Jack held his kerchief to his nose as the stench hit him but his experience with corpses made Neel oblivious, and he began drawing down sheets to see the bodies beneath, moving quickly from one to the other until an orderly came running over. “Hey! Who are you?” he demanded. “You’re not allowed in here.”
Jack turned to him. “Does a thousand rupees change your mind?”
The attendant looked wily. “It might.”
“Good.” Jack reached for his wallet. “Then how about I give you a thousand now and another thousand when we leave just to make sure we’re given the executive treatment. And if you wouldn’t mind keeping anything you see to yourself, that would do nicely too.”
With a nod the assistant pocketed the cash and stepped aside.
In the meantime, Neel had finished checking the gurneys. “He’s not here.”
“Must be in the refrigeration chamber,” said Jack, motioning Neel to follow him through a door leading to the freezing units. One by one they tried the drawers, until they found what they were looking for.
Chapter 70
r /> WITH NO ANSWER from Heena or Maya, Nisha abandoned plans to park the Toyota and instead pointed it toward Vasant Vihar and home. Her heart was racing wildly, her hands clammy. Would such a situation have occurred if Maya’s father were alive? He was the one who had always taken care of Maya whenever Nisha would be late.
Nisha cursed herself for not being around for her poor baby. She narrowly missed a pedestrian who was crossing the street without bothering to look left or right, and slammed her hand on the horn to let him know he was a prick. She pressed her foot on the gas and broke two red signals along the way.
“I feel so lonely. You’re always working. But at least when you were late, it was Dad who would tuck me into bed. Now there’s only Heena in the house. The apartment feels so cold and empty.”
But then again, wasn’t she overreacting? Forming worst-case scenarios when she had no reason to be so fearful? Roy might be a predatory pedophile, but he wouldn’t be the first and he certainly wouldn’t be the last to visit a school. The simple fact of him presenting a prize at Maya’s school meant nothing.
And yet Nisha couldn’t lose the nagging feeling that something was wrong, something was seriously wrong. Why weren’t they answering their phones? And if she was overreacting? Well, she’d laugh about it later. Call it motherly concern. What were a few red traffic lights when you were worried for the most important person in your life?
The Toyota tires complained as she pulled into the parking area in front of her block. Dark now, most of the apartment lights were on but not hers. Both units on either side of her ground-floor apartment were lit up. Hers was dark.
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.