Chapter 13

  

"Khushi, I am really going to miss your food," Mrs. Rai said as they sat for breakfast, three days after Anjali's departure. Mrs. Rai was leaving for Bangalore along with Aarav in the next one hour and Arnav was planning to drop them to the airport in Mangalore.

"Me too Khushi!" Manav agreed. He was leaving with them to Bangalore to catch his flight to the States the following day.

Khushi smiled at them brightly even though her heart was as heavy as lead.

"Khushi," Mrs. Rai said, "I hope you will continue to stay here even when I am not here."

"I am also leaving Mangalore soon." Khushi saw that everyone in the room was surprised by her sudden announcement.

"Why Khushi?" Mrs. Rai asked her anxiously. "Has anything happened in college?"

"Is it because of the incident with Srijit?" Manav asked, "has he bothered you again?"

"What's with the third degree?" Aarav quipped, "she may have found a better job."

Arnav looked stoic and only the tightening of his jaw told her that he was angry.

Khushi smiled wryly. "It's not about the job – it's personal," Khushi said, "My mother needs a shoulder surgery. I must go to Chennai to take care of her. I was planning on submitting my resignation to Mrs. Shenoy today."

A little later as she was just getting to leave, Arnav came to the room. "Is it about the college closure?" he asked her, "You know I am working on that issue. Mr. Rao wasn’t the culprit – it was the admin Venkatesh. He was fired."

"I am sorry for saying all this so suddenly," Khushi said, "but my mother called me last night. She has been complaining about the shoulder pain for a long time. A MRI scan showed that she has a bone growth in her shoulder that was damaging some tendons causing pain. The doctors suggested surgery as soon as possible."

"I see," Arnav said, "then you must go and take care of her. But you could take leave of absence. Why are you quitting your job?"

"After her surgery, she will not be able to use her hand for two months," she said, "I will have to take care of her."

"You could bring her here."

"I don’t think that will be possible," Khushi said, "my mother will be comfortable only in Chennai."

Arnav face looked thunderous as he raked a hand through his hair, "Let's talk when I get back from Mangalore."

That afternoon, Khushi sat in the KSRTC bus to Bangalore, her thoughts whirling about chaotically in her head. When she had decided to come to Udupi she hadn’t imagined meeting Arnav in her wildest dreams. But now that she had met him and got to know him, she knew that he couldn’t be the person her sister's friends were describing. In fact, what she had learnt about them from Ramya and Rakesh, made her feel their claims lacked credibility.  

Her sister's life had also been more complicated than she had imagined. Because of the situation with her parents, Payal had relied heavily on friends which had not worked out very well for her either. Arnav's friendship had given her happiness briefly but she had lost that as well. Her heart went out for her sister.

You sisters are the birds from the same feather…

Rakesh's words had reverberated in her mind all night. Even though her heart told her that Arnav was not responsible for Payal's death, not knowing what happened exactly, would always come in the way of her feelings for him. She didn’t want to ask him anything. It had been a mistake to come to Udupi and it would be better to leave now before she got deeply tangled with Arnav which was inevitable considering the way she felt about him.

She had typed a message for Arnav but hadn’t sent it yet. Just as she was about to click on the "send" button, she received a message on her phone and when she saw the name on it, her eyes went wide with surprise. It was Mr. Narayan Hegde the police inspector mentioned by Prahlad Shenoy. She had tried to reach out to him more than a week ago, but she hadn’t heard from him – until now. She walked up to the driver and asked him to stop the bus, thankful that the bus hadn’t left the city limits yet.

An hour later, she was sitting in the police inspector's living room. After his retirement, the policeman had returned to his hometown which was a small town called Mulki, 35 kms from Udupi. She had managed to hire a taxi to travel to his small house where he lived with his wife.

"I am sorry I didn’t reply to your earlier but I needed to think about this." Mr. Hegde said.

"Thank you so much for seeing me," Khushi said, "This was very important for me."

"I realized that from the message you wrote to me," he said, "Since I still help out in a few cases as a consultant, I happen to have access to files. There is no way I could remember all the details of an eight-year old case.

"I will be very clear Ms. Khushi. This case was handled with utmost honesty and I vouch my forty years of experience on it. I am doing this for your peace of mind as you mentioned. From Prahlad Shenoy's email, I also came to know that you are a journalist You cannot use this information for the purpose of publishing it, or to re-open the case.

"Of course not!" Khushi said. "I promise."

"What do you want to know Ms. Khushi?"

"Can I know details of the investigation of Mr. Raizada in my sister's death?" Khushi asked tentatively, "Her friends saw her arguing with Mr. Raizada at the farewell party. I believe Mr. Rakesh Kasargod had filed a FIR and told the police he had seen him with my sister somewhere during midnight."

"Firstly, if arguments could lead to murder then they should all be behind bars as well," he said smoothly, "did they tell you that there were others who saw her friends having a heated conversation with her?"

"I was not aware of that." Khushi shook her head.

"Secondly, Mr. Kasargod was not a credible witness," Mr. Hegde began, "did he tell you what he had been doing till midnight?"

"He had been drinking." Khushi admitted.

"Exactly."

"Still it doesn’t mean that he wasn’t telling the truth." Khushi pointed out.

"You want to give him the benefit of the doubt," he said, "but courts don’t do that. The reason why his claim that he had seen your sister and Mr. Raizada was untrue was because Mr. Raizada had an alibi."

"What?"

"We couldn’t release this information to the public to save the alibi's reputation at the time. In fact, even Mr. Raizada had refused to give us that information."

"Why not?"

"You see Ms. Khushi – the alibi was a married woman."

"May I know who she was?" Khushi asked even though she had a fair idea who it might be.

"This lady was supposedly Mr. Raizada's ex-girlfriend who was married to a Dubai business man. She was in Udupi and that night she had called Mr. Raizada to talk to him. But since she was married and this is a small town, to avoid gossip she called him to a remote resort where she had booked a room. At first, she had chosen a resort where your sister's farewell party was going on. But when she found out about it she changed the venue. Mr. Raizada left early from the resort and went to meet her at the other hotel."

Khushi realized that it must have been the day that Rashmi had confessed about throwing herself at Arnav.

"During the course of our investigation, we found out about this. The staff members confirmed that Arnav Singh Raizada was very much at their hotel as he was present at their bar with a prominent member of our police force Ajay Singh Rathod until midnight. Later he went up to the room to meet the lady."

"Is this ACP Rathod?"

"He was an ACP at that time – now he is a SP."

"What did Mr. Rakesh tell you about the pair he saw? "

"He told me he saw her in a short pink kurta on jeans when others wore dresses – Mr. Raizada was wearing denim jacket and a cap – apparently, he wore that to college a lot."

"In his inebriated state, how could he see the exact color of the kurta in the dim hallway light?" the inspector scoffed, "People can hardly decipher pink from red even in daylight. That night there were other guests at the hotel Ms. Khushi. The same goes for the man's attire. There were other students wearing denim jackets and caps."

Khushi's heart leapt with joy as she felt vindicated about Arnav's involvement. It was likely that Rakesh was mistaken in what he had seen. She had another important question that she wanted to ask the inspector.

"Do you think my sister committed suicide?"

"I am sorry Ms. Khushi but we couldn’t be sure," he said somberly, "she was doing well in her studies. But students go through so much pressure socially."

Tears streamed down Khushi's cheeks.

"Your parents were very devastated," he said, "your mother fell sick and had to be hospitalized. I heard an insensitive person at the morgue telling your father that his child had killed himself in the same sea. You father took most of the brunt of the incident."

Is that why her dad had told everyone back home that she had died in the pool? He didn’t want people to think she had committed suicide.

"Oh God!" Khushi buried her face in her hands as she wept.

"We were not sure Ms. Khushi – please calm down," Mr. Hegde consoled her gently, "it could have been accidental drowning as well. We have a University town next door. Do you know how many students go the beach fully drunk? We have night patrolling but sometimes our hands are tied due to shortage of staff, budgetary issues which public are unware of." He paused.

"Do you think she had reasons to be depressed?" He asked her.

 "Her friends told me that she was seeing Mr. Raizada again, after they broke off a year before that." Khushi said in a low voice.

Mr. Hegde nodded his head. "Rakesh informed us about this and we did investigate. The timeline around which he allegedly saw your sister – Mr. Arnav was out of the country for that couple of months as his company had sent him to Amsterdam for a project.

"From what we heard from his office colleagues, Arnav was a workaholic who was saving all his salary to go to the US. Since his office sponsored his MS, he was working double time for them. I don’t think he had the time or energy for maintaining a long-distance relationship.

When Khushi sat absorbing all the information, Mr Hegde spoke. "Mr. Raizada was lucky we found his alibi. I was afraid that he would get implicated for something he hadn’t done because the man would just not say anything in his defense, remaining strangely stoic throughout the investigation – except repeatedly saying that he did not do anything.

"As far as your sister's friends are concerned, I will say that students go through a lot of pressure in their lives due to various reasons. Their judgement is often clouded by jealousy, peer pressure, parental pressure etc.

"In fact, Mr. Rakesh is biased in his opinion because he had deep unrequited feelings for your sister," Mr. Hegde revealed.

"How can you be so sure?" Khushi asked, even though she'd had her own suspicions.

"We searched his room," he said and when Khushi looked surprised, he explained, "When someone files a complaint we check for credibility and this was part of that exercise. When we searched his room, we found hundreds of photos of your sister in his cupboard. There were cards he wrote for her but probably never gave her.

"Please don’t take this the wrong way sir but Rakesh told me that Arnav Singh Raizada's might have taken advantage of his relationship with Mr. Rathod. "

"I see that your journalistic tendencies make you very bold, but I don’t blame you because we do have corruption in our system," he said, "Having said that, SP Rathod, is one of the most honest police officers, I have ever come across in my entire career. Why do you think he is in Mangalore now instead of Delhi where he should be? He was transferred by politicians and this is not the first time this has happened to him. If Mr. Raizada had been a criminal I assure you, he would be behind bars."

"In all my years of experience of seeing criminals, I learnt to be a good judge of character Ms. Khushi. I will say that Arnav Singh Raizada is not a criminal. He is a man of integrity."

When she came out, Khushi couldn’t find the taxi anywhere in sight. After repeatedly calling his number, the driver finally picked up the call, and apologetically informed her that he had left as there was a storm brewing and he had to pick up his children from school. Just then her phone rang. It was Arnav.

A little later, Khushi stood at door of the beach house after getting dropped off by an auto rickshaw. Arnav had directed her to the beach house which was on the shores of Sasihitlu beach, a few kilometers from where she was stranded in Mulki. He had told her to take shelter there until he could come and get her. She entered the house using the keys she had found the hidden in the electricity meter box.

The view of the blue ocean from the living room French doors, was simply breathtaking. To the right of the living room, was a compact kitchen. There was a small bedroom which was on the other side of the living room, also overlooking the ocean. Khushi placed her luggage inside the cupboard. Stairs from the living room led upstairs to another living room and a large bedroom that was obviously the master bedroom.

She stepped out of the house, walked toward the beach and stood looking at the sea engulfed by grey clouds as the waves crashed angrily on the shores, a sign of the impending storm. But strangely, Khushi felt nothing but peace.

The conversation with Mr. Narayan Hegde felt like catharsis for Khushi in more ways than one. For one, she finally knew the truth about Payal's death and most importantly he had exonerated Arnav.

Payal's friends had accused Arnav on basis of his argument with Payal on the night of the party in addition to Rakesh's eye witness account of having seen them together in the middle of the night. Their belief that they were in a relationship was what had fortified the plausibility of these aspects. The facts had proven both the relationship and the eye witness account wrong. Believing their own misapprehension to be true, her friends had regaled a misguided tale of Payal's death.

The possibility that she might have taken her own life was something she couldn't digest but after hearing about her tryst with a wild gang, her infatuation with Arnav and her isolation from friends, while dealing with a troubled home front, Khushi wondered if it had all become a little too much for her to take in.

There was only one thing left to do and that was to face Arnav and let him know about her identity –the consequences notwithstanding.

"Khushi?" Arnav called her from behind, "why are you at the beach?" He asked her, his face contorted with concern. "It is already drizzling -- there is a storm coming."

As she turned around, Khushi saw Arnav on the shore, wearing her favourite blue linen shirt. He waded into the water and just as he reached her, she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him, holding him in a vice like grip.

"Khushi – what's going on?" He moved her shoulders away from him, "you have been acting werid."

She placed her palm on his bearded cheek and caressed him tenderly. As Khushi looked up his molten brown eyes, Arnav saw a vulnerability that shook him to his core. While she had seemed a tad hesitant the other night at the village, at his moment, she looked the opposite. A siren.

A memory from a long forgotten past flashed before him and was gone just as she brought her lips and placed an open-mouthed kiss on his lips. As she pressed her soft body on him, he knew he that she would be the only woman who could make him lose his sanity.

She knew she was supposed to talk to him, but she wanted this first. No – she needed this. There would be time to talk later.

"Do you know what you are doing?" Arnav asked her huskily as he touched his forehead to her, "I have wanted this for a long time –" He heard himself saying aloud, "I won't be able to stop myself --"

"I don’t want you to," she said, her hazel eyes inviting, yet innocent. "I want this."

He captured her lips in a fiercely possessive manner as his hand snaked around her lithe body to bring it flush against himself. Khushi moved her hand up the muscles of his back, reveling in its hardness.  She willingly opened her mouth to allow his tongue inside as he demanded an entry to explore the warm sanctuary of her mouth.

He stepped back, took her hand in his and dragged her to the shore. His fingers trembled as he unbuttoned her shirt. His hands then cupped her breast through her bra, kneading the soft flesh as he bit her slightly on her lower lip.

A jolt went through Khushi's body and her legs buckled beneath her. As they both fell to their knees, he lifted her up and placed her his lap so she could wrap her legs around his waist.

As he met a wet trail down to her throat, her collar bone and then to the swells of her breasts, Khushi threw her head back in abandon as her fingers slipped into the crisp hair on the back of his head. A liquid heat began to pool at the pit of her stomach as he moved his hands around her waist and unbuttoned her jeans.

As the sun set into the horizon, bringing in twilight, it began to rain.

"Let's go inside." He rasped. Arnav lifted her and carried her, walking briskly as he carried her into the house, and walking across the living room, he entered the bedroom to put her down on the floor.

The sea crashed to the shores as the sky lit up brightly followed by the sound of thunder.

Arnav unbuttoned his shirt and slipped it over his shoulder. As the waning light of the sun sliced through the French doors, Khushi held her breath as she saw the matt of hair covering the wide expanse of his chest and hard planes of his abs as it tapered down to a V before disappearing down the waist band of his jeans that hung low on his hips. He was magnificent.

Arnav quickly peeled her shirt and threw it on the floor. Next, he unclasped her bra hook and discarded that as well.

As he drew the curtains and switched on the bedside lamp, Khushi turned away from him. His eyes swept over her wet hair that hung down her back, her delicate shoulders, her shoulder blade jutting out so enticingly. He stepped up behind her, moved her hair to one side and took the delicate skin at the nape of her neck and began to suck on it as he covered her breasts with his hands, rolling the erect nub between his fingers. Electric current sizzled through Khushi's blood stream and she began to quiver with sensation. Suddenly, he turned her around and stepped back to look down at her standing only in her jeans. As she made a move to cover herself he held her hands and moved them to her sides. His eyes moved over her small round breasts, her narrow waist and her delectable navel.

"You are so beautiful Khushi." He whispered his tone laced with reverence.

He pushed her down on the bed and captured her lips, slipping his tongue into her mouth as his fingers moved down to the flat planes of her stomach, sliding into her jeans to touch her intimately. The sensation as so intense that jumped up.

"Relax, it's alright." He whispered continuing to stroke her through her thin material of her panties.

As sensations began to build inside her, warming her all over her body, she moved her hands all over his muscular back. He didn’t know how long he could remain in control if she kept touching him like this with her soft delicate hands.

His fingers then slipped into her panties to touch her molten core as he captured one erect nipple between his lips, sucking deeply as his fingers stroked her, moving in circular motions, delicately like a feather. As a bewildering pleasure kept building with each stroke, Khushi arched her back, writhing under the sweet torture of his fingers as her own fingers clutched at sheets

He peeled her jeans along with her panties down her hips and after discarding his own jeans, he lowered himself over her. Using his knee, he moved her legs apart and entered her quickly, moving slowly at first.

A feeling of intense pleasure shot through Khushi and soon she began to move in tandem with him. Arnav couldn’t hold back anymore and he increased his pace even as he captured her lips, kissing her deeply with each thrust. The warmth had turned into a spiraling heat in the pit of her stomach and she suddenly splintered into a million pieces as waves and waves of ecstasy engulfed her in its throes, every nerve ending tingling with intense sensation. After one final thrust, Arnav joined her at the pinnacle of ecstasy as he collapsed beside her breathless and spent.

As Arnav gathered her in his arms, Khushi slept feeling blissfully protected, even as thunder and lightning played havoc on the angry seas.