Chapter 73
Cups clinking in the kitchen.
Diya looked up, whispered, “Drink a bit of Shumi’s chai, okay?”
I indicated the potted plant by the television. “It’s okay—I already scoped out my next victim.”
Her lips twitched, and I was glad to see a flicker of her luminous light. “You have no taste,” she muttered, then wiped at her cheeks with her fingers to get rid of the evidence of our emotional conversation.
Trying to be strong for the sister-in-law who had lost everything overnight. All of Shumi’s love, all her hopes, everything she was, had been tied to Bobby and his family. Without them…
“Here we go!” Shumi walked out with three cups and a plate of cookies on a wooden tray. “I got the chocolate raisin cookies you like, Dee. You should eat something.”
Taking the tray from her, I put it on the coffee table. “This looks really nice, thanks, Shumi.”
She smiled that too-bright smile, picked up a cup, and gave it to me to hand to Diya. The next one, she put in my hands. “Extra sugar, just as you like,” she said.
“You’re the best.” Bringing it to my lips, I took a deep breath. The rich scent of cardamom flooded my nose—I liked the spice, just not in tea. “Too hot to drink right away, but it smells fantastic.”
“My special recipe.” She took her own cup and curled up in the armchair kitty-corner from us. “I had to make do with grocery store items rather than the blend that I make at home with fresh spices, but I did a taste test in the kitchen, and it’s good.”
Putting my chai on the side table, while Diya cradled hers in her hands, I picked up one of the cookies. “Diya?”
But she shook her head. “Not yet. The chai is what I need.” She took deep inhales of the aroma. “It’s the smell of home.”
Shumi accepted a cookie when I lifted the plate in her direction.
Then the three of us just sat there staring out at the lake while I ate two cookies to stave off the inevitable need to force down the chai, and Diya sipped at hers.
Shumi took a bigger sip of hers just then. “It’s not too hot now,” she said to me, and since she was staring straight at me, I smiled and picked up my cup, then, girding my loins, took a sip.
Cinnamon and cardamom and other crushed spices laid a film on my tongue that I couldn’t wait to wash out with water. “Wow,” I said. “Can’t believe you managed this with the ingredients you had.”
“I had to grind it all up with a makeshift—” Her head spun to Diya, who’d put her chai aside and was getting shakily to her feet. “Dee?”
“I feel a little sick.” She shot me a look when I started to rise.
Oh.
I let Shumi jump to her aid. “Do you want to go to the bathroom?” the other woman said.
Diya nodded.
I’d had a whole excuse lined up about how Diya hated having me see her be sick, should Shumi turn to me, but the other woman walked Diya out without giving me a second look.
I was up and off the sofa a second after they vanished around the corner, and by the time they returned, the poor potted plant had had a healthy drink of lukewarm chai—but I’d left a little bit at the bottom of the cup, the part thick with masala.
I wasn’t stupid. I knew how to cover my chai-hating tracks.
The sound of voices in the hallway. “Baby.” I rose when Diya and Shumi walked back in. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. Just stress, I guess.” She came into my arms for a cuddle before taking a seat again and picking up her chai to finish it. “Did you already guzzle yours?”
“Hey, it’s good.” Retaking my seat, I met Shumi’s eyes. “Thanks, Shumi.”
She smiled, but it was wrong, all tight and fragile. Shit. The breakdown was coming. I squeezed Diya’s hand between our bodies, and she squeezed back.
“Shall we watch some TV?” she suggested. “How about that matchmaking show, Shumi? You love Auntie Seema.”
“Ugh, she’s such a harridan.” Shumi finished off her own chai. “And yet strangely watchable.”
The two women shared a smile before Diya picked up the remote. Taking it from her, I said, “Man privileges,” but what I really wanted was to ensure Diya didn’t accidentally trigger a news channel.
Ackerson had tipped me off that at least two major journalists were determined to dig deeper into the story of the Lake Tarawera Incident, as it had become known—figure out all the layers of it.
“One’s even starting to wonder if Bobby could’ve been a serial killer—I feel for Andrea Smithy-Carr, but she’s making my job very fucking hard. ”
Yet, despite the statement, there’d been an edge to her voice. And I knew Detective Ackerson was already looking into that possibility herself. Especially since she knew about Ani.
Those two specific senior journalists had been keeping the story alive on television, too—no knowing if tonight was one of the nights they’d feature the murders again from some new angle.
It was mostly talking heads, but the last thing Diya and Shumi needed was for photographs of their family to be flashed on-screen.
It was even worse because the media had been using photos from the engagement party since the day of the murders.
Those had been the newest photos and the easiest to acquire due to the number of guests who’d shared images online.
The cynical part of me knew that the photos from the party also had the most mass appeal because of the contrast with the horrific events of the morning after.
One particular photo that included the entire family laughing and holding each other, everyone dressed to the nines, had become the lead photograph on all the stories.
I wasn’t in it because I’d taken it. I’d then immediately sent it to the entire family—and Sarita had apparently uploaded it to her public social media page early the morning of the fire, next to a photo of a toddler Diya wearing a floofy blue dress.
Can’t believe my baby girl is engaged!
“Bobby liked to be the king of the remote, too,” Shumi said just then, her voice strangely flat.
I shot Diya a look but she gave me a small shake of the head.
So I navigated directly to the streaming channel that hosted the show.
The two women focused too intently on it, their comments light, as if they had not a single care in the world. Shumi close to breakdown and Diya on edge waiting for it.
Diya began to get quieter ten minutes in and I wasn’t surprised when she yawned and snuggled into me. Putting my arm around her, I glanced over at Shumi, who was also looking heavy eyed.
Good, maybe the other woman would sleep through the worst of the crash and we could all be fresh in the morning when we had to face the confronting truth.
I wasn’t feeling exactly wide-awake myself, but I didn’t want to leave Shumi alone, and she was still fighting sleep. So I kept on watching Auntie Seema try to match these men and women who…
…humming.
Someone was humming.
Mouth dry, I tried to lift my lids, but they felt sticky and heavy. It was the hint of smoke in the air that kicked my adrenaline into overdrive, giving me enough strength to push those damn lids up.
Disoriented, I stared at the blank television screen.
One of the women must’ve turned it off, I thought dully, before realizing I couldn’t see either of them. And the room was pitch-dark except for the red power light on the television, and what little light fell through the windows from what felt like a strangely large moon.
Humming.
It stopped. Words came through, fuzzy and barely understandable, with patches cutting in and out, as if my brain was a radio that couldn’t hold on to a signal.
“…lied for you…let Bobby…always.” A grunt. “Don’t you know?”
The humming started up again.
I recognized it now. Shumi. That was the song Shumi had been humming while she made the chai. Was she in the kitchen making more things? Diya had said she cooked compulsively when grieving.
But when I looked toward the kitchen, it was to see that it, too, was dark.
“Diya?” It came out weak and near-silent.
Shoving up off the sofa, I tried to get to my feet. My knees collapsed under me, pain shooting through my kneecaps.
Smoke.
Curling on the carpet, licking its way into my air passages.
I coughed and began to crawl frantically toward that humming sound. With each little foot of space, I gained more of my strength. “Diya!” Louder this time, before smoke-induced coughing took over.
When I stopped coughing, I realized the humming was gone, the world silent.
My heart punched in my rib cage. “Shumi? Diya?”
The smoke was thicker now, a fog through which I could no longer see. I knew I should turn, smash out that big window with the view, and get outside—but not without my wife.
More strength in my body now, I crawled faster.
I saw her foot first. With that yellow nail polish on her toes that she’d put on with patient care last week. It had taken her a while, since she couldn’t sit bent over for long periods, the position causing pain to internal organs that weren’t yet back to normal.
But when I grabbed on to her foot, there was no response. “Diya!” Telling myself it was fine, that she was still warm, I quickly made my way to the top of her body, where I could check her breathing.
“Thank God.” She was alive, her respiration even. “Come on, baby, we have to get out.” Even as I struggled to sit up so I could drag her out, I yelled out for Shumi.
Nothing. And the smoke was growing thicker.
I fumbled for my phone, input 911, only to realize I’d fucked up. I was in New Zealand. My chest spasmed with the urge to cough as I canceled the call and input the correct local number for emergency services: 111.
Dropping the phone to the carpet on speaker, I got my hands under Diya. “Fire!” I yelled at the operator when she answered, blurting out the address straight after.
I didn’t hear what she said in response. I had a firm grip on Diya now, was able to move her. “Shumi!”
“Why are you awake?” A very confused-sounding question.