Chapter 23
I spent time with Diya that evening, the curtains pulled to shield us on either side, and the nurse on duty having gone to watch from the main station, so we could have a bit more privacy.
“I kept a secret from you,” I told the woman who’d pulled me out of the black spiral of lingering grief and endless need without ever knowing what she’d done.
Because I hadn’t told her.
It was all but silent in the ICU now, the lights lowered for the evening, and the nursing rounds done for this hour. No one would disturb us while I made my confession.
“About my past,” I clarified. “But only because I fell so hard for you—I just wanted you to give me a shot without preconceptions, and then it got too difficult to tell you.”
I swallowed then, and told her. All of it. From start to finish.
It felt like a boulder rolling off my shoulders.
“Ackerson must’ve got word about the condo from Baxter and Perez in LA.
” Because despite the detective’s posturing, she hadn’t actually known much about me and Susanne.
Not many people did; Susanne had been the kind of wealthy that didn’t end up in the media, the kind of wealthy that ran generations deep.
Quiet, refined, private.
When Ackerson confronted me with the fact that my condo had been a gift from Susanne, I’d admitted it without hesitation.
“She gave it to me when I was twenty-two, said I wasn’t to argue because she could more than afford it.
” In truth, her words had been far more emotional, a prelude to a final good-bye, but Ackerson didn’t need to know that.
I’d then named the full figure of Susanne’s estate and watched Ackerson’s mind go blank with the enormity of it.
That number didn’t give Ackerson even a glimmer of my complex and life-altering relationship with the first woman who had truly seen me as who I was, and not as who she wanted me to be. So strange that it had ended up that way, when we’d begun the relationship as a flirtatious game.
Today, I spoke to another woman who would know me—because I was through with hiding things from her.
“I have to dig up something else for Ackerson to sink her teeth into, or she’s going to find a way to pin the blame on me.
I can see it in her eyes—she’s fallen for what my father calls the ‘too many coincidences’ theory.
Susanne, Jocelyn, Virna, and now you. How unlucky can a man be? ”
No one could guarantee that either Diya or Shumi would ever wake to clear my name.
Picking up my wife’s hand on a wave of terror such as I’d never before felt, I pressed a kiss to the back of it, the mehndi a stark reminder of dreams turned to ash. “I love you, D.”
Then I considered what I had to work with.
The answer was dispiriting: Ani.
A memory from another lifetime spoken of in a moment of awful pain and confusion.
It could be nothing. But it was all I had.
The question was what to do with it. Ajay had already told me what he knew, but I hadn’t broached the subject with his parents after he’d cleared up my mistake about the pronunciation of the name.
Now I messaged him: Do you think your parents would talk to me about Ani?
The three moving dots that indicated he was typing a response appeared almost at once, but his answer when it came at last wasn’t what I wanted to hear: I already brought it up with them, said Diya had mentioned Ani before she lost consciousness.
They told me Ani died in an accident as a child.
They said it was very sad and everyone was devastated, and that she and Diya were close, so that’s probably why she mentioned her.
I don’t think there’s any other reason—they sounded sad about Ani even now, but that’s all.
I blew out a breath between compressed lips. Thanks for passing that on, I wrote back, then stared down at the floor, my hands between my knees.
Ani…they said…about Ani…not…
That wasn’t just a memory. Who said what? What did it have to do with a little girl who’d died almost two decades ago? And why was it so important that Diya had struggled desperately to speak even as her blood pumped out of her violated body?
The Prasads had no close extended family in the country, no one who might know the story of Ani’s life and death. And neither Shumi nor Diya could speak, tell me what role a lost child played in any of this.
The person with the wind chimes as their ringtone received a call down the hallway, the music of it haunting enough to raise the hairs on my arms, goose bumps that chilled me from the inside. I couldn’t understand why they’d have such a sad ringtone—especially here, in this place.
Fiji.
The word was a whisper against my ear, so real that I jolted up from my slouched position to look at Diya, certain I’d find her awake. But she lay unconscious, the ventilator constant in its mechanical breathing, while the name of her birthplace echoed inside my skull.
The wind chime ringtone sounded again.
Rising, unable to bear the pain in the music, I went to walk toward it, ask the person to silence their phone…but all was quiet. And though I stood in the hallway between the ICU and the CCU for a long minute, it didn’t sound again.
Rubbing at my arms to get some warmth back into my flesh, I returned to Diya’s bedside. “I can’t just go to Fiji,” I said to my wife.
It’d be insane to fly to another country on the strength of such a vague droplet of information…but whatever it was that had tormented Diya in that moment when she’d spoken her dead sister’s name, it had to do with the place where Ani had lived and died.
“Our house is in the back of beyond,” Diya had told me while showing me the black-and-white photos her mother had so cherished.
“Used to be sugarcane fields all around us, a lot of farmers in the region. Not sure what the crop is these days, but it’s still mostly farmland. No intensive development.”
In an area that rural, people would remember the family of doctors who’d lost a child.
“It’s only a three-hour flight,” my wife had shared with a nostalgic smile. “Available throughout the week. We’ll go after you’re more settled here.
“It’s so peaceful,” she’d added, “the breeze that comes off the ocean like a kiss on the skin. The beach near the house is hidden, only really used by locals—pure white sand and coconut palms, water clear enough that you can see tiny tropical fish swimming around your ankles in the shallows. You’ll love it, Tavi. ”
My heart twisted and twisted until the agony threatened to send me to the ground. The only thing that kept me upright was the knowledge that if I didn’t fix this, if I didn’t get Ackerson’s attention off me, then Diya would wake to a husband accused of multiple murders.
Taking out my phone, I looked up the travel requirements for a US passport holder who wanted to go to Fiji, found that I didn’t need to get a visa. That hurdle passed, I began to search for flights.
There was one the next morning at nine, complete with a single empty seat.
My gambler’s heart saw that as a sign.
I booked the fare, locked in my return flight two days later.
Ended up having to pay for a seat on a charter flight for my return connection so I could make my international flight on time.
That done, I found Ajay—seated at Shumi’s side—and told him about my decision to head to Fiji.
He looked surprised but promised to keep an eye on Diya.
I also found Hazel, the nurse who was most often with Diya during the day, and told her.
“I don’t want to go, but I have to.” It was the truth, the idea of leaving Diya wrecking me.
“Has to do with preparing for the final rites. I don’t know when the police will say it’s okay to have funerals, but I need to be ready.
” The staff, I’d come to learn, had a deep understanding of different cultural practices—part of the reason for the generous ICU visiting policy was to respect the needs of the local Māori population.
I felt bad taking advantage of that understanding, but I had no choice.
Hazel gave me a sympathetic smile. “I understand. We’ll take care of Diya until your return. I’ll make sure to speak to her, keep her mind active, and so will everyone else.”
Her sincerity only made me feel more like shit. “Thank you. I’ll only be gone for two days.”
I couldn’t afford to be out of the country longer without making it look like I was running away.
Right now, if Ackerson even noticed I was gone, I could play it off much as I’d done with Hazel, say I’d gone in preparation for laying Diya’s lost family members to rest—specifically to fetch a sentimental item from the family estate in Fiji.
Because that estate was still there, still in Prasad hands.
Diya had shared that the property’s value had skyrocketed after their sleepy seaside village began to attract the attention of scouts from the companies that set up resorts.
“But my parents won’t sell,” she’d said with a faint smile that held an edge of sorrow I’d mistaken for wistfulness. “Too many memories there.”
I hadn’t known about Ani then. Now that I did, I understood all the layers of Diya’s statement. She’d have told me about her baby sister, I realized. She’d already been dropping hints, building up to sharing this awful, dark part of her family’s history.
“I’ll find out about Ani,” I promised Diya before I left. “You just hold on for me, D.”
The first thing I did after I was out of the hospital, however, was call my father from the privacy of my car. Perhaps I was paranoid, but I didn’t trust that the cops hadn’t bugged my motel room.
After hearing what had taken place, Anand Advani said, “For fuck’s sake, son, can’t you ever keep your nose out of trouble?”
My hand tightened on the phone. “You really think I could do this? Murder an entire family?”