Chapter 45
My wife lay unmoving, but the tube down her throat was gone, the ventilator silent.
“She doesn’t need it anymore,” said the senior nurse who was there when I arrived, her face holding a smile. “That’s excellent improvement, given her injuries. Your wife’s a real fighter.” She made a note on the chart.
“Do you think the doctors will bring her out of the coma soon?”
“They’ve already started the process—her team is very concerned about the brain injury and wants to assess her while she’s conscious.”
“That’s from the stab wound to her head?” I said, unable to comprehend how Bobby could’ve done that to the sister he’d kissed so lovingly on the forehead before our engagement party.
Can’t believe you got married by Elvis, kiddo. What a story for your grandkids.
The nurse glanced up from the chart as Bobby’s affectionate comment floated to the surface of my memories. “No”—she frowned—“from the blow she took to the skull.”
The words reverberated around my own skull.
“Could you tell me more?” I asked, thinking back to that first conversation with the surgeon, when I hadn’t asked for details.
Later, when I had wanted to know, the Kumars had arrived before Dr. Chen finished going over everything.
“Truth is, I wasn’t…all there, immediately afterward. I didn’t absorb what I should have.”
Expression gentling, she pointed to the bandage on the left side of Diya’s skull. “She was either hit with something there, or fell against a very hard surface. She hasn’t shown any signs of a buildup of pressure, so her prognosis is excellent, but traumatic brain injuries can be unpredictable.”
There was another rock nearby. Blood and hair on it.
Sound telescoped into an echoing void as I remembered what Kamal had said about the murder weapon that had taken Ani’s life. A rock, smashed into her tiny head. It couldn’t be a fucking coincidence that Diya had been attacked the same way.
Had that been the start, the knife only coming into play when Bobby realized two adult women were a lot harder to smash to death with a rock than a little girl?
But for even that to work…the elder Prasads must’ve already been dead.
Else the four of them could’ve brought Bobby down—and at least one would’ve been able to call emergency services.
He must’ve separated the group somehow, attacked them one by one.
“…poor thing, though,” the nurse was saying when I tuned back in. “To wake to what’s happened. At least she has you and her sister-in-law.”
“It’s going to be tough,” I managed to say past the roar in my head, “but we’ll get through it together.”
I took Diya’s hand after the nurse left. “I love you. You’re my one and only, Diya. Always and forever. If you can hear me, then know that when I married you, I had no idea who you were or any inclination of your family’s wealth.”
She was the most impulsive decision I’d ever made.
“I would’ve been happy living in a shack with you.” Then I leaned in close and whispered, “But we’ll never have to. I have money stashed offshore.” My heart pounded at admitting even that much aloud, but I wanted her to know I could take care of her, give her anything she needed.
Kissing her on the cheek, I said, “We’ll talk more when you wake, baby. I love you.”
Ajay was walking down the hallway from the CCU when I went to leave. He shook his head at me. “Ackerson has ice in her veins—the way she spoke to me…” He set his jaw. “Asking me if I knew who you were, or that you knew how to wield charm like a weapon. As if I was some teenager with a crush.”
Fuck. That really wasn’t what I wanted to hear. “Thanks for trying.”
“She really has it in for you.” Open expression, clear worry. “She kept asking about you even when I was trying to tell her about Bobby abusing Shumi.”
“Some cops are like that,” I said as he glanced at his smartwatch. “Your mom?”
A tight nod. “She gets worried if I don’t check in with her regularly, and I left early this morning—I was walking in that park opposite the hospital. Have you seen it? They have a thermal footbath for visitors. Was kind of nice this morning being there alone, with the mist curling all around me.”
I let him ramble, sensing his embarrassment at having his mother checking up on him.
“Diya and I went there after I first came to Rotorua.” It had been my first glimpse of the molten heart of the city—the park had more than one fenced-off mud pool, with warning signs everywhere telling people that the temperatures inside were deadly.
Ajay’s watch buzzed again.
“She must be terrified after what happened to Shumi,” I said in an effort to ease his discomfort.
“Yeah,” he said, not meeting my gaze.
…that mother of his wouldn’t have allowed it.
The relationship between Mrs. Kumar and Ajay might explain the distance Shumi kept from her parents; per Ajay, his sister had once been a girl of stubborn determination and drive. Could’ve been oil and water with her and their mother.
“Are you leaving?” Ajay asked after aggressively not replying to his mother’s messages. Thrusting his hands into his pockets, he squared his shoulders. “You’re doing something, aren’t you?”
“I have to, with Ackerson out to get me. I’m going to talk to Bobby’s friends, see if I can dig up anything that my lawyer can use. I mean, maybe they saw what he did to your sister?”
“He was good about appearing a nice guy on the surface.” Voice dejected, Ajay ran a hand through his hair. “But you should definitely try. You never know.”
“I don’t suppose you know the names of any of his friends?”
“No, sorry. I kept my distance from him after I figured out about Shumi.” He frowned. “Though…back when we were younger, he used to hang around with this one big blond guy. Rugby team, I think.” His watch buzzed twice in a row.
Shoulders falling, he said, “I better go.”
We parted without further words, and when I looked back, I saw him pulling out his phone to return the message.
My own mother, meanwhile, didn’t care enough about my life to even know, much less give a damn, that my in-laws had been murdered and my wife was in a coma.
Which of us was the pathetic one in the end?
Turning away, I left Ajay to his call and made my way to the car.
En route, I sent Aleki a message thanking him for the home-cooked boxed lunch that he’d dropped off for me with the ICU staff—they’d handed it to me when I came in.
The other man, I’d realized, was a genuinely good guy, someone who could become a lifelong friend if I gave it a shot.
If I didn’t sabotage it before it got too deep.
You don’t trust love, Tavish. Susanne’s voice. I can’t blame you after your childhood, but really, darling, you must allow people in or you’ll not only end up sad and lonely, but you’ll spend life in the shallows. And that would be an utter and dull waste.
“I’m trying, Suzi W,” I whispered to the ghost that haunted me. “I’m trying so fucking hard.”
With Diya, there was no question: I was in fathoms deep.
Once safely in my car, I set about scanning and memorizing the list of non-extradition countries my father had sent me.
Squeezing the steering wheel afterward, I said, “I’m not leaving you, Diya.” But I had to be prepared…just in case.
I wasn’t about to end up in a cage.