Recap: Tara is in hospital, after she escaped from her kidnapper. Shekar has been behaving strangely, and Roohi is inconsolable for her mother. Meanwhile, the body of a top-notch secret agent washes up ashore. Who is he? Find out in Part 8 by clicking here.
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It's her third day in the hospital, realises Tara, and Shekar has yet to bring Roohi to see her. He keeps making noncommittal grunts every time she asks about Roohi, and tells her not to stress herself unnecessarily. "She is absolutely fine, Tara," said Shekar, the last time he had been in to see her. "I don't want her to see you like this, nor do I want you to fret and affect your recovery. Please listen to your doctor and learn to relax." Tara did not like being told what to do, but she could see a grain of logic in Shekar's words.
However, her fiery Aries nature would not allow her to sit still. Though she still had a couple of deep muscle injuries to recover from, besides extensive blood loss, she was itching to get back to work. Her only ally in the present situation was the eager Cyrus, who was keen to make an impression on his boss by serving her in this time of dire need. Shekar would not hear of her getting back to work; trying to tell him that she actually wanted to trace her kidnapper seemed a big no-no to her. He would just tell her it was the job of the police!
The police had of course been in to see her. Shekar had watched her chat with the inspector closely, his face tense, almost as if he hated to hear her relive her trauma. She felt a new surge of love for him when she remembered his worried frown. She had given away precious little to the police, though. This was one loose end she wanted to tie by herself. She had put Cyrus on the job of finding out Shekar's attarwallah; he would be the first link in the chain, she thought to herself.
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Cyrus hurried to Tara's room in the hospital, clutching the little slip of paper tightly. 'Was Tara sending him on a fool's errand?' he thought to himself, not for the first time. But she insisted it was important, and his eagerness to prove himself got the better of him. She had definitely given him a tough job, one that would have landed him in a completely humiliating position if he had been caught out! Thank God things went smoothly, he thought.
He had waited patiently outside Tara's apartment complex until he saw Shekar starting off to school with Roohi. Tara had told him he would have exactly half an hour before the maid arrived, followed by Shekar a while later. He had let himself in using the spare key hidden under the potted palm by the door, thinking in his head that this seemed to be almost a universal hiding place of spare keys in every household! Tara's instructions were extremely accurate, he realised once he entered the house. Everything was exactly as she had described. Her heightened power of observation was probably one of the reasons why she was such a great editor, thought Cyrus as he made his way into the master bedroom and opened the wardrobe door on the far right.
He found the little drawer and the wooden box in it--the wooden box in which, Tara had said, Shekar stored all his bills and invoices. And he had found the one she wanted: a ragged handwritten bill from the attarwallah. Thankfully, it had an address and phone number printed on it! Cyrus clutched the paper harder, remembering the trouble he had been to in order to get it. He reached the door to Tara's room in the hospital, and pushed it open.
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2 comments:
Beautiful, indeed as the story unfolds gradually.
i also want that attar :D
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