Then, while she made the coffee—instant, it looked like fromwhat I could see of her movements—I took careful note of the photos and trophies but found nothing in them to answer my question.
“Let me,” I said when she walked in with a tray.
Smiling, she accepted the offer. “Your mother raised you well.”
My mother didn’t raise me at all, but I knew how to play this game and gave her a gentle smile. “Those scones look great to this starving man.” She’d split them in half and put whipped cream and jam in separate little pots—she’d also provided what looked to be vintage cake plates for each of us.
At some point, I realized, Andrea had been a wholly different woman.
“Dig in,” she said after I’d placed the tray on the coffee table, her faded eyes bright all at once. “I hardly get visitors these days after Roger buggered off with his mistress.” She sat down in an armchair, while waving me to the couch opposite. “People think I’m a crazy lady. The neighbor kids run past my house like it’s some witch’s cabin.”
Startled by her awareness of how she was viewed, I looked her full in the face. “I don’t think you’re crazy. I think you saw what no one else did—and because no one listened to you, two more innocent people are dead and another two badly wounded.”
She slammed her fist against the arm of her seat. “Iknewit. He was behind the fire, wasn’t he?”
“I’m trying to prove that.” Though I hadn’t eaten anything since a quick protein bar this morning, I didn’t reach for the scones, instead holding her gaze as I said, “I want to tell you who I am, want to be honest from the start. I’m Diya’s husband.”
Her pupils expanded, but I spoke before she could. “The police are trying to blame me for the fire even though I wasn’t anywhere near the house at the time. They don’t want to blame rich andsuccessful Bobby Prasad, and I’m new to the family, from outside the country. But I know he beat his wife, and when I learned about Rhiannon, I had to talk to you—you’re the only person who might understand.”
Andrea’s breathing was jagged now. “Of course it was him.” A whisper, as if in revelation. “His parents must’ve seen what he was at last, and he lost it on them.”
The funny thing was that she might even be right—the inciting incidentcouldhave been the fact that Rajesh and Sarita had somehow gotten wind of Bobby’s financial troubles. Not a planned crime, but one born in the moment. That would explain the chaos of it, and how Diya and Shumi had managed to make it out alive.
“I need to know if you’d be willing to speak to the detective in charge,” I said to Andrea after a sip of the weak but hot coffee. “She doesn’t believe me, but you’ve been saying Bobby was dangerous since day one.”
“Yes, yes. I want to show you something.” When she bustled off as fast as she could on her hobbled leg, I ate a still-warm scone I’d made up to my liking.
It actually tasted good instead of turning to dust in my mouth—because unhinged or not, Andrea would make a great witness against Bobby. People would understand that it was a mother’s grief that had driven her to this sad facsimile of a life. Her husband’s desertion would only intensify the sympathy.
I was eating a second scone by the time she returned with a white cardboard box. Rectangular, it was bigger than a shoebox but still clearly only big enough for documents alongside small physical items.
Sitting down across from me, she put the box on the clear part of the coffee table. “I’ve been keeping records. Just in case the day came when people finally began to pay attention. And now here you are.”
I put the half-eaten scone aside as Andrea began to take outnewspaper clippings. Some were so yellow and faded that I was scared they’d fall apart, others new enough to leave newsprint on my fingertips. All had to do either with Rhiannon’s death, with Bobby, or—most recently—with the Lake Tarawera fire. She’d even saved the newspaper notice of Bobby and Shumi’s wedding, and the publicly available financial reports from his company.
It was the kind of box kept by a stalker.
Nothing in it could help me, but I listened intently as she went through it piece by piece, just in case. It was dark outside and my head was pounding when she said, “Do you see? It had to be him. It’s all right here.”
“Yes,” I said, before glancing at my watch. “I’m so sorry, but I have to make the drive back to Rotorua—I don’t like to leave Diya alone too long.”
“Oh yes, that lovely girl. I have her letters, too, but not in this box. Hold on.”
Interested now, I did wait, and she soon returned with a group of letters stored neatly inside a clear plastic file folder. “Little Diya and my Rhi were pen pals.” She smiled. “I loved that they were doing something so old-fashioned, used to get Rhi pretty stationery for it.” A pause. “I was so proud of my girl for being so kind to a younger child who idolized her.”
Taking out a letter, I smiled at the rounded childish writing on the first envelope, and at the stickers placed on every part of it aside from the spots for the address and stamp. The letter inside was a single sheet full of girlish excitement about a movie that Diya was going to see with her brother and Shumi, and about how she missed Rhiannonsooooomuch, and wished they could hang out together all the time.
We’d be best friends every day instead of just in the summer!
My heart ached.
Andrea took my hand, squeezed, and it wasn’t until then that I realized I was crying. “She’ll be okay,” she said, her voice trembling with years-old grief. “If there’s any justice in this world, that sweet child will be okay.”
—
I was exhausted when I arrived back in Rotorua, but I stopped by the ICU regardless. Security knew me by name at this point, even asked about Diya. When I made it to her, I wanted to believe that she looked better, had more color in her skin, but knew I was likely just seeing what I wanted to see.
Afterward, I went to check in on Shumi—the Kumars had let the staff know I had their continued permission to visit, and to be updated on my sister-in-law’s medical status.
