
Not a woman who would’ve gone against Rajesh and Sarita.
The other friends, the ones I’d met, had all been shallow acquaintances.
I wasn’t a shallow acquaintance, wasn’t a person they could control. And Diya…Diya trusted me, had slowly been giving me more and more pieces of herself.
I’d focused on Bobby to the exclusion of everyone else, but the elder Prasads were the ones whose entire existence was built around the fact that they were pillars of the community, admired and loved by their patients and respected by the public. Mum and Dad to two successful children.
A good family. The perfect family.
Frowning, I thought of what Ackerson had said about Diya’s event-organizing business being a losing proposition. My wife, in contrast, had very recently mentioned something in relation to growing her business. If I was remembering right, it had been about a week before the fire.
“I have some good news,” she’d said with a huge smile after she’d checked her emails.
“Oh? Tell me.”
“So, I was meant to have a business partner as of May this year. Idea was to merge my operation with her bigger one, with me the junior partner—it would’ve pushed me into a whole other sphere as far as the size of the projects was concerned. Alone, I’m stuck in an overfilled niche and there’s no growth potential.
“But she got assaulted back in April, hurt bad, ended up basically closing her business; she used to have a little office in the town center and everything. I felt so awful for her—she was so good, Tavi. I was looking forward to learning from her, delighted that she wanted to take me on board.”
“How’s she doing now?” I knew my wife’s heart, had figured she’d be watching over her friend.
“I didn’t know until now—she just fell off the radar. I managed to get in touch with her family, and they said she needed space and time and I didn’t want to overstep. But I did send her little care packages and cards so she knew I was thinking about her.”