“You’re losing it, Aarav.” Shoving back from the desk, I decided I needed to take a walk before I talked myself into total paranoia. Prior to that, however, I sent a message to Mia’s account asking if I could have Sarah’s email address.
Maybe I’d do a quiet knock on Isaac’s door after seeing if I could spot him through his side window. His game room lay just beyond, and it’d be easy to see if he was wearing headphones. If Mellie answered, at least I’d know she was all right—and I could ask her about old Phil.
The last person I expected to see in the late-night darkness of the Cul-de-Sac was Diana. She had Charlie on a lead. “His bladder is terrible now,” she said, whispering as if to save her pet’s feelings. “Just as well I have insomnia.”
“Doesn’t it disturb Calvin? You being gone from the bed, I mean.”
“He’s not home yet—that’s why I have insomnia. I miss him, but I knew it’d be like this when I married him. He was always aiming to be a top surgeon.”
The dog finished doing its business and padded forward. His walking speed was so slow that I was a racehorse by comparison.
“You look troubled, sweetheart.” Diana touched a gentle hand to my arm.
My delusions shattered like glass.
This woman had been nothing but kind to me all my life, and I was making up ugly theories about her estranged sister that had no basis in reality. “Just everything with my mother.”
“I miss Nina so much.” Diana’s voice was as soft as the shining tumble of her hair. “Sarah left me, then Nina.” Pain in every syllable. “It’s selfish of me, but I always wondered what was wrong with me. Why didn’t they trust me enough to stay in touch?”
I felt like an asshole. “Yeah.” So many times, I’d asked myself how my mother could just leave me.
Tucking her hand into the crook of my elbow, Diana squeezed. “Losing Nina hurt even more than losing Sarah. Sarah was always edgy, moody. She loved me, but she had so much anger inside her and it spilled out onto anyone in her vicinity—with her, I had to be a caretaker always. But with Nina, I could just be. And sometimes, she looked after me.”
Watching Charlie fondly as he snuffled at a bush planted near the Dixon property, Diana said, “You’re too young to remember, but back when I was first pregnant and Calvin and I had decided I’d stay home full-time, I used to be so lonely when he was doing night shifts.
“Nina would put you to bed, then come over and sit with me, and we’d watch movies or talk until I got tired enough to sleep. If Ishaan wasn’t home, I’d go over to her place, because she’d never have left you alone when you were little. She was the best friend I’ve ever had.”
In an effort to redeem myself for my earlier thoughts, I said, “You were never tempted to use your medical degree?” If I was remembering right, she’d married Calvin right out of med school and never actually practiced medicine.
“It’s considered old-fashioned now, but all I ever wanted to do was build a family. Family is very important to Calvin, too—you know he lost them all when he was barely fourteen?”
“I didn’t realize he was so young.” It made his current achievements all the more extraordinary.
“It’s why he’s so protective of us. Beau and Mia chafe at his rules sometimes, but I get it. I wish I could’ve protected Sarah the same way, but she already had such enormous pain inside her by the time I was able to take over her care—she had so much faith in me, and I let her down.”
“Can I ask what happened with you two? You don’t have to tell me.”
She didn’t speak for long minutes, and eventually, we reached the entry to the Cul-de-Sac, the gates closed for the night. As we turned to head back, she said, “I’d rather not, Aarav.” Another squeeze of my arm. “It’s a thing between sisters and I don’t want to break that trust.”
Loyalty like that couldn’t be bought. “I get it.”
We walked in warm silence to her home, with Charlie shuffling forward in a way that said he was ready for another nap. Then Diana gave me a kiss on the cheek and turned to walk up the drive, past the rosebushes gone dormant for the winter. Bushes Sarah had ripped apart in a fury the night she left.
I couldn’t imagine what Diana might’ve possibly done that would’ve justified such a savage depth of anger, but with their childhood, I had no way to predict the trigger. Maybe Diana had hit Sarah?
I’d just reached our private drive when I heard the gates begin to open. Glancing back, I saw a white van roll in, its headlights off. It maneuvered itself so it backed onto Leonid and Anastasia’s property.
I walked as fast as possible to get upstairs to my room, where I’d have a far better view, but half expected the van to be long gone by the time I arrived. But it was still there, its back door open.
Putting my binoculars to my eyes, I watched.
Two big men walked out of the house, a smaller woman between them. I couldn’t see many details, but the woman didn’t have long enough hair to be Anastasia. Had to be the nanny, Khristina. She jerked to a stop, looked back … but the two men bundled her into the van, one getting in with her while the other went around the front to the driver’s-side door.
I scanned left toward the house, saw Leonid holding a struggling Anastasia in his arms.
The van pulled away.
When I jerked back to the porch, Leonid and Anastasia were both gone.
I lowered the binoculars as the van exited the Cul-de-Sac, then picked up my phone. I had to call the police … but what had I truly seen? A white van. Shadows?
My head began to pound again, metal in my mouth.
No, I couldn’t sleep without doing anything. I used an online calling app to make an anonymous call to the police. My vision was blurring by the time I hung up, my skull feeling as if it was being crushed between two slabs of metal.
I barely made it to bed. My hand shook so badly as I opened the pill container that I scattered half of them on the table and the floor.
My last conscious thought was that migraine after migraine … it was bad. There was a serious problem with my brain.
57
I woke at 11 a.m., having lain down in bed to ride out the migraine, then blacked out.
When I called Dr. Binchy, he said he could fit me in within the next few hours. “I was planning to contact you in any case,” he said ominously. “Come in at three—I’ll make sure we’re set up for a scan.”
My head was clear again, and I decided to keep it that way, ignoring all the meds I’d been given and eating a giant omelet with a side of toast.
No more fucking Coke.
After I’d eaten, showered, and cleared emails from my agent and editor, it was time to leave. Since Mia had sent through her aunt’s email address, I also shot Sarah a message. I hesitated for a second before getting into my car, but I didn’t think I was in danger of passing out mid-drive. I always knew when a migraine was coming on.
Getting in, I started up the engine.
Trixi and Lexi walked up to my window just as I pulled out of our drive. “Aarav, darling!”
I wound down the window. “Doctor’s appointment. Can’t be late.”
“Oh, of course. Hope your leg’s doing better,” the elder of the two said, her top a screaming orange today, and her eyes vivid with excitement. “Did you hear the commotion last night?”
“Out like a light.”
Trixi lowered her voice. “Police were over at those new people’s house. Isaac saw the car, but he said it went away pretty fast, so it can’t have been that bad.” She sounded disappointed at this last bit.
“You mean Anastasia and Leonid?” I had the weirdest feeling I was forgetting something, but I couldn’t imagine what.
“Uh-huh.” Trixi nodded. “And what about Cora! Margaret says she was trying to get on a plane to Canada but the instant they scanned her passport, it set off an alarm in the airport computers! Police must’ve put her on a no-fly list or so
mething.”
No wonder the women were hotfooting it around. So much gossip to spread.
“I suppose it’s what women put up with to live in these nice houses,” commented Lexi. “Poor Alice getting beaten up, Diana having to deal with Calvin’s philan—”
“Yoohoo!” Trixi trilled. “Come on Lexi, there’s Veda. She must be home today. Have a good appointment, Aarav.”
I frowned over Lexi’s words as I drove away. What had she been about to say?
“Philan” was a relatively uncommon pair of syllables. Not many words began that way. In the context of bitchy gossip about what women “put up with” to live in the Cul-de-Sac, I could think of only one: “philandering.”
Except I just couldn’t see it.
When the hell would Calvin have the time? Unless he hooked up with fellow hospital and clinic staff. Trouble was, I couldn’t imagine staid and stiff Calvin doing the wild thing with anyone—I figured he barely did it with Diana.
Trixi and Lexi also weren’t exactly the most trustworthy sources of information.
An image popped into my mind in the wake of that thought. That photo Alice had taken of my mother seated on a sofa with Calvin. Her looking up at him, him looking down, both of them laughing, with Diana in the background, a faint smile on her face.
It struck me that I’d never before seen Calvin laugh like that.
What I’d taken as a moment of humor between two good friends suddenly took on a different meaning. “No fucking way in hell.” My mother would’ve never done that to Diana.
“Loyalty is a gift, Ari beta.” Her nails brushed my jaw as she smiled. “Don’t squander it. Ek sachcha dost to heere se bhi keemti hai.”
One true friend is worth more than diamonds.
Diana was the most loyal friend Nina Rai had ever had. My mother would’ve chopped off her fingers before laying them on Calvin.
But the photo continued to haunt me as I walked into the neurological clinic.
Once inside, however, I didn’t have time to think. The well-oiled system spun into action. Soon, a machine was looking into my skull.
Afterward, I was shown into Dr. Binchy’s office. “You have the results yet?” I asked after taking my seat.
“No, a specialist is going over them now.” He steepled his fingers on his desk. “I’m more worried about the results from the extra blood tests I ordered before you left the hospital. I had to be out of the clinic on personal business yesterday, so I only saw the report this morning.”
I thought of those extra pinpricks on the inside of my left elbow, the slight residual soreness that had only been noticeable for an hour or so. “Why the extra tests in the first place?”
“Because during the initial round of tests, I was looking only for the levels of prescribed medications in your blood. It wasn’t until our discussion that I realized we might be dealing with more than carelessness in sticking to your medical regime.”
“What’re you saying?”
“Aarav, I was very careful not to prescribe you any opioids. Not only can they be addictive, I’m of the camp of physicians who believe they make migraines worse and can even trigger them.”
“I’m not doing drugs, Doc.”
He pushed across a sheet of lab results. “Your blood says otherwise. The levels are significant enough that I’m not surprised you’ve been passing out from the pain of the migraines. Add in your other meds and the results are apt to be highly unpredictable—and at this point, I’m not even sure I’ve thought to test for everything you might be taking. Regardless, your body can’t deal with this kind of cocktail.”
The results made no sense to me. I’d been a drunk, but these days, a bottle of Coke paired with handfuls of candy was my drug of choice. “Could someone have made a mistake and given me the wrong meds? I’ve just been taking them without really looking at them.”
Dr. Binchy’s expression was carefully noncommittal. “No pharmacist is going to make that kind of a mistake.”
He was calling me a liar.
Rather than a hot burst of anger, I felt a strange prickling on my nape. If it wasn’t a mistake, then someone had to be giving me the drugs. “I’m being poisoned.”
Dr. Binchy’s pupils blew up. “Aarav, how long have you been suffering from paranoia?”
My skin burned. “It’s not paranoia if it’s true.” Shoving the lab results back across his desk, I said, “You can see that in the results!”
“Okay.” He rubbed his jaw. “Why don’t you wait here while I go talk to the technician?”
I began thinking about the look in his eyes the instant he left the room. He wasn’t going to talk to the technician. He was going to call someone who’d have me fucking committed. Getting up, I opened the door and walked down the plush-carpeted corridor as fast as the crutches would allow.
The receptionist smiled at me. “Already finished, Mr. Rai?”
“Yeah. Can you email me the invoice?”
“Oh, there’s no invoice. You’re still being referred through the public system.”
I wanted to get the hell out of there, but I smiled at her before making my way out. My cellphone rang five minutes after I’d begun driving, Dr. Binchy’s name flashing on the screen. I used the car’s hands-free system to answer. “Sorry, Doc. Family emergency.”
“Aarav, we really need to talk.”
“So you can tell me I’m secretly doing drugs and losing my mind?”
“Can you hear yourself? That is not a rational statement.”
“Doc, you’ve only known me since I took a knock on the head. I’m an asshole in normal life.”
“This is serious—you shouldn’t be driving given what we found in your blood. If you don’t listen, I’m going to have to alert the authorities.”
“Do that and you break patient confidentiality.” I actually didn’t know if that applied in a situation like this, but I knew it’d cause Dr. Binchy to think twice. “If it makes you feel better, I have a driver.” No way for him to confirm that for a lie now that I was gone from his parking lot.
“I know you’re feeling confrontational,” he replied, “but there are grave issues with the cocktail of drugs in your blood. You could do incredible harm to your body. I strongly feel you need some help with—”
“Try anything, and I’ll sue your ass three ways to Sunday.” New Zealand’s legal system wasn’t designed for such suits, but there were ways to leverage the threat. “I might fail to get the case to court, but I’ll make it such a circus that none of your rich clients or friends will want to be seen with you ever again.”
This time, the pause was longer. “I’m highly concerned about your mental and physical state. Go home and think about how you’re acting, what you just threatened me with, and reconsider.” His voice remained calm, the kind of calm you used with the unhinged. “If we get you into rehab now, there’s a chance to stop things before the damage escalates.”
I hung up.
Rehab?
Who the fuck did he think he was talking to? I wasn’t one of those rich suburban junkies who went around sourcing hits from some slick dealer in a thousand-dollar suit. I was Aarav Rai, number-one bestseller in twenty languages and counting. Millions of copies of my book sold. Hundreds of millions of dollars made on the movie adaptation.
I was not a drug addict.
My hands shook.
58
Fueled by need, I drove to the mouth of the same trail I’d used the last time to get to the site of my mother’s murder. It was easier to walk to the location this time—my foot was feeling much better and I had two crutches.
Silence permeated the green, no trace remaining of the caution tape. The media had come and gone, and no civilian lookie-loos could be bothered to trek this far when nothing remained of the Jaguar. As a result, the area was peaceful, a dark green haven where I didn’t have to wear a mask.
Seeing a large log that had fallen to the earth so long
ago that it was covered in moss, and a home to small ferns, I headed to it, managed to get myself down into a seated position. The forest was cold around me, the tree leaves motionless in a way that seemed a judgment. The moss, by contrast, was soft under my fingertips, the leaf litter equally soft under my boots.
The sun rarely penetrated this deep, the moisture remaining where it fell.
I became hyperaware of the pounding of my heart.
Boom-boom. Boom-boom. Boom-boom.
Like that old Poe story.
I could feel this beat in my mouth, in my skin, in my bones.
My mother’s bloody ghost sat in an equally ghostly Jaguar and smiled at me. “Never thought it’d be you, Ari.”
Throwing back my head, I screamed.
It didn’t echo, the canopy thick enough to absorb all sound, the tree trunks an endless wall. Shoving my hands through my hair, I sobbed and thought of the other ghost, the one with whom I’d shared a drink.
Was Dr. Binchy right? Was I losing my mind? Was I a secret addict?
Yes, my brain was shaky, and yes, my memories were crap, but how could I be an addict and not know? Where would I source my drugs, for one?
Thien.
It was a sensuous whisper in my blood, the name of my friend who could get his hands on anything a person wanted—for a price. But if I’d done that, it’d mean I’d forgotten every single interaction, every single exchange of money for goods.
All those hours lost to migraines—was it possible I’d been up and moving without conscious knowledge? I had proof I was a sleepwalker, but this … If I was going into fugue states, then I had bigger problems than drugs.
My head a place of chaos, I sat and stared at the site of my mother’s death. Had she been conscious as the car came down the slope? Had she tried to open the door? I hoped not. I hoped she’d slipped away without knowing she’d been entombed in the lonely dark. But that was cold comfort—because she’d known and trusted whoever had gotten into her car that night. She hadn’t raised a fuss. Because even drunk, Nina Rai could raise a fuss.
She’d known she was being murdered, and she’d looked into a face she trusted as it happened.
Quiet in Her Bones Page 30