Chapter 55
It took Diya four hours to fully wake, and even then, she was groggy and lost.
Ackerson had got wind of her stirring consciousness and was hovering near the monitoring station, but the head nurse stood her ground and said the patient needed to see a familiar face first.
Now the nurse and Dr. Chen kept Ackerson at bay as Diya focused on me at last. “Hi, baby,” I said, fighting to keep my voice from shaking. “You’re in the hospital. You’re fine.”
When she tried to speak, nothing came out.
“I have water.” Picking up a water bottle into which the nurse had placed an extra-long bendable straw, I put the straw to her lips.
Diya managed to take a sip or two before whimpering, “Tavi, it hurts.”
My heart broke. “I know, baby, I know.” Dr. Chen had warned me that she might wake in pain since he had adjusted her pain medication to assist her rise to consciousness. “If you press this button”—I touched the pressure switch taped to her finger—“you’ll get a hit.”
I’d been told it was controlled, so there was no risk of an overdose.
Her finger moved.
It took several minutes, but the fuzziness finally faded from her eyes, the lines from around her mouth. “Why?” she rasped. “Hospital?”
My throat dried up. “Baby, what do you remember?”
I could all but feel Ackerson straining at the seams, wanting to take over, but I’d also heard what the doctor had said: If she made any attempt to question the patient, Chen would ban her from the entire ICU.
“I…” Diya’s eyes welled up, her breathing shallow gasps. “Fire. Fire everywhere. I can’t…”
“Her vitals are starting to deteriorate,” the doctor warned in a quiet tone.
“Shh,” I murmured to my wife. “You’re fine. The fire didn’t burn you.” I stroked her hair, careful to avoid the side where she’d suffered a head injury. “It’s all okay.”
A shaky smile. “Really?”
The vulnerability in her voice twisted me up. “Just rest now. We’ll talk about everything else later.”
She hesitated. “Tavi? Was I alone in the fire?”
I chose the answer that would cause her the least pain. “Shumi was with you—but she’s in another room in the hospital, just down from you. She’s not burned, either.”
Diya’s brow furrowed. “I can’t remember…
” Her fingers clenched on mine, her other hand starting to rise to her head only for her to put it back down when the line on the back of it tugged against her skin.
“Why can’t I remember?” The pulse in her neck jumped, her breathing ragged.
“Dark, it’s so dark. Smoke. Fire. I can’t breathe. Tavi. I can’t—”
The doctor gave me a sharp look.
“Shh.” I leaned down to kiss her nose in that way that always made her smile. “Everything’s fine. You’ll remember after all the medicine’s out of your system. Sleep now. The more you rest, the better you’ll feel.”
Turning toward me, she said, “I’ll remember?”
“You’ll remember,” I promised, but later, after she was asleep, I stood with the doctor in the hallway outside the ICU, Ackerson beside me, and learned the truth.
“It’s possible she’ll never recall what happened that day,” Chen said, his large hands in the pockets of his white coat. “Could be because of psychological trauma, or it could be physical—she did sustain an injury to the side of her head.”
“Are you saying her memory’s gone?” Ackerson demanded.
“Nothing is guaranteed. She has just regained consciousness.” He looked at me. “Do you have any further questions, Mr. Advani?”
“I guess…just…what do I do? About telling her about her family?”
“Play it by ear. Right now, she’s in an extremely vulnerable state, but if she becomes distraught when she realizes they’re not visiting her, then tell her—we’re keeping her in the ICU for the time being, so you’ll have staff nearby to help deal with the aftermath.”
Once he’d left, I slumped into one of the armchairs in the otherwise empty waiting area.
Ackerson came down next to me.
I was expecting her to grill me, but she said, “Why did you go speak to Andrea Smithy-Carr?” in a quiet voice.
So, she had put a tail on me—or she’d bugged my car. I didn’t really care. “Because I think Bobby was behind the fire, behind everything.”
Then, despite Ngata’s command that I not have any conversations with the detective without him, I told her all of it.
From the death of baby Ani, to Shumi’s teenage fall and adult bruises, to Rhiannon’s mysterious death, to the allegations of bullying.
Whether she believed me or not, I’d done everything I could—and now that Diya was awake and alive, she had to be my focus.
“They blamed a five-year-old for another child’s violent death?” A stunned shock that felt real.
“Easier to sweep it under the rug than if it was a boy of eleven.” I looked at her. “Especially in that time and place.”
Lips tight, she stared at the wall across from us. “We’ve conclusively identified Sarita and Rajesh Prasad’s remains.”
I’d known inside that Diya’s parents were dead, but it still felt like a punch to the gut. “Bobby?”
Instead of answering, she said, “His business was on the brink of bankruptcy. We just gained access to his business accounts today.”
I thought of the sea of red on those invoices, remembered again how proudly Rajesh had spoken about Bobby’s business at the party. “The family didn’t know that.”
“Detective Baxter is convinced you killed Jocelyn Wai in a rage.”
“I wasn’t there,” I said tiredly, concentrating on being here, in this moment, rather than in the dark hours before Joss’s fall. “He has all the security camera footage that shows I couldn’t have done it, but he zeroed in on me after Virna’s death and can’t bear to be wrong.”
“What about Virna, then? Lot of money involved there.”
Leaning back against the wall, I let the past tumble through my head.
“I was still gambling then; pissed it all away.” Ackerson had likely dug up the gambling by now, or Baxter would’ve clued her in, so better not to hide it.
“But I always needed more. So if it had been about money, I’d have been better off with her alive. ”
I leaned forward with my forearms braced on my thighs. “I wasn’t in her will—and she’d gifted me that quarter of a million, so it wasn’t as if I was in debt to her. Her death held no benefit for me.”
“It wasn’t? About money?” Softer voice, softer words.
I considered my earlier belief that Ackerson’s anger was rooted in sympathy for the women she thought I’d conned. “You know who my mother is, right? Beautiful, striking Audrey Advani. Stunning at sixty-two and still an icon.”
“She knew Virna Musgrave?”
“Not as far as I know.” I smiled at nothing. “I was answering your question, Detective. About why I was attracted to Virna, to Joss, to other older women.” Chasing love that would never be mine. “My therapist said it was an attempt to make up for the lack of maternal love in my life.”
So pat, so easy. But sometimes, it was that banal.
“Audrey is a good mom to my brother, but she has a small heart—she only had enough love in it for a single child.”
Just like Mrs. Kumar.
Which was why I understood Shumi’s choice to stay with a man who hurt her. I’d stayed with Joss, hadn’t I? Because when she wasn’t being cruel, she could be a loving, attentive woman of sharp intelligence and wit.
“I never thought I’d fill that void inside me until I met Diya,” I continued. “It ended that night.” Under sparkling colored lights reflected in the enigmatic darkness of her eyes. “I don’t need the validation from women like Jocelyn and Virna anymore.”
“It’s a good story.”
I shrugged. “Not really. It’s a dumb one.
You’ll probably find one like it in every fancy neighborhood in LA.
Lot of poor little rich kids left to the nannies.
” Mine had been named Inez, at least for the first three years of my life.
I barely remembered her, because I’d apparently called her “Mom” once in Audrey’s hearing, and that was it.
No more nannies, just a string of babysitters that changed at Audrey’s whim.
She wouldn’t love me, but she wouldn’t permit me to love another maternal figure, either.
“I’m only interesting because I had the bad luck to be involved with Joss and Virna.
” My laugh held no humor. “You know what the most ridiculous thing is? Baxter thinks I tampered with Virna’s car—but I don’t even know how to change a fucking tire, much less where the brake lines are or whatever it was that was done to Virna’s car. ”
I liked to drive fast cars and learn about their specs—that was the extent of my mechanical knowledge.
“I know you think I have it in for you,” Ackerson said, “but I’m a good cop. I looked into Bobby, and into any disgruntled employees of his, along with any patients who might have held a grudge against the doctors.”
I sat back up so I could look at her. “And?”
“There’s no sign—not a single one—of it being an outsider. The Prasads had external security cameras, and that footage was stored remotely. We got access to it this morning.”
I hadn’t known that—the cameras must’ve been all but invisible. Diya had probably taken them so much for granted that she hadn’t even thought to mention it. “Then you know I wasn’t there when it happened.” It would be the second time in my life that security cameras had saved me from a cell.
“You could’ve still started a slow blaze and left.” She held up a hand before I could explode. “But that’s looking less and less likely.”
Taking out her phone when it buzzed, she glanced at it before putting it away.
“I’m not out to ruin an innocent man’s reputation, Tavish, but look at it from my point of view—you’ve now been involved with at least two women who died under suspicious circumstances, and your current wife is in the ICU. ”
I turned the full force of my attention on her, smiled in the way that made her the center of my world…
and saw her pupils dilate. “See?” I whispered.
“I don’t need to kill women for money. If one kicks me loose, there are a million more out there I can seduce with little effort.
I’m really good at it—guess Mom gave me something after all. ”
You’re the best chameleon I’ve ever met…Do you even know who you are when you aren’t becoming your latest target’s fantasy?