Was it why her parents were dead? Because official confirmation or not, I knew the senior Prasads had to be dead. What other reason could there be for two respected doctors to vanish off the face of the planet on the same day their home burned to the ground?
Head chaotic with questions to which I had no answers, I ate the fruit and roti, then buried the eggs in the backyard, so as not to insult my hosts. I made a note to drop the mango under the tree, too, just another fallen fruit.
“What’ll we find if we dig up your metaphorical backyard?” Callum Baxter’s hard green eyes drilling into me in that tiny interrogation room where he’d held me for far too many hours. “How many women have you scammed?”
Dropping broken foliage over the small area I’d dug up to make it blend in with everything else, I went inside to wash my hands…and only realized I was gritting my teeth when I looked in the mirror. “Fuck you, Baxter, you piece of shit.”
He hadn’t won then, and he wouldn’t win now, not even in my head.
Chapter 30
Private notes: Detective Callum Baxter (LAPD)
Date: Jan 1
Time: 01:07
I can’t believe we’re into the new year and Tavish Advani is walking around free. Fuck, he’s probably at some New Year’s party now. Meanwhile, I’m still trying to track down how and when Susanne Winthorpe died.
Their names haunt me.
Virna Musgrave.
Jocelyn Wai.
Susanne Winthorpe.
All dead.
All with only one man in common.
I’m going to get that bastard if it’s the last thing I do—that’s my goddamn New Year’s resolution.
Chapter 31
A grizzled man of maybe seventy sat in a rocking chair on the front porch of the blue house a five-minute drive from the Prasad home, a cigarette hanging from his mouth, and his head a shining baldness but for two silvery stripes down the sides.
“Kamal?” I asked after exiting the car when he just watched me with dark eyes that didn’t blink enough for my liking.
Cop, definitely a cop.
“I’m Tavish,” I said when he didn’t respond. “Diya’s fiancé.” As far as I knew, the Prasads hadn’t told anyone that we were already married, and I’d honor their wish with the people here until Diya woke and we could talk about what to do going forward.
Stopping in his rocking, he took the cigarette out of his mouth. “You bring them home.” He coughed after that raspy order given in heavily accented English. “Sarita and Rajesh and Bobby. Ashes should be scattered on their home water.”
Kamal clearly had none of Ravi’s hope when it came to the three missing family members. “Diya will make that decision,” I said. “When she wakes up.”
His expression twisted. “Bad?”
“Bad.”
Exhaling, he got up. And though his back was a little bowed, he walked easily enough as he turned to go into the house. “Yash’s wife made lemonade.”
Taking that as an invitation, I walked up to take the other chair on the porch. The view from that vantage point was of the gravel road and what looked like farm fields beyond it. I couldn’t tell the crops from this distance but could see what looked like a tractor working the land on the fallow far edge.
“Beans,” Kamal said after walking out with a single glass of what looked like cold lemonade and putting it into my hand.
He was still smoking his cigarette, the scent of nicotine drifting my way on the warm but not unbearable morning air.
