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Maybe that was because she didn’t love me. She hadn’t wanted me to say it out aloud. And maybe that was for a reason. Tasha hadn’t given me any reason to believe that our relationship was anything but a momentary lapse of judgment. She had always seemed to give in against her better judgment, and like a fool, I had taken it to be a sign of passion.
Humiliation and heartache drove me out of Paradiso like a bat straight out of hell. I jumped into my car and drove away as fast as I could. But try as I might, I couldn’t outrun my pain.
I drove around in circles for a bit because there was nowhere to go. All roads led to Tasha. Even if she didn’t want me.
I wanted to give her some space, some distance, but I realised that we didn’t have the luxury of having any time apart. She might not want to be near me right now because she thought I was trying to kill her, but that didn’t matter because there was a killer on the prowl.
And then, doubts began to creep into my mind. What if the vase hadn’t fallen accidentally? What if someonehadaimed it at Tasha’s head? That could only mean one thing. The killer was inside the commune. And I had just driven away from there.
I had been so obsessed with my feelings that I had left Tasha alone.
But there was no way she’d let me anywhere near her. It killed me to stay away from her, but I had to let someone else protect her now.
I pulled over to the side of the road and called Samar.
“Hey, can you and Jaideep go over to Tasha’s cottage at once? I don’t think it’s safe to leave her alone, in case the press conference has had the desired result. The killer might retaliate in some way.”
I told him about the incident with the vase and asked him to keep someone with her at all times.
“Sure, but aren’t you with her?” he asked.
I closed my eyes and banged my head against the steering wheel.
“No,” I said hoarsely. “She doesn’t trust me anymore. She thinks I’m behind all this. I’ll stay in my cottage, but I’ll keep out of her way.”
There was a moment’s silence on the line.
“That’s ridiculous! I’ll talk some sense into her,” said Samar angrily.
“No, Samar. Let her be. She’s frightened and desperate, and she’s been through far too much. We might find it irrational, but look at it from her point of view. If her own mother can hurt her so much, is it any wonder that she doesn’t expect any better from others?”
Samar sighed into the phone.
“The two of you just break my heart, man. Fine. I’ll go over to Paradiso right away, but after all of this is over, Sona and I are going to sit her down and tell her she needs to stop running away from life.”
“Over my dead body,” I snarled. “Don’t you dare interfere in our relationship, Samar!”
Tasha was going to do exactly what she liked for the rest of her life, and I dared anyone to get in the way of that. Even if it meant that I never got to see her again. If that’s what my baby wanted, that’s what my baby was going to get.
I ended the call with a quick word of thanks and pulled up Inspector Sawant’s number.
“Sorry to bother you, Inspector. I was wondering if you had any updates about Vishal Agarwal’s call records. I want to know whom he was speaking to that night.”
There was a rustle of papers on the line as the Inspector went through his files.
“No, that’s a dead end. The last call he made was at around eight pm. After that, he neither made nor received any calls. That means the killer was with him in the house when the little girl heard him screaming. And maybe they fought about the matter, and he killed Vishal in a fit of anger.”
“That doesn’t explain the drugs in his system. No, this was premeditated, Inspector. Vishal Agarwal was killed in cold blood, by someone who planned it to the last detail,” I replied.
On a hunch, I asked him about text messages.
“Let me check.”
There was another rustle, as he shuffled through printouts of everything that was on Vishal’s phone.
“Ah, yes. Here it is. Sorry, Mr Singh. His inbox was empty.”
“An empty inbox is not normal. It means someone deleted his messages on purpose. Didn’t your team try to recover them?” I asked impatiently.
