Flaming Sun Collection 3: Perfect Twins Find Anya (Box Set with 3 novellas)

by Sundari Venkatraman

  She shrugged, looking at him. “Oh by the way, don’t forget. Not a word to my parents of our divorce. I don’t want them sweeping back into my life. I’ve just got my freedom and...”

  “Oh, you’ve been feeling tied down with me since our marriage,” winked Farhan, a mischievous look on his face.

  “Hahaha! Of course not. But you know what I mean about being absolutely free and independent.”

  Farhan nodded. “The same goes to my parents too. Though I don’t think they will get in touch with you.” His parents were reclusive and had washed their hands of their elder son after he got married to a girl who didn’t belong to their Parsi community.

  “Sure,” said Anya. “I’ll see you then.” With a smile and a wave, Anya walked away from him. She was free! Free to live her life exactly the way she wanted. She did her best to keep her face straight, lowering her eyes so that she wouldn’t be mistaken for a crazy woman, laughing all by herself. She went to the parking area and got into her car, sitting in it for a few minutes to absorb her jubilation. She’d never been so happy in all of her twenty-four years. Looking into the rear view mirror, she saw her dark brown eyes glowing. She ran her fingers through her thick, curly hair, pushing at the locks that tended to fall on her forehead. Free! Free! Free!

  Anya drove out of the parking lot, her mind on reflex mode as she mentally made a list of all the things that she needed to complete that day. She had taken the day off from work and the long weekend stretched deliciously in front of her. It had been big of Farhan to write over their flat to her. Considering that it was in an excellent locality in Bandra, not far from the sea, she was lucky indeed. She had never expected that. The slow moving traffic failed to bother her as she sang along with the music blaring from her car radio, a smile not far from her lips.

  Horns tooted behind her when the signal turned green. Right at the front of the line, Anya shifted her white Audi into first gear before moving forward, not noticing the speeding truck that had broken the signal on the opposite side and was swooping towards her.

  Anya didn’t know what hit her as she felt her body being lifted up in the air before it fell down with a thud, her ears protesting the noise of the screech of metal against metal before the world turned black, shutting everything out.

  2

  Farhan waved off Anya before taking out his cell to call his boyfriend, Arth Sharma. “Hey,” called out Farhan, a smile in his voice, confident of being loved. “It’s gone through, my divorce. I’ve the papers with me.”

  “Awesome,” replied Arth, equally enthusiastic. “You’ve taken the whole day off, right? Why don’t you come over to my shop? Let’s celebrate.”

  “Done. On my way,” said Farhan, walking towards the car park. He got into his car, chatting away to Arth as he reversed. “See you then. I’m disconnecting my phone as I’m driving towards the gates.”

  “See you,” said Arth.

  Farhan drove out of the gates, speeding as he was in a hurry to reach his lover. This was the first time he was going to meet Arth as a free man. Just as he moved towards the signal, he saw that a lorry had crashed into a car. The car was completely crushed and unrecognisable. Wondering if he should stop to help, he heard a police siren along with an ambulance. He also noticed a tall guy standing there, guiding the traffic, obviously having taken charge of the scene. Pushing away his guilt, Farhan roared away from there, eager to get to Vashi, unaware that it was his ex-wife and best friend who had met with an accident.

  Dev Wadhwa stood there, near the crushed car, guiding the traffic along with a police constable. He had been waiting at the opposite signal in his steel grey Innova Crysta, third in line behind the truck. Seeing the accident happen right there in front of him, Dev had jumped out of his car to rush to the spot. The truck driver wouldn’t have stopped if Dev hadn’t yelled out at him, taking pictures of both the driver and the licence plate with his iPhone. As for the car, it was crushed almost flat, beyond recognition.

  It was a woman driver and she had been thrown clean out, cracking her head against the divider. Dev walked to her to find out what state she was in and turned pale under his tan when he saw who it was.

  Anya!

  Oh my God! He hadn’t foreseen their meeting to be under such terrible circumstances after all these years. Not that he had ever expected to meet her.

  Pushing away the thoughts swirling in this mind, Dev reached out a trembling hand to touch the pulse at her throat and breathed a sigh of relief when he found it fluttering under his finger. Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Dev straightened to take his phone out. He called an ambulance service as well as the police, in that order. Luckily, there was no fire, but he couldn’t get to either Anya’s cell phone or any identification as the car was totally mangled. While he remembered her first name, he couldn’t recall the surname and didn’t know whom to contact. Her things were obviously stuck inside the mangled car and weren’t accessible. No choice but to wait for help.

  The traffic cop arrived on the scene, after Dev had finished with his calls. When asked, the cop whined about having gone to the public toilet that was a distance away, on a side road. Well—Dev mentally shrugged to himself—that was that, no apology given.

  Before the ambulance arrived, Dev had called a mechanic friend of his, requesting him to take his car away. There was no way that Dev was going to leave Anya alone during her ride to the hospital.

  The ambulance arrived along with the police. “Lady driver. No wonder there was an accident,” said the police inspector, a sarcastic smile on his face.

  Dev gritted his teeth, holding back his temper. “No Inspector. The lady was driving correctly in this case. She started her car when the signal turned green, in fact, only after the cars behind her started honking. But the truck driver drove fast, after the signal turned red. He was at fault.”

  “And how would you know?” asked the inspector, a scowl on his face. He wanted to wrap the case up as fast and as easily as possible. If the victim was at fault, there was bound to be less trouble.

  “I was at the opposite signal...”

  “I think you should be on your way, mister. You couldn’t have seen much from so far away.” The policeman smirked, feeling all powerful.

  Dev gave the other man an intimidating look from his dark grey eyes, visibly shaking the man up. “I definitely saw way more from the other side than what you could see from your police station, sir.” Sarcasm dripped from his voice. “I was one car behind the truck and had stopped as the signal turned red. The truck didn’t. The woman in the car started hers because the vehicles behind her were impatient to leave as their signal had turned green. Anyway, the ambulance is here and I’ll need to go with the victim. Do you want to take my name and contact number, just in case?” Dev turned as if to go, impatience in every line of his body.

  “Wait a minute, who the hell are you to take charge? I’m the police here,” the inspector snarled, his ego refusing to take a beating.

  “I agree. And you have a lot of work here since the car is smashed beyond recognition. And the truck driver sits across in his vehicle, refusing to co-operate. We don’t have an identity on the victim and I couldn’t find either her cell or her purse or whatever she was carrying. I couldn’t even see the license plate. There’s no way of contacting her family...”

  “You’re going too fast, young man. Let the law do its work.”

  “Of course sir. I’ll be on my way then,” said Dev. He had noticed that Anya had been settled inside the ambulance and was keen to leave with her.

  “Stop right here; give me your name and number. And show your identification too,” said the inspector belligerently, not liking being thwarted.

  Dev bit his lip to stop himself from smiling despite his anxiety, handing his driving license to the inspector. He also took out a small notebook he carried in his pocket, wrote his name and phone number and tearing out the page, handed it to the constable hovering behind the inspector. Taking his license from
the inspector’s hand, he sprinted across to the ambulance, impatient to get the unconscious Anya to a doctor. He instructed the ambulance driver to take them to Lajwanti Hospital that wasn’t very far away.

  Dev sat beside the prone figure of Anya, his heart bleeding for her. Dev touched her forehead, gently pushing back the few strands of hair that had fallen over it. Not surprisingly, her face was extraordinarily pale. He held her slender wrist between his thumb and forefinger to check her pulse. He found to his relief that it was still beating, though on the erratic side. Dev took her hand in both of his, holding it between his palms, saying a silent prayer that she recovered quickly. He couldn’t help but notice the contrast between their hands. Hers was small and white as it lay in his large, tanned hands. Without realising what he was doing, Dev raised her hand and pressed his lips to the centre of her palm, his heart going out to her, willing her to become alright. He couldn’t help recalling...no, he wouldn’t go there, not now, when he needed all his wits about him to get Anya back on her feet.

  The ambulance reached the hospital within ten minutes and stopped at the entrance to the emergency ward. Luckily, Dev had contacts there. Anya was taken in without too many questions asked. She needed urgent treatment and she was going to get it.

  Dr. Adnani stepped out after half an hour to talk to Dev. “While the good news is that no other part of her body is injured, the victim has cracked her head when it hit the pavement. There’s internal bleeding is what I see from preliminary tests. There will be more tests to be conducted. I’d like to know upfront who will foot the bills. Would you know if she has medical insurance? You do understand that...”

  “No worries, Dr. Adnani. I’ll handle that. In fact, I can pay in advance if required. You can bill it to my company’s account as I know only the first name of the victim.”

  Dr. Adnani turned around to call out to a nurse. “Guide Mr. Wadhwa to the billing counter, and before you go...” He turned to a station to pick up the hospital’s prescription pad to scribble some instructions on it quickly. Handing it over to the nurse, he said, “These are the tests and immediate treatments for the accident victim. Get a bill made in the name of this gentleman’s company.” The doctor nodded to Dev. “You can go along with Nurse Saldana, Mr. Wadhwa. And thank you. That’s truly a weight off my mind. And oh, by the way, have the police been notified?”

  Dev nodded. “Of course, doctor. They are working on finding Anya’s identification even as we talk.” He surreptitiously crossed his fingers behind his back. The police inspector didn’t seem to give a damn about anything. He wondered if they might have got anywhere with the investigation. Well, Dev was his own boss and had all the time in the world. Only he was worried for Anya’s family. They must surely be perturbed that she hadn’t gone home or wherever she had been going.

  He went along with Nurse Saldana to get the bills paid. “Wadhwa Farm, that’s the name of my company. Please bill it in that name.” He removed a visiting card and handed it over to the man in charge of accounts.

  Dev went to sit on a visitor’s chair, making a few urgent calls while the formalities were being conducted. After filling forms and paying bills, he asked for the way to the canteen to get himself a cup of much-needed coffee.

  3

  It was a little more than two days since the accident. Anya was in a coma and Dr. Adnani couldn’t tell Dev when she might be out of it, if at all. But there was no way that Dev was going to leave Anya by herself. He booked a suite at the hospital and stayed there along with her, working out of the hospital room, using his mobile and laptop to carry out his business dealings. He had instructed Shaan, his assistant, to manage the farm. There were many orders to be fulfilled, but he was confident that Shaan would be able to handle them.

  Dev was also constantly in touch with the police. He had even visited the police station twice to find out if they had any information. Anya’s mobile was in smithereens and was of no help. They hadn’t been able to find a handbag either. Dev wanted to scream in frustration. He was sure that someone had stolen her purse or handbag, whatever she’d been carrying. How could someone drive a car without anything? For all you know, it could be someone from the police department who had flicked it. “But sir, there must have been some kind of paper in the vehicle, right? Please give me the license number. I’ll try to trace the owner myself.”

  Police Inspector Borkar smirked. “What’s the hurry, Wadhwa? We are all so busy here, working on so many cases. Only yesterday, there was a bomb scare in a school. And today morning...” He droned on and on about the importance of police work.

  A visibly annoyed Dev wished the man a ‘good day’ and left the police station, frustration in every line of his body. He had been tracking the news on TV channels as well as newspapers in case her face had been splashed as a missing person. No use asking the police for help for the same as they were so non-cooperative.

  A deep sigh shook him from the core of his being. A few years back, Anya’s relatives had been his parents’ neighbours. They had moved away subsequently. Dev had even called his estranged mother to get a contact number. But it seemed like the Madhvanis hadn’t left any.

  Dev wasn’t too social media savvy though he had a Facebook account. He opened it now to check for Anya. Clicking on ‘people’ under the name Anya, he scrolled and then he scrolled some more—down the page to see so many accounts, some Indian and many foreign ones. Damn it! It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. A random search across Google as well as Google images yielded nothing. He hesitantly opened his LinkedIn account, only to find a number of Anyas there too. But there was none with curly shoulder length hair, wheat complexion, a tip-tilted nose and coffee brown eyes that fitted the woman who was lying in a coma.

  Giving up after a while, Dev walked up and down and up and down in the hospital room, wondering how to deal with the problem. As he turned to look at Anya, he couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. If he remembered right, she must be about twenty-four years old. Her parents must be worried crazy, wondering what must have happened to her. They lived somewhere in Punjab, in Chandigarh if he wasn’t mistaken. And Anya, he didn’t really know if she lived with them or here in Mumbai. Could she have taken up a job somewhere? In that case, wouldn’t her colleagues miss her? Was it so easy for a person to disappear in Mumbai? Damn it! She had been driving a car. There was her license, her car number plate and so many other things that could help them trace her family. Why the hell was no one bothered?

  Dev turned around in a hurry when he thought he heard a groan of pain, startled to see that Anya’s eyes were open in a slit, as she looked vaguely in his direction. He walked close to the bed, a wide smile on his face. Thank God for that! Now he didn’t need the police’s help to trace her parents.

  She woke up in the hospital, alone—or so she thought—not noticing the man who was burning a hole in the carpet with his pacing. Her head was throbbing in pain and she could open her eyes barely a slit as she took in her surroundings. She raised a hand to her head or at least tried to. There were needles stuck in her arm, connected to tubes and monitors. She turned her head with great difficulty as a groan inadvertently broke from her throat. She tried to talk, but no sound came. Had she lost her voice?

  “Hello,” said Dev softly, not wanting to startle her. While he had immediately recognised Anya, Dev wondered if she would remember him. He watched as her eyes opened wider, feeling the strong pull of attraction as he looked deeply into her chocolate brown eyes. She was even more beautiful than before.

  “Who are you?” Her voice was a croak.

  Anya didn’t remember him. Though he didn’t want to attach too much importance to it, Dev did feel shaken. Pushing his thoughts away, he rang the bell for the nurse before pouring some water into a glass and letting her sip from it, giving her time to swallow. “I am Dev.”

  She nodded before groaning again. “My head’s hurting, terribly. What happened to me?”

  Nurse Saldana walked in, calling out
a cheerful, “Good evening, ma’am. Lovely to see you awake.” She took her patient’s wrist to check her pulse and found it a bit erratic even now. “Dr. Adnani should be coming in fifteen minutes during his rounds. Now tell me, what’s your full name?” she asked.

  She stared at the nurse, bewilderment on her face. “Name?” A heavy scowl marred her forehead as she thought hard, delving into the depths of her mind to find an answer, before an expression of horror overtook her lovely face. “I don’t know,” she said in a whisper.

  The shocked nurse gave Dev a startled look before patting the patient’s shoulder awkwardly. “Let me go get the doctor.”

  4

  It was Sunday evening when Amal Chhabria lost it with her daughter. “Irresponsible girl! I’ve been trying to reach her since yesterday morning and look at her, she’s got her phone switched off. It’s weekend and not one call to her parents.” Amal continued to complain to her husband Gaurav who was watching the cricket match with total concentration. “Kyunji, did you listen to even one word I uttered? This is how it’s always been. Only the mother should worry all the time. The father never cares.” Her voice had been rising by a few decibels with each sentence.

  Without removing his eyes from the TV screen, Gaurav replied, “I’m sure our neighbours also heard you Amal. And why should I worry? You do that enough for half a dozen people, all by yourself. If you can’t get in touch with Anya, why don’t you call Farhan? Her phone is probably broken for all you know and she needs to buy a new one.” Gaurav didn’t understand the need to fret for every small thing.

  Amal made a face at her husband before dialling Anya’s husband’s number. “Hello Farhan, how are you?” she gushed. She was ever so grateful to the boy for marrying her daughter and giving her a life. Otherwise, the girl would still be at her mother’s house, eating her head. What all had Amal not undergone to bring up her tomboy of a daughter?!