CHAPTER THREE
"Prayer Is a Compass"
The sun cast a warm glow on the pale blue of the sea, its rays shimmering on the surface.
Priya Masahati stood beside her best friend's open casket, the salty tears pricking at her eyes.
No one would have prepared her for this moment.
No amount of warning could have softened it.
Grief, she was learning, was not a thing you could brace yourself against. It arrived anyway and it arrived fully.
Family and friends stood quietly, listening to the words of the priest. Tao had thought ahead, right from when they were fourteen.
It wasn't ideal for teenagers to be making funeral plans, but Priya remembered the night they had sat down together in Tao's room making a list of exactly what needed to happen if she ever died.
The night had been a sad one for the family.
Tao's aunt had committed suicide and the funeral had been a mess, poorly attended and thrown together, and Tao had watched it with clinical dissatisfaction.
"If I die," Tao had said, uncapping a pen, "this is how it should go." And she had written it all down with the same level of focus she brought to everything she considered worth doing properly.
Priya scanned the crowd around her and felt a surge of quiet pride. She had followed Tao's meticulous list to the final detail.
Tao had insisted: no one was allowed to wear any colour. White was all she would tolerate. "Roses are passé. Orchids are exotic." Tao had made Priya promise there wouldn't be any other flowers except white orchids, and had said it with such seriousness.
The lilac roses had irritated Priya when she had initially seen the crime-scene photos. Tao hated roses.
Priya looked down at Tao, who lay beautifully in her casket, looking like a Disney princess waiting to be kissed awake.
The image of her was so perfect, so still and composed, so undeniably Tao, that for a moment Priya forgot entirely that she was dead and expected her to open her eyes and begin critiquing the floral arrangement.
"Leave the casket open," Tao had said, flipping her hair over her shoulder as she etched the words into the pages of her journal. "I want my beauty to haunt them." Priya had smiled at the memory even now, even here, even with the casket open before her.
Even at fourteen, Tao hadn't been scared of death. She had regarded it the way she regarded most things, as something to be managed and, where possible, optimised.
Even through the tears, the crowd couldn't keep their eyes off of the beauty that lay in the open casket filled with orchids.
People wept and stared in equal measure.
The cameras were present, as they always were at events involving the Montgomerys, and Priya had made peace with that because Tao would have expected nothing less.
"I want my funeral to be by the beach," Tao had said.
"Why?" young Priya had questioned.
"From whence I came, from whence I must go."
The rolling waves and the salty air whisking the scent of orchids reminded Priya of that conversation now, and of how matter-of-fact fourteen-year-old Tao had been about the whole thing, while other girls their age were planning shopping trips and cinema evenings.
Tao had been planning her funeral like it was a wedding dream, with the same level of detail and considerably more commitment.
"A live concert doesn't seem too on brand. Maybe play something by Doja Cat, her more alternative music though. No bubblegum pop."
The priest closed the Bible. Priya took that as her cue.
"Paint the Town Red" by Doja Cat played through the speakers, the clean and slowed version of course.
Priya had also gotten the studio to have the artist do a re-record of the song, a version more fitting for a funeral.
She knew Tao would have loved every word of it.
Waiters moved through the crowd with trays of vintage champagne.
This had been a contract Tao had made her father sign, wanting to be certain that no matter what, her lawyers would ensure her guests were served the very best. Vincent Montgomery had signed it at the time, not knowing that he’d actually live to see its terms being honored.
Priya wondered whether by fate or chance Tao had somehow known she wouldn't be on this earth for long. Whether the list had been less an exercise in control and more an act of quiet knowing.
The diamond on the casket shone brightly in the morning light.
It was Tao's twelfth birthday present from her Appa.
No one had argued with Priya when she suggested it be used.
Call it fear or respect, but Priya knew that if Tao was buried in anything other than her chosen casket encrusted with her most prized stone, she would come back to torment them all personally.
The vigil the night before had been exactly as Tao had stated: "Short, romantic, no extras." Priya had enforced this with considerable firmness against several relatives who had wanted to extend it.
Taron tapped Priya's shoulder, signalling her. It was her turn to give the eulogy. She kept it short. Tao had the shortest attention span, and Priya doubted very much that Tao would have appreciated a long speech, regardless of the circumstances.
"Rest in peace, Tao, wherever you are. I hope you're shaping the afterlife to your tune, the same way you shaped us and every aspect of your life on Earth."
Priya could hear soft cries from Tao's family at her words.
The press was around, taking pictures. Tao's death had been a spectacle since the original report, and true crime communities along with the rest of the world had been on edge.
Her funeral would be a trending topic within hours.
Tao had wanted this drama. The tears, the bawling, every bit of it.
This was her way of knowing she had left with a bang. And she had.
The bed of the grave was decorated with orchids. Tao was getting buried in a bed of flowers, exactly as she had specified. Priya had followed the list like the commandments in the Bible.
But one thing, or rather one person, had decided to act differently.
?
Priya's eyes had been scrutinising Monica's every move since she arrived. She couldn't understand why she had decided to dress in black. In the entire sea of white mourners, Monica Blanchard stood out like a sore thumb.
Priya wasn't a fan of Monica and had never pretended to be, but she had accommodated her because of Tao. Now, watching Monica move through the crowd in that black dress with those dark sunglasses, she felt something sharper than dislike. She felt suspicion taking a shape.
With precise steps, she made her way over to Monica, her eyes fixed on the black dress and black gloves.
"At least they got the flowers right this time," Monica muttered as Priya approached.
Priya frowned, not forgetting her pervious irritation with Monica. "What do you mean this time?"
Monica froze for half a second. "Nothing."
Priya narrowed her eyes before choosing to let it go. She’d press her about it another time, right now, she was focused mainly on the blatant disrespect.
"What do you think you are doing?" Priya hissed, keeping her voice low.
Monica pulled off her dark shades, revealing bloodshot red eyes. "What?"
"Why are you wearing black? Tao wanted everyone dressed in white," Priya demanded, her tone low but loaded with accusation.
"Tao is dead, Priya. This is how I choose to mourn," Monica bit back, wiping the tear that slid down her cheek.
"You couldn't follow a simple dying wish?" Priya's eyes narrowed. "You have always found ways to undermine Tao. But this, Monica. This is low. The girl is dead."
"Tao was my best friend," Monica's face contorted in anger.
"I loved Tao," Monica's voice cracked, and to Priya's deep irritation, the emotion in it sounded entirely real.
Priya moved closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Yes, you did. But you always wanted to hurt her at the same time. Those two things aren't mutually exclusive."
"You think I killed her?" Monica gasped, her eyes wide.
Priya let out a low, cold laugh. "I think you've been jealous of her since the day you met her. And now she's dead." She held Monica's gaze. "Make of that what you will."
"This is very low, Priya," Monica said. Tears rolled down her cheeks. "Even for you."
Priya turned away. She couldn't handle standing with Monica any longer.
The proximity to her felt contaminating.
Tao had everything and Monica had wanted everything, and now Tao was in the ground and Monica was standing at her graveside in black and performing grief for an audience, and something about the whole composition of it made Priya want to scream.
?
The sun had begun to set over the horizon. The guests were long gone. Priya found herself sitting by the graveside alone, the golden hue of the setting sun reflected on the sea beside them, the scenery peaceful in a way that felt almost insulting given the turmoil in her mind.
Tao's death had been too coordinated to be random.
The embalming. The specific gown. The lilac roses.
The body laid out as though someone had loved her while they were destroying her.
It was too deliberate. Too intimate. It was the work of someone who knew her, who had watched her, who had wanted something from her that they had not received.
Priya hadn't been much of a churchgoer. But she had been taught to pray from childhood, and here at the graveside she closed her eyes and tried, because Tao deserved at least that much from the people she had left behind.
With a heavy heart, Priya eventually rose and walked back toward the waiting car, turning once to look at the grave. The orchids were beginning to soften in the evening air. The sea was turning the colour of old gold.
Monica was a piece in this puzzle. Priya just had to find exactly where she fit. Like a game of tic-tac-toe, she needed to be clever, one careful move at a time, and she could not afford to be wrong.