The Siya Rajput Crime Thrillers Books 1-3 (Where Are They Now / Finding Her / The Bones Are Calling)

by UD Yasha

  ‘Those are the owners of the house,’ Jadhav said, pointing at the couple. ‘Mr. Malhar and Mrs. Niyati Jathar.’

  ‘What do they do?’

  ‘Both are doctors.’

  Rathod walked towards them. Both Malhar and Niyati were in jeans and shirts that had bathed in blood. They had been shot once in their torso and now lay in a pool of their own blood. Some of it had got sprayed on the bed. With the way their bodies lay awkwardly on the floor, it seemed like they were sitting on the bed when they had been shot and then had fallen to the ground.

  ‘Next of kin?’ Rathod asked.

  ‘Two daughters. Both live in the US. We have managed to inform them. They are both planning to come down as soon as possible.’

  Rathod turned to the unidentified man who lay across the bathroom doorway. His head was inside the bathroom while his body from waist down was outside. He was shot in the head and chest. His face was crusted with blood. His clothes were threadbare and had even torn in a few places. They didn’t just look old but were also full of stains. The man’s hands and face had grease on which made Rathod wonder, what was he doing in such a fancy apartment?

  ‘Did the security not see him come in?’ Rathod said.

  ‘They claim they didn’t but we will go through the security tapes to check,’ Jadhav said.

  Rathod checked the time. Four twenty-three. The seconds hand seemed to move slower on his phone’s clock app.

  ‘I’ll be back in some time,’ he told Jadhav. ‘I need to make an important call.’

  He took the key card from Jadhav, walked out of the apartment, stripped off his plastic overalls and rode down the elevator to step out in the open air. He dialled Siya’s number. Each ring seemed to last longer. Pick up, come on.

  The call rang out.

  Shaking his head, Rathod stomped his foot on the ground.

  He tried again. The rings seemed to mock him this time as the call rang out again.

  Just then, his phone started ringing in his hand. For a moment his body relaxed and he relaxed his fists, thinking Siya was calling him back. It tensed again when he saw Bhalerao’s name flashing on his mobile screen.

  ‘Where did you go?’ Bhalerao said the moment Rathod answered the call.

  ‘I…I…have to take care of something,’ Rathod managed to say.

  ‘Is everything okay?’

  ‘Yes, Bhalerao. But I have to go. Something urgent has come up,’ Rathod said and hung up.

  He checked his phone again. Four twenty-five. About fifteen seconds to go. Still nothing from Siya. He thought of his next steps. He knew he had to go to Stan Mills. He looked up its location on his phone. It was about twenty minutes away, lesser if he hit the accelerator hard. He went to one of the hawaldars standing outside the building and asked for the keys to Bhalerao’s car. He stepped in, texting Bhalerao that there was an emergency at home.

  As Rathod strapped the seatbelt, he looked at his phone one last time. The thirty-minute deadline was up. He hoped Siya was alright. He wondered: Siya, what the hell have you gotten yourself into?

  Chapter Five

  I heaved loudly as my lungs filled with oxygen, making me feel like they were on fire. A heavy weight seemed to push down my chest. I heaved heavily again, taking in the air, feeling the blood cruise through my body. It seemed like I had woken up from the dead.

  What had happened?

  My eyes opened to a blur. Even though I could not see properly, I felt dirt and soil under my body. I wanted to get up but my body had stopped obeying my brain. My lungs wanted to scream as I inhaled again.

  The smell of ash hit my nose. It slowly came back to me. The cold air fluttered against my face as I realized I was at Stan Mills’ factory. I tried to remember what had happened, but the thoughts faded away just as they formed.

  My head throbbed. I felt like my mind was in an ocean, trying to swim to the nearest island. As the giddiness began washing out, I started forming a timeline of what had happened.

  I had got a call a little before three thirty. What time was it now? I sent a hand over my jeans but could not feel the bulge of my phone. My gaze swept the ground around me but my eyes were still hazy.

  Thinking of the phone, I was reminded of mechanical shrill in the voice of the person that had called me. Shivers snaked through my spine. I had been called to Stan Mills. I had to know what had happened to dad and this was my only chance. His voice from my dream came back to me. You never came looking for me. A pang of guilt unfurled inside me. I tried to push it away, thinking dad would never have said that to me.

  My eyesight cleared a bit more. I had got another call once I was at Stan Mills. I was following their instructions…until the call had ended. I had sensed something was wrong and I wanted to get out of there. I ran downstairs.

  What had happened after that?

  As I tried to remember, my brain felt like it was going to come out of the skull. I had seen something. Someone. But I could not recollect who it was. My vision cleared. I panned my eyes across. I was outside the back door of Stan Mills’ factory.

  That’s when I noticed that my clothes were damp. Thoughts stopped forming in my head when I saw them. I jumped back as a sweat broke all over my body. I refused to believe what I was seeing.

  My clothes had blood on them. Large dark patches that had seeped through the clothes, making them cling to my body.

  My gut churned. I searched for an injury with my hands. Please let it be mine. Please let it be mine. But as my hands looked for any cut or wound, a chilling realization hit me. The blood was not mine. It belonged to someone else.

  Whose was it?

  The smell of blood was coppery and impersonal as blood always is. It made me nauseous. I stumbled to the side and puked, somehow managing to hold my hair up. I coughed hard, unable to breathe properly. I tried to remember what had happened once the call had ended and I had tried to get out of the factory. It was all blank.

  Had I blacked out?

  That’s when I noticed my hands. I fell back to the ground in shock. My hands had blood on them. I instinctively rubbed them against the back of my jacket, which as far as I knew was the only dry and clean spot on me.

  Had I hurt someone?

  There was blood on my hands. And I had no idea how it had got there.

  I staggered sideways. The moonlight was dim but my eyes had gotten used to the sparse light. The air around me was still, bearing no sign of the violence that it may have witnessed not so long back. I wondered how long it had been since I got here. I looked skywards. It was still dark. So, the sun had not risen still. It was winter so it had to be before six thirty.

  I realized I had got there in my car. I stumbled forward and felt my legs get stronger with every step. The car was at the front. Just then, I stopped in my tracks.

  What’s that sound?

  It grew louder with every passing beat. A car. It was probably a few seconds away. Who could be coming here and why?

  Going to the front could be dangerous so I ran to the bushes by the side and hid in them. I had a clear view of the factory’s front. I was relieved to see that my car was still there. I looked through the leaves as the beams of the headlamps strobed their way forward. My headache had disappeared. Subconsciously, I was preparing for a response.

  What if someone was here to kill me and they had realized they had done their job well?

  The thought of having hurt someone flashed in my mind again. I knew if I had harmed someone, it would have been out of self defense, not hate. As much as I had wished to kill mom’s abductor Kishore Zakkal, I had turned him over to the police. I wondered if that was the right call as he had escaped prison almost a year back. Which made me think again: Was Zakkal behind any of this? Apart from the way Zakkal operated, something told me the phone call I had got had no connection to Zakkal. It did not make sense before, neither did it now.

  The noise in my mind paused as the approaching car swerved in front of the factory. I could not make out mu
ch except that it was an SUV. Its lights went out as the rumbling of the engine stopped to make way for silence.

  A man stepped out of the car.

  A wave of relief lashed on me. I knew him. It was Rathod. What was he doing here?

  I dashed out of the bush towards him. He turned in alarm on hearing my footsteps, one hand ready to pull out his gun and shoot. But he realized it was me. He was confused to see me.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he said as I hugged him, feeling safe and relieved to see the face of one of the people I trusted the most.

  Rathod was taken aback by my hug but then he rubbed my back after a few seconds. He stepped closer after we pulled out of the embrace and pointed at my face. ‘There’s something on your face,’ he said. He brushed a finger on my forehead and then brought it closer to examine it. He sniffed it twice and said, ‘It’s blood.’

  His eyes wandered up and down my body. ‘Your clothes too,’ he said, his voice trailing off. ‘What happened? Is everything okay?’

  ‘I don’t remember what happened,’ I said and looked to either side, hoping something around me would trigger the memories.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ Rathod said and put a hand on my shoulder.

  ‘No, I checked’, I said. ‘The blood is not mine.’

  Silence.

  ‘How did you know I was here?’ I said.

  ‘You told me to get here,’ he said, narrowing his eyes.

  I did not remember talking to Rathod.

  ‘What’s the time?’ I asked, hoping that would give me some perspective.

  Rathod referred to his phone and said, ‘Five past five.’

  Silence.

  ‘You texted me an hour back to come here in case I didn’t hear from you in thirty minutes.’

  ‘I don’t remember messaging you,’ I said. ‘I don’t have my phone.’

  Rathod briskly pulled out his gun. He said nothing but his eyes explored my clothes as he saw more blood on them. He opened the door of his SUV.

  ‘Sit inside,’ he said. ‘I need to check this place. Someone might still be around.’

  ‘I want to come with you.’

  ‘You need to rest. Let me do this alone, please?’

  ‘What if it’s not safe?’

  ‘More the reason why you should stay inside. I’ll handle it. You look shaken up,’ he said and then ducked in the car and gave me a bar of chocolate from the glove box. ‘Get some energy back. We’ll get you checked.’

  I took the chocolate and stayed silent.

  ‘Can you tell me what you remember?’ he said, looking around to see if he could spot anybody.

  I told him everything I remembered which was basically all that happened until I stepped out of the factory.

  ‘But you don’t remember texting me, right?’ he said.

  ‘No, I have no memory of that,’ I said as my head started hurting again.

  Silence.

  Rathod’s eyes wandered as he tried to take it all in. He said, ‘In your mind, can you go over everything since you got up once again?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said and began recollecting everything that had happened. I tried to remember every little thing, hoping something would be helpful in remembering the full picture. But I could not summon the memories of what had happened after I had stepped out of the factory.

  ‘I don’t remember what happened when I stepped out and saw someone.’

  Rathod was patient. He stayed quiet for a few more beats, letting me swim in my own thoughts. Once he was sure I would not say anything, he said, ‘Okay, don’t worry about it. Just tell me if the person you saw seemed familiar? Or did they have a striking feature? Like a scar, some unique eye colour or if they said something?’

  I shook my head. ‘I’m sure I saw someone. But there’s nothing else.’

  ‘We’ll find out what happened,’ Rathod said. ‘Stay in the car, I’ll sweep the area and be back.’

  ‘Rathod?’ I said as he turned around. ‘Can you please not call this in?’

  Rathod gulped once. ‘Yes, I wasn’t thinking of calling it in,’ he said and merged with the darkness.

  Chapter Six

  The silence was deafening.

  A cold draft of air came through the half open window of Rathod’s car. It stung me at first and then numbed my face. There was a constant buzzing in my mind and I was not able to form any thoughts. I stared into the darkness, waiting for Rathod to come back. I wanted to remember what had happened, but pain jolted through the nerves of my brain every time I tried.

  I grimaced in frustration. I slammed my hand on the head rest of the driver’s seat. I snapped out of my daze, feeling hopeless. I sat alone with my thoughts. I gave up trying to remember what had happened. The memory would come back. I did not know when it would, but in the meantime, I had to do something useful.

  The smell of blood on my body was a constant reminder that someone had been hurt. I needed to know who it was. The person held the clues about what had happened to both me and dad. Was it the same person who had called me?

  I had not seen anyone near me after I had gotten up. There were three places where they could be. Firstly, they could have escaped from the Stan Mills factory on their own. Secondly, they could have been helped by someone else to get away. Thirdly, they were still at the factory. In that case, I could find them.

  I had a lot of blood on me and I realized the person might even need medical help. I did not remember seeing any blood on the ground near the back door of the factory. So, the place where they had been hurt had to be somewhere else. I must have been there with them as it was the only realistic reason the blood had got on me.

  Was a third person involved in this entire setup? Me, the person who called me, and someone else. I thought so because the call had gotten disconnected. Had the person across the line hung up on purpose because there was some eminent danger? They were being discreet. There was no reason to call me in the middle of nowhere. Had someone got to know of our meeting?

  I found a torch that I could strap to my head in Rathod’s glovebox. I put it on and stepped out of the car. I returned to the place where I had blacked out. My head had stopped spinning and my vision was back. I pulled out my gun, ready to squeeze the trigger.

  The torch on my head beamed away. I focused on the ground, looking for signs of a brawl, blood or a body. I looked in the bush first. Beyond them, trees gradually increased in density and then blurred into a forest. I went around the factory, walking by its walls. I only saw charred ash and mold on the walls.

  I returned to the car and saw Rathod coming from the other end. He followed the beam from my torch and had seen me before I had noticed him.

  ‘You shouldn’t be walking,’ Rathod said.’

  I ignored him. ‘What did you find?’ I asked instead.

  Rathod shook his head. ‘Nothing. It’s all clean. But I’ll come back here to check it in the daytime.’

  We walked to our cars.

  ‘I can get my crime scene tech team here to go through everything,’ Rathod said.

  I said nothing, wondering if it was the right thing to make what had happened official. Needless to say, come alone. Trust no one, not even the people who you think are on your side. Cops are not your friends. The words of the caller rang in my ears. I had already broken that agreement by telling Rathod. But I trusted him. Even though he was a cop.

  Rathod went to his car and brought a hand towel and a bottle of water.

  ‘Wash your face,’ he said, handing them to me.

  I took the bottle and splashed some water on my face. A stinging pain cruised through me right away. I touched the point of pain and realized I had been cut on my right cheek.

  Rathod leaned forward and put a hand on my back when I shrieked. The pain faded away but again erupted when I wiped my face with the towel.

  ‘It’s a deep gash,’ Rathod said, examining my face.

  ‘It hurts like hell when I touch it,’ I said, trying to remember how I had got it.


  ‘The wound is not big enough for all that blood. But it at least tells us you got into some kind of a physical fight,’ Rathod said, looking around.

  I dabbed the cut with the towel. Putting water on it had opened it up. It wasn’t paining as much as stinging. I processed the new information. I had got into an altercation with someone.

  ‘Do you have your car’s keys on you?’ Rathod said.

  I felt my pockets instinctively and felt it against my jeans. I pulled it out.

  ‘Did you check your car?’ Rathod said, and I felt dumb not to have thought of it before.

  ‘I didn’t,’ I said, my voice fading away as I turned to my car and unlocked it.

  Rathod opened the back door and checked the back seats while I searched the front.

  ‘There’s nothing here,’ I said almost as Rathod ducked out shaking his head. I bent down and popped open the boot. I jerked my head towards it to tell Rathod to examine it.

  He turned away towards it. The next words he said cut through the cold night air and sent shivers through my body.

  Chapter Seven

  ‘Siya, there’s a body in here,’ Rathod said.

  I rushed to his side and saw a woman’s body curled up in the boot of my car. Her clothes were drenched in blood.

  Rathod put a finger on her neck. ‘I can feel a pulse. She’s alive,’ he said, his eyes almost popping out.

  ‘Let’s get her to the front,’ I said.

  Rathod held her shoulders and I picked up her legs. We transferred her to the back seat. Rathod took the wheel and I sat at the back with the woman. That’s when I saw my mobile phone. It had fallen on the car floor near the back seat. I picked it up and checked it. I saw the call I had made to Rathod and the calls I had got from the unknown person. There was nothing else on it since morning.

  ‘She has been stabbed in the stomach,’ I said, noticing the stab wound in her clothes.

  Blood was still oozing out. I took the same hand towel I had used and pushed it against the wound to reduce the bleeding. I didn’t know if it helped because the towel quickly got soaked in the blood. I kept the pressure constant.