by Sonali Dev
“Kimi-baby, are you feeling all right? Do you need something?” Rafiq sounded so worried the boy frowned.
“No, no. I just wanted to tell you that Papa is looking for you. It sounded urgent. Very urgent.”
Rafiq’s brows drew together in confusion. He turned to the house. Kimi quickly waved at the boy. He looked behind him to make sure she was waving at him before waving back. Then he looked at his hand as though he wasn’t quite sure why he had just done that.
Rafiq turned back to her. “I’ll show Rahul out and go see what Patil-sir needs. Thank you. I’m glad you’re feeling better.”
“It looked very urgent,” she said. “I think Papa needs something right now. Don’t worry, I can show him out.” She grabbed Rafiq kaka’s hand and pushed him toward the front door. Thankfully, Rafiq kaka always found great amusement in everything she did and he laughed and disappeared into the house, shaking his head fondly.
The boy was staring at her as though she had a few screws loose. Right now she totally agreed with him.
“Are you sick?” he asked her in English that sounded the way her papa spoke it, as though it was being spoken in Marathi first and then translated. And really, why was that the only question anyone ever asked her?
“I’m fine,” she snapped, when all she’d really wanted to do was thank him.
“Then why was Patil-saheb’s PA acting like you’re sick? And if you’re sick, why were you sitting on top of the gatehouse?” Suddenly, he seemed to register that she might be crazy. He took a step back from her and looked around to see if anyone would help him if she lost it.
She considered scaring him by making crazy faces, but these things were only funny if they were spontaneous and she usually thought about everything before she did it and that ruined it. “I wasn’t sitting on top of the gatehouse.”
He narrowed his eyes and studied her. “It was definitely you.”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course it was me, silly. But I wasn’t sitting there, I was trying to get back in the house.”
Once again, he looked around to check if someone was nearby in case he needed help. “You ran away?” He gawked at the house. “From this mansion?”
She shrugged. “Every afternoon. It’s the only way I get to leave home by myself.”
Now he looked scared.
“I’m not crazy, okay? My parents think I’ll get sick if I leave the house. It’s complicated. Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for helping me earlier. Thank you. The gate is that way.” She pointed to the gate and turned away, oddly disappointed. She had no idea what she had expected.
“Wait,” he said behind her. “Where do you go when you run away?”
She spun around, all her excitement rushing back. “To the next building.”
That made him laugh. Like flat-out laugh at her as though she were a comic strip in the newspaper.
And it made her very angry. “What? You know a better place to run away to?”
“Of course I do,” he said so smugly, she found herself walking past him. Bhola wasn’t at the gatehouse. He must have gone to get some chai. Papa and Rafiq were probably really trying to solve some emergency, and Mamma would not return from the temple until it was time to turn on the lamps, which was hours away.
“Come on,” she said and broke into a run.
“What are you doing?” But he ran after her.
“You’re going to show me your better place.”
“No, I’m not.” But she was already on the retaining wall and jumping onto the gatehouse.
“Stop,” he said, but he followed her.
They were both a little winded when they jumped into the compound of the neighboring building behind the big banyan tree.
“Are you mental?” he asked her.
Instead of answering his stupid question she grabbed his hand. “I want to see where you go when you run away.”
9
Rahul
Present day
Rahul hopped off Tina and jogged back through the gates of The Mansion and up the porch steps and through the giant front doors that the doorman held open. Having been a servant in the house for so long meant he knew every inch of it well. Having been Kimi’s best friend meant not a single servant would stop him from going wherever the hell he wanted to go.
Kirit’s peon rushed up to Rahul and led him to Kirit’s office. Kirit was on the phone looking like he had popped all the blood vessels in his face at once. His hand shook as he wiped the sweat beaded across his forehead.
“If you come anywhere near her, I will kill you, I swear.” He threw the phone across the couch and noticed Rahul. “Rahul! What the hell? Who the hell is doing your job? How did Khan get away?”
Was that Asif Khan on the phone? Had he been talking about Kimi? It was clear from the minister’s face that Kimi was in danger. The pressure of his anger built so fast, his chest felt like it was going to split open.
“He took the children’s ward hostage. We got another four of his men. Why did he call you? How does he even have your number?”
“You’re interrogating me right now? When that bastard is running around town when he should be in custody?” Kirit was inches from Rahul’s face. For a moment Rahul thought Kirit was going to shake him. Rahul was pretty certain he was about to shake Kirit too. But then Kirit stepped away.
“He’s threatened to go after Kimi,” he said almost to himself, then glared at Rahul again, rage alive in his eyes. “You’ve put Kimi in danger and you call her your friend?”
For two years Rahul had tried to get Kirit to back his investigation of the organ black market that Asif had been running. Kirit had repeatedly shut him down. Now Kimi was at risk and the minister wanted to blame Rahul?
“You have to tell me where she is, sir.” For the first time in years, the term of respect felt sour on his tongue.
Kirit’s face was sweating. Now was not the time to have a heart attack. Kirit called for his shoes and one of the servants ran in and started helping him into them. “She asked for two weeks.” His voice fell to a whisper and he cleared his throat. “She asked for two weeks of freedom. On her own. She said she couldn’t breathe. Said she wanted to live. That’s why she called you here this morning, to tell you.”
“How could you let her go? Now?” After all these years of controlling Kimi’s every breath, Kirit had decided to ease off now? With a psychopath who had attacked her still breathing?
Rahul had felt rage at Kirit once, the kind he had never allowed himself to feel again. He reminded himself of how unwarranted that rage had been. This rage was unwarranted too. Kirit wasn’t the only one at fault here. Rahul was just as much to blame for driving her away.
Kirit pulled a monogrammed handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed his face. When he looked up, his anger seemed to have disappeared into the pathos of that gesture. Suddenly, he was nothing more than a father with a child in danger.
“She’s been locked up for twelve years. I locked her up for twelve years. I had her watched every minute for the past two years. I didn’t think Asif would wake up. You put five bullets in him. I thought she could live now. I thought it was time to give her that. You have to find her. And you have to keep her safe. No one else can.”
“I intend to.” He had never meant anything more. He touched the piece of paper in his shirt pocket. She was gone because of him. Because he’d broken her heart over and over again when all she’d ever done was patch his up. From the first time she’d befriended him, she had taken him in—utterly lost as he was, alone in ways that left him with no one to turn to. She had always understood him in ways he didn’t understand himself. Now she was gone. And a psycho was on her tail. And no one seemed to know why.
He met Kirit’s eyes, channeling all his rage into purpose. “We need the entire force hunting that bastard down.”
“Anything, everything. You have full control. Do what you must. Shoot at sight. And shoot to kill. You understand me? No more damage from that bastard.”
Those were not instructions Rahul needed. Asif Khan would not leave his sight alive again. “I need details of what he said, sir, and why he called you.”
This time Kirit’s face remained unflinching. “It’s because of your damn obsession with the Jennifer Joshi case. He threatened me last year to get you off the case. He threatened to go after Kimi. But you wouldn’t listen to me. He went after Kimi because you went after him. You wouldn’t let the case go, and now Kimi’s the one who’s paying the price.”
That’s why Kirit hadn’t supported his investigation? Why hadn’t he just told Rahul?
Kirit’s gaze went sharp again. Not a trace of the withered old man. “Would you have dropped the case if I had told you Kimi was in danger?”
Rahul didn’t have time for twenty questions right now, but the guilt in his gut was a live thing. He would never let her pay the price for his actions. That much he knew. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t get anywhere near her.”
Kirit didn’t respond, but Rahul didn’t expect him to. Rahul had never kept a single promise he had made to Kirit about Kimi. That was all going to change now. “I need her location, sir. And please don’t deny you’re tracking her every move.”
* * *
The airport was teeming with people. It was as though every human being in Mumbai was trying to get away, like those disaster movies Kimi and he used to love so much, with names like When the Time Ran Out—with a volcano erupting, or a tornado eating everything in its path, or a ship sinking while the doomed passengers tried to head to safety in its upturned hull.
Kimi was standing in a queue that snaked almost all the way around the terminal building. Rahul didn’t know if it was a good thing or a bad thing that she didn’t know that the first-class line was on the other side. In a sick sort of way, the crowds made it safer.
He stepped up behind her and the smell of tuberoses under expensive perfume cut through all the acrid smells of Mumbai. “Hi, Kimi,” he said, trying not to fill his lungs with the relief of her scent.
She turned to him, her eyes brightening for an instant before disappointment took over. Then anger followed. She looked away, not even bothering to acknowledge him.
He reached for her suitcase. It wasn’t easy. The damn thing was bright purple. A purple so bright, in fact, that he was grateful to be wearing his sunglasses. Still, he tried to take it from her. They had to get going because they were an open target here. Her grip tightened around the handle of the purple monstrosity, even as she refused to look at him.
Leaning closer, he spoke to the back of her head. “Please, Kimi, you have to come with me. It’s not safe here.”
Instead of responding she took a step away from him. The old lady standing behind them threw him a look fierce with warning, which naturally Kimi caught and it instantly cheered her up. One look at the grandma who seemed to think he was somehow assaulting Kimi, and Kimi grinned at her with such sweetness that Rahul wondered if he had imagined the intensity of her anger just now. But of course he hadn’t.
Instead of telling the lady she knew him, she shared a long commiserating look with her. Grandma took that as an invitation to glare at Rahul some more. He had no doubt Kimi was memorizing that glare to use on him later, all the while continuing to play suitcase tug-of-war with him. He knew she wasn’t going to let the bag go, so he did. Then he swept the area one more time, moving his body to cover hers so bullets from the most crowded parts wouldn’t reach her while he tried to find a way to do this without scaring her any more than he had to.
“What are you doing?” she asked, finally catching on that something was wrong.
He tried not to notice the exact moment when she registered that this getaway she wanted so badly was about to be ruined. Her eyes did that thing where they struggled between fighting and accepting, and her lips pouted with how much she hated that struggle.
“This is not how I wanted to tell you.” He placed a hand on her shoulder, then withdrew it too quickly when the touch zinged against his palm.
She grew even more annoyed.
He had to stop being such an idiot about touching her. She was his best friend, for shit’s sake. These fireworks that his body threw out when he got near her had to stop. Especially now. He needed to stay sharp.
A scuffle of some sort erupted down the line, and he moved around her again to cover that side. Two of the other officers rushed at the arguing passengers.
“What the hell is going on, Rahul?” she hissed behind him.
So much for trying to do this without scaring her.
This time when he turned around he braced himself before taking her arm and leaning close to her ear. “Asif Khan woke up and escaped from the hospital.”
He felt every nuance of the tremor that went through her at those words.
“Let’s go,” she said. But before she followed him, she turned to the old lady who had come to her aid.
“He only looks scary,” she said with a grateful smile. “Nothing to worry about. Enjoy your trip.” Then she gave her a quick hug, this complete stranger, who in turn grabbed her face with wrinkled hands and kissed her forehead before waving good-bye as though they were in some sort of melodramatic climactic scene of a Bollywood film.
As they made their way through the crowd, a formation of officers surrounded them. They were all in plainclothes and no one would’ve known who they were or what they were doing. Not Kimi, though. She didn’t miss a thing.
“Maybe if all these cops had been at the hospital watching Khan instead of gallivanting about town, we wouldn’t need to scurry around like this,” she snapped, and he had the insane urge to smile.
The feeling didn’t last long.
He focused on his surroundings again as they made the long walk to the back of the terminal and approached the restricted area where he had left his Jeep. The crowd thinned out until it was just them and the officers with the terminal building behind them and the parking lot beyond. A spark of awareness tugged at Rahul’s senses, a horrible feeling that he was missing something. His Jeep was parked by the curb in the restricted area, which was completely isolated. Someone should have been watching the Jeep. One of the constables approached it, and Rahul shouted for him to get away. “Stop, Rao! Get back!”
In the time that it took the constable to turn and break into a run, a deafening blast ripped through the air. The constable’s body flew forward.
Rahul spun Kimi around, wrapping his body around hers.
For a few endless seconds everything froze in place—the officers around him caught in the middle of twisting away from the explosion, the constable suspended spread-eagled in the air, Kimi’s face pressed into his chest, her hands fisted in his shirt.
Then everything started to move at once.
The scraps of metal flung from the jeep fell to the ground with dull thunks and broke through the buzzing silence. The constable’s body slammed into the pavement. Kimi pushed away from Rahul, her hands shaking as they examined him for damage, her terrified eyes flooding with relief when she found him unhurt. Screams rose around them in fits and starts and then exploded into a din.
“This way, boss.” Maney ran up to them. “You have to get her out of here.”
The other officers ran at the destroyed Jeep and to the fallen constable, who sat up looking disoriented. Breath flooded back into Rahul’s lungs.
“Take my car,” Maney said before grabbing Kimi’s bag and breaking into a jog.
Rahul followed him, his arm still around Kimi. They crossed the restricted area, the smell of smoke and carbon filling the afternoon air.
Maney led them to a white Santro on the other side of the lot. “It’s the missus’s car. I tried to tell her that a Swift was a better idea. So much more value for money. I mean yes, the Santro is a little cheaper, but—” Maney stopped when Rahul cleared his throat as they reached the white Santro.
He handed Rahul the keys. “It should be safe. No one knows it’s mine, so no one will know you’re
in it. I’ll get a ride from one of the boys. Murli wants to show me his car, but he lives all the way on the other side of town. Hassan lives just—”
This time Kimi cleared her throat to stop him. Bless her.
Rahul unlocked the car. Panic was spreading through the crowd and scattering people in all directions. They had to get out of here before every car in the parking lot tried to leave at the exact same time.
“Thanks,” he said to Maney. “Keep me posted about Rao.” But the constable who had been approaching Rahul’s Jeep had been far enough away from it that he would be fine.
“Based on the size of the blast, it looks like a homemade pipe device, boss,” Maney said, echoing what Rahul was thinking. “Rao will be fine. Definitely traumatized, maybe even bruised, but nothing more serious, I’m sure.”
“Get him to the hospital and let me know what the doctor says.” Maney whipped a little salute, slammed Kimi’s door shut, and ran back into the chaos as Rahul pulled away.
Kimi buckled herself in without a single word. There was the slightest tremble in her fingers, but she wasn’t shaking anymore. She hadn’t screamed or panicked. There had been no histrionics. She was the most exuberant person he knew in all the world. The slightest little thing made her explode with excitement, but he had never seen her lose control of herself in fear, and she hadn’t today.
He wanted to turn to her, wanted to take her hands in his and soothe her in some way. Instead, he shifted gears with more force than necessary and maneuvered the car up the entrance ramp to exit the parking lot, flashing his ID at the attendant who ran at him. The approach road to the airport had already been cordoned off and he was able to use it to get out of the mess that was fast turning into a full-blown disaster even as his men tried their best to contain it. If Kimi hadn’t been her stubborn self, if she had listened to him and left with him immediately the way he had asked her to when he found her standing in line, they would have reached the police jeep sooner. They would have been inside the jeep when the bomb went off. She would have been sitting in the passenger seat. Which is where the bomb had been planted. There was no longer any doubt about what Asif Khan wanted or who his target was.