I stepped into the shower, turned the water to cold.
“Fuck.” The shock snapped me out of the last hazy pieces of the nightmare, shoving my brain from the obsessive line of thought that could land me in a prison cell. “I didn’t kill Jocelyn,” I said aloud. “I did not kill Jocelyn. I loved Jocelyn.”
But not as much as I loved Diya.
I’d never loved anyone as much as I loved Diya.
Not even Susanne.
Chapter 14
Private notes: Detective Callum Baxter (LAPD)
Date: Dec 12
Time: I-should-be-home o’clock
Perez uncovered an interesting fact about Tavish Advani—that fancy condo isn’t a rental. It’s his. Transferred to his name when he was roughly twenty-two.
Probably courtesy of the bank of Mom and Dad, but Perez is going to chase it down.
Meanwhile, I still can’t get a bead on the guy—women definitely like him, but he doesn’t strike me as the playboy type. He’s more focused, more the kind who could make one woman believe she was his everything, and that’s not exactly unusual. Henry over in Traffic marries women like it’s his job, gets bored, and moves on.
Only difference with Advani is the money involved. Is he targeting rich older women or does he just end up with rich older women because he grew up in that environment?
I need to talk to someone he actually dated. It’s not looking good—so far, he’s two for two when it comes to dead ex-girlfriends.
Chapter 15
The next day, I learned that the Rotorua Hospital ICU had a generous visiting policy.
“As long as you’re not disruptive,” the charge nurse told me, “we’re not going to kick you out. If you want to visit after the main doors are closed, ask the security guys downstairs. I’ll make sure they know you’re to be let up.” Her eyes were sympathetic.
“Can you tell me anything about my sister-in-law? Her family won’t be here till later in the day, so I’m all the family she has for now.”
I was expecting her to stonewall me, but she said, “Her father instructed that you’re to be kept updated on Shumi Prasad’s status. Honestly, she’s much the same as your wife. Since the ICU is full, she’s next door, in the Coronary Care Unit, which also functions as the ICU overflow area.
“You can go look in on her when you’re ready—it’s just through here.” She pointed to an internal hallway. “No locked door between the two units, but check in with the nursing staff when you enter so they know who you are.”
“Thank you. I’ll go visit after I spend some time with my wife.”
When I walked over to Diya, I saw that someone on the staff had placed an armchair beside her bed in an act of silent compassion. Ialso consciously noticed the monitors on either side of the bed and what appeared to be some kind of a mechanical arm on the ceiling.
A hoist, I guessed, to help with patients who needed to be moved. I didn’t have enough interest to ask for confirmation, Diya my sole focus.
After pulling the curtain so we’d have at least a little privacy—but making sure I didn’t block the line of sight of the monitoring nurse—I sat down in the armchair and held Diya’s hand, the intricate filigree of mehndi on it seeming even darker today.
“They say the darker a bride’s mehndi,” she’d told me, “the happier and more loved she’ll be in her marriage.”
But my bride lay broken in a space filled with the sound of mechanical breaths, the brunette nurse who watched her—whose name I’d learned was Hazel—rising every hour to record her vital signs. “Any change?” I asked each time.
The answer was the same. “No.”
Diya’s life hung in precarious balance, a fact her surgeon confirmed when she came by later that day. “How much information do you want?” she asked with a bluntness I guessed might be typical for surgeons.
“Don’t worry about detail,” I said, because the last thing I wanted to know was how many times she’d been stabbed. “I’m only interested in her overall status. We can discuss the specifics with her after she wakes.”
Nodding, the surgeon said, “Overall status is critical. The head wound worries me—we’ll be monitoring that constantly. I repaired her abdominal injuries but they were significant, so she’s not out of the woods yet. Liver and kidney injuries on their own wouldn’t put her in the ICU, but infection is always a risk.”
