Inputting the number into my phone after she passed across the torn piece of notepaper, I called the number. The sleek rose-gold phone she’d put on the dash began to ring.

Satisfied, I ended the call and opened my door.

I’d forgotten something important, a piece of knowledge my misfiring brain couldn’t retrieve. Turning, my expression cold and flat, I said, “If I find out you’ve lied, that you had something to do with my mother’s death, I’ll make it my mission to destroy your perfect life.”

Eyes stark with terror, she dropped the lipstick she’d just pulled out of her purse. “I haven’t lied. I was a stupid twenty-one-year-old caught in a situation I should’ve never been in.”

Twenty-one.

My father was an even bigger bastard than I’d thought.

Shutting the door, I crossed over to my car as fast as the crutches would allow. I’d promised her discretion if she told the truth, so I waited until after children began spilling out of the gates before I pulled away.

Despite my belief in her honesty, I thought about what it would’ve taken for Aurelie to commit the crime if she was some sort of psychopathic master criminal. She’d have had to drive my mother’s car to where it had gone off the road, ensure it crashed, then make her way back to the Cul-de-Sac on foot to move her car before anyone woke up and started asking questions. Difficult if not impossible given the conditions that night.

Unless of course she’d been the accomplice.

50

My father could’ve planned it all, Aurelie his willing helper.

The fly in the ointment was that, as far as I knew, he’d dropped her like a hot potato not long after my mother’s disappearance. Would he have risked letting her go if she’d had something so damaging on him?

On the other hand, she’d been a twenty-one-year-old girl against a cutthroat CEO. Wouldn’t have been hard to convince her that she was the one who’d go down. Spurned mistress versus grieving widower.

I could definitely see my father playing it out that way.

So yes, it was doable, but Aurelie just didn’t seem to have the cool to have pulled off such an enormous long-term lie. “The woman’s husband thinks he married a virgin, Aarav,” I muttered.

Sweet Aurelie was fully capable of living a lie. But nothing in her demeanor had hinted at guilt. Only panic. For now, I moved her to the bottom of my list. The one thing she had done was confirm the timeline: the person who’d driven my mother to her death had entered the Jaguar inside the Cul-de-Sac.

She stumbled out.

Pulling over under the dreamy shade of a huge old magnolia in full bloom, I took out my notebook and scribbled down the details of our conversation.

I underlined the word “stumbled” over and over.

What had happened inside my father’s house that caused my mother to stumble?

Flipping back through my notes, I saw my father had admitted to throwing a heavy tumbler at her. I ignored the fact I couldn’t remember that admission to focus on the actual information. Had it caught her full-force, done a lot more damage than he was letting on?

Or had she simply been drunk? That was as strong a possibility as anything else, but she didn’t generally drink to excess at events. No, she liked to do that at home. Then she’d put on the sad-sounding old ghazals and dance to their melancholy tones.

I could see her swaying to the music, a tumbler in hand and her hair a sultry waterfall. She’d been wearing a red satin robe only loosely tied at the waist, flashes of skin showing with each movement. I’d been young then, confused by the emotions that raged inside me. That confusion had never ended: I’d always been proud of having her for my mother and angry at the same time.

Notes done, I pulled out into the quiet street once more.

The more I learned about what had happened that night, the more I felt like I didn’t know anything. There were too many secrets, too many things I couldn’t remember . . . and too many whispers telling me I was a madman lost in his delusions.

* * *

—

Shanti watched me with worried eyes when I got home.

“How’s Pari?” I asked.

“She told me,” Shanti blurted out. “About the key to Elei’s house. It’s good, what you did. Thank you.”

“Pari handling it okay?”

“Yes, she had many questions. I told her the truth, that Cora was hurting Alice and that it’s right that you called the police.” She twisted the dish towel in her hands. “It’s modern thinking, but I don’t ever want to see my daughter end up beaten like that. Not even to save the family from shame.”

I’d already made sure my sister knew that should anyone ever hurt her in any way, she was to come straight to me. I would always believe and help her. But this was a big step for Shanti. “She was great last night—you should be proud.”

Shanti’s smile was brilliant. “I am.”

“I’ll swing by her room, say hi.”

“Do you want a Coke? A snack?” She was already bustling around. “I can fry up a plate of samosas. I made some fresh the other day and froze them so they’d be ready to fry anytime.”

“Yes, thanks.” I was ravenous, as if my hunger had returned with the lifting of the fog in my brain.

Be careful, Aarav. You might be most at risk when you believe you’re thinking clearly.

“Shanti?”

She glanced up from the freezer. “Yes?”

“Do I seem better to you? More mentally present?” Shanti alone, of all the adults in the Cul-de-Sac, had no reason to lie to me—except, of course, for her loyalty to my father. But seeing as Ishaan Rai in no way treated his wife as a partner, she was unlikely to know enough to have a reason to lie.