Heart hammering, telling herself that maybe Heena had taken Maya out for an ice cream, maybe the two of them were paying a friend a visit—still desperate to be worrying unnecessarily—Nisha crashed out of the car, leaving the driver’s door open as she fumbled with her keys and almost collided with her own front door.
It was open. On contact it creaked slowly inward and maybe it was a smell, maybe it was just gut instinct, a mother’s instinct, but she knew something was wrong, and never in her life had she wished so much for a gun in her hand.
“Hello? Heena? Maya? You in there?”
The hallway yawned emptily at her. Beyond that, their living room. From there came a noise, a rustling, slithering sound, followed by something like a gasp or a hiccup.
“Hello?” she called, moving faster now, along the hallway and into the front room, where training and instinct made her crouch to present a smaller target.
The lights in the room were off. She noticed a lamp lying on its side on the floor, signs of a struggle that made her want to cry out with anguish. From the kitchen doorway was a faint glow of light within.
And then she saw what lay on the kitchen floor. She saw the blood. She heard the gurgling sound that Heena made.
In a second she was over to her, kneeling down, fumbling for her phone, trying to do so many things at once. Check the pulse. Oh God, so weak. Evaluate the injuries. Three, maybe more, stab wounds. On the floor nearby was Nisha’s own bread knife, gleaming with Heena’s blood. Stem the blood. Call an ambulance. Check that whoever did this—Roy—was no longer in the apartment. And most of all, find Maya.
Blood bubbled at Heena’s mouth. Her eyes rolled and went in and out of focus as she struggled to stay conscious. One clawed hand reached to Nisha.
“He took her. The beast took her,” she managed.
“Roy? Roy took her?”
Heena nodded weakly. “Go get her, Nisha,” she breathed. “Go and save your little angel.”
“Stay with me, Heena,” urged Nisha. “Stay with me.” She had her phone to her ear, calmly giving instructions to the emergency services. But it was too late. Heena’s hand that held her jacket relaxed and splashed into a pool of blood on the kitchen floor. Her eyelids fluttered then closed. And when Nisha checked her pulse, there was none.
Chapter 71
NISHA SAT ON the kitchen floor, head swimming, momentarily stunned into inaction. For perhaps twenty seconds she wondered if she was up to this task—if life had finally given her a challenge she could not meet.
And then with a curse she shook the thought out of her head. She stood up. Her head was clear. Her only priority was to kill the bastard who had abducted her daughter and get her baby back. At that moment Nisha was the embodiment of Shakti—female power.
She scrolled to the browser of her phone, Google-searched “Amit Roy, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare,” and clicked the link for the ministry. Once it had loaded, she clicked on the “Contact Us” link. On that page were the e-mail IDs and phone numbers of the senior officials of the ministry.
Roy’s name was the first one on that page. It was followed by an e-mail ID, office phone number, and residential phone number. She copy-pasted the residential phone number into a reverse lookup website and waited impatiently for the result to pop up.
And she had it. New Moti Bagh. She looked at the map on her phone. Sixteen minutes to get there at this time. In the distance she could hear the sound of sirens and she knew that by rights she should remain behind for the ambulance but she couldn’t. Time was all that mattered now. She dashed to the bedroom, reached to the back of her bedside table, and found her old .38 police special. She clipped it to her belt as she scrambled outside, back into the Toyota, and a moment later she was pulling out into traffic.
“I’m coming, baby,” she said. “I’m coming.”
Chapter 72
NISHA DROVE THE car recklessly as she crossed Rao Tula Ram Marg on her way to Moti Bagh. She would have preferred to take the shorter route via Hare Krishna Mehto Marg but roadworks blocked the way. She cursed her luck and followed the longer route.
I’ll kill him if he’s touched her. So help me.
A cab in front of her refused to yield in spite of her repeated attempts. Nisha switched the headlights on full beam, jammed her hand on the horn, and overtook it, avoiding grazing it with just a couple of millimeters to spare. The man in the car shouted obscenities at her. He tried to chase her but was unable to keep up.
She wondered whether she should call Jack or Neel but decided against it. Santosh’s death was a body blow to everyone. She was on her own.
Like a tigress protecting her cub.
Chapter 73
JACK LOOKED AT the corpse.
It was Santosh.
He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Santosh’s knees were slightly lifted off the ground and his arms were bent at the elbows. He had obviously been attempting to adopt the fetal position in order to fight the bitter cold as he died.
Beside him, Neel was staring at his dead boss, a vacant expression on his face.
“Hey, bud, you okay?” said Jack, and put his hand to the other man’s upper arm.
It was as though the contact spurred Neel into action. “Help me,” he said.
“Help you what?”
“Get the body out. Please, quick—time is of the essence.”
They maneuvered the corpse onto a gurney and in the next instant were wheeling it out of the morgue.
“What are we doing, Neel?” Jack asked as they went at full speed to the elevator.
“Follow my lead,” said Neel. “I’ll explain when we get there.”
They loaded the trolley into the elevator and Neel pressed for the fifth floor—the Intensive Care Unit. When the doors opened they were greeted by a doctor about to step into the elevator.
“What’s going on?” he demanded, eyes flitting from the two men to the corpse on the gurney. “Where do you think you’re going with this body?”
“He’s not dead,” said Neel.
“He looks dead to me.”
“He’s not. His arms are slightly bent at the elbows,” urged Neel. “Just try straightening his arms.”
The doctor looked from Neel to Santosh, took hold of a hand, and tried to straighten the arm. It bounced back a few inches.
“You see?” said Neel. “Dead muscles cannot contract. He has severe hypothermia but he’s not dead.”
The doctor was nodding his agreement. “Okay, right, we need to take him to an ordinary room,” he said. “Intensive Care is kept freezing cold to prevent infections. We need to crank up the temperature of the room.
“Nurse!” he called. “Let’s put him in 1016 and get me an electric blanket. We’ll need heat packs for his abdomen and groin.” They wheeled Santosh toward the designated room. Neel and Jack followed, disregarding the rules that prevented visitors—no way in hell they were going to leave Santosh now.
“What the fuck’s going on, Neel?” whispered Jack. “Santosh has no pulse.”