Quiet in Her Bones

by Singh, Nalini

  My foot suddenly felt wet and dirty. “I understand.” Smiling gently, I said, “I figured you and my father would’ve come to a ceasefire by now.”

  “If Ishaan would leave us alone, we’d return the favor.” Her tone was arctic. “You know he reported us to the Law Society?”

  “I try not to pay too much attention to my father’s actions.”

  Expression softening, she said, “Wise move.” She rolled her lower lip inward. “I was sorry to hear about Nina. We were never close, but I think that’s because we were too much ­alike—­never content to accept the patriarchal status quo.”

  “Did you see or hear anything the night she vanished?”

  “I was in Queenstown to represent a ­client—­I have a vivid memory of standing in my hotel room, staring out at the lake when Brett called to update me on what was going on. It must’ve been a few days afterward, when Ishaan filed the theft complaint.”

  “You were in Queenstown the entire time?”

  “Left two days before Nina drove away. But Brett was ­home—­he told me it was so stormy that night he didn’t even think about going out. Made a nice pasta, lit the fire, and had a night in. Saw or heard nothing.” She looked at her watch. “I better go finish prepping for work. Talk later, okay?”

  As I watched her walk into the foggy gray between the tree ferns, I considered the fluid, pat nature of her answer. Was that just the way her brain ­worked … or was it the ease of a trial lawyer used to playing deep games? Brett was a different kind of lawyer altogether. He didn’t show up in court to represent clients. And he hadn’t shown up to make the apology.

  No, it was his trial lawyer wife who’d done that.

  Brett, who’d once had dark hair, and who’d been alone at home that night.

  I was still considering Veda and Brett when I dropped Pari off at school on my way to my apartment. My head ached after a bad night’s sleep and plenty of nightmares, but the good news was that my leg was doing better. I’d been afraid the little tussle with Riki would set me back, but I’d managed to come through unscathed except for a scratchy throat.

  “Bhaiya, are you still coming to my recital next Friday?” Pari asked as I stopped near the school gates.

  “Wouldn’t miss it.” I took out my phone. “To make extra sure, you want to program it into my calendar?”

  A huge smile breaking out over her face, she tapped it in. “You said you’d wear a tuxedo.”

  “You can help me slice open one side of my pants so I can get it on over the boot.” She’d gleefully helped do the same to my jeans and sweatpants.

  “Yes!” She was still smiling when she turned at the gate to wave at me.

  Waving back, I watched until she was safely inside. Then I headed to the apartment that had been my first splashy purchase after the royalties started rolling in. The Porsche had been number two, but that spot in the garage was as empty as the last time I’d seen it. The sedan was a hulking square block in comparison to the sleek lines of the Porsche, but it fit fine.

  I bypassed the reception area today, going straight up to my apartment.

  The last person I expected to see in the hallway outside my door, hand lifted as if to knock, was the ­long-­legged beauty with sharp cheekbones who’d made me fall hard enough that my heart still kicked at the sight of ­her—­despite her absence when I’d needed her most. “Paige.”

  “Aarav, hi.” A tremulous smile. “You look much better than in the photos the paps took when you left the hospital.”

  When I input my numerical key, she sucked in a breath. “You didn’t change the code after I left?”

  “I didn’t think you were exactly eager to break in.” Using my back to push open the door, I angled my head. “You coming in?”

  She did, in silence, only unwrapping herself from her big black coat after the door shut behind us. As always, the transformation was ­immediate—­she went from shapeless to a strikingly thin hourglass. It made her a favorite among designers who seemed to want the female form but with no flesh on the bone.

  The look suited Paige.

  Unlike most models, she didn’t pretend she ate like a horse and was naturally thin. No, she ate a controlled but healthy diet, and exercised in intense bursts each and every day. That meant she was thin, but very strong. But when she walked across the room, it was pure grace in motion. She’d wanted to be a ballerina once upon a time, and it showed in her movements.

  “You want a Coke?” she asked with a smile. “I’m guessing you haven’t kicked the habit?”

  “I’ll die with a Coke in hand.” I made my way to the sofa, while she smiled and went to grab the drinks.

  Coke for me, and a kombucha for her. I must’ve still had a couple of her favorite brand stuck in the back of the fridge.

  When she sat down, it wasn’t next to me, but across on the other sofa. “I wanted to see how you were doing.” Teeth sinking into her lower lip. “I heard about your mum. I’m sorry.”

  She was so beautiful, Paige, one of those people others stared at in an attempt to figure out how an individual could be so perfect. Green eyes, brutally short blonde hair feathered to frame her extraordinary face with its ­cut-­glass cheekbones.

  I’d often watched her as she slept, even more lovely in her peace.

  “Thanks for saying that.” I left the Coke where it was; I probably didn’t need more caffeine in my system so soon after my morning hit. “How are you?”

  “Good. Booking lots of shows.” A dazzling smile before it faded. “I feel so guilty about our last conversation. I shouldn’t have said those things.”

  “You were right. I am screwed up in the head and I did need help. I’m seeing a therapist.”

  “Really?” The green turned to a glow, St. Elmo’s fire in human eyes. “Oh, that’s wonderful.”

  Suddenly, I knew I could have her again if I wanted. The way she looked at me, she’d forgotten she’d once been afraid of the rage that she said burned cold and deep inside me.

  Paige thought she’d saved me, that I was a better man.

  “Aarav.” Soft voice, soft lips. “I miss you. I miss us.”

  I had to save her. She was the one living being aside from Pari who cared for me. She didn’t deserve my brokenness screwing up her life. “We were hollow, Paige. Nothing of substance there.”

  Flinching, she hugged herself, her shoulders sharp angles. “Don’t say that. We ­talked—­about real things, emotions.”

  “Yes. You probably got closer to me than anyone else, but that’s not very far. I just don’t have that capacity. I think it died when my mother disappeared.” Dr. Jitrnicka had been circling around that topic for the past couple of months.

  “Your emotional responses are somewhat outside of the norm,” was how he’d put it, his pale brown eyes intent as he stared over the top of his bifocals.

  I’d describe it far more bluntly: something irrevocable had happened to me the night my mother vanished, a kind of fracture that nothing would ever fix.

  “Don’t say that.” Paige rose and came around to sit next to me, her hands tender on my face as she cupped my cheeks. “You couldn’t write with such passion and visceral emotion if you didn’t feel.”

  She’d always smelled of fresh, wild things, and I drew it in with every breath. Desperate to hold onto this small piece of her. I’d almost forgotten her scent. Almost forgotten the depth and beauty of her irises.

  “According to several major critics, my characters are cardboard cutouts and the only thing that saved my first book is the insane twist in the plot.” Paige had seen me burn the shredded pieces of those reviews.

  “Hundreds of other reviewers call you a shining light in popular fiction.”

  Lifting my hands, I tugged Paige’s off my face. “When I write, I’m in someone else’s head. My characters are like dolls I can manipulate. Just like I manipulate people in real life.”

  Dr. Jitrnicka nodded approvingly inside my head. “Be honest, Aarav. Show your t
rue self.”

  Touching her cheek with my fingers, I smiled and it was fucking sad. “Get away from me, Paige. I’ll chew you up and spit you out and you’ll have nothing to show for it but pain and scars.” Leaning in as tears formed in her eyes, I kissed her pale pink lips. “You can’t save me. I’m well beyond that.”

  So far beyond that I was capable of murder. The person who’d killed my mother was as good as dead. All I needed was their name.

  The intercom buzzed.

  Picking up the remote handset on the nearby side table, I said, “Yes?”

  “Aarav, I have a Detective Regan and a Constable Neri here for you.”

  “Send them up. Thanks, Bobby.” After hanging up, I kissed Paige one last time before I got up with the crutches snugged in my armpits.

  Wiping the tears off her face, she rose after me. I watched as she put on her shapeless black coat. Her eyes were ­red-­rimmed when she looked at me. “You’re a far better person than you think, Aarav. No matter what, you can always call me.”

  “I know.” I also knew that I never would. I’d save Paige even if I couldn’t save myself.

  The police were heading toward my door when Paige stepped out. She gave me one last look of entreaty before heading toward the elevator. It took everything I had not to scream at her to stay, to be with me even if I was a fucking mess.

  The cops didn’t look at her, their attention on me.

  “Detective, Constable,” I said as the elevator doors closed on Paige’s face. “Come on in.”

  35

  Once they stepped in, I nodded toward the sofas. “I can’t offer you coffee but I have soft drinks.”

  “We’re fine,” the senior officer answered.

  Neri, meanwhile, had taken a seat but was scrutinizing everything around her without seeming to do much at all. She wouldn’t learn anything from this ­room—­I’d had it decorated by an interior designer so it gave the right impression for a successful young author. The real me lived in the bedroom and study ­areas—­mostly the study. Even Paige hadn’t spent much time in ­there … but I had allowed her in. The only lover I’d welcomed into that space.

  “I resent anyone else in my writing area,” I’d said in that infamous interview where I’d been photographed on my bike. “It’s like they’re sucking my creative energy with their silent request for attention.”

  The “prima donna” taunts had come quick and fast, but the quote had also spawned a number of think pieces by other creative types. One had written: “It eats away at my creative soul, this need that presses in on me on all sides. I crave the beautiful isolation of Thoreau’s Walden Pond and feel selfish for turning my back on those who offer me only love.”

  Yep, one of my misanthropic brethren. Also one who hadn’t done his research. Thoreau’s cabin wasn’t in the middle of nowhere, he had plenty of company, and oh, he probably asked his mum for meal deliveries since she lived so close.

  No one had ever had the balls to ask me why I published my work, if I was so set on solitary creativity. If they had, I’d tell them they were two different things. Two different Aaravs. One who wanted to shut out the world. And one who wanted to bask in the screaming attention of that same world.

  “What can I do for you, Detective Senior Sergeant, Constable?” Polite and nonconfrontational was the order of the day until I knew what they wanted.

  “Could you go through the events of that night as you recall them?” Regan said.

  I wondered if I should tell them about the knock to the head I’d taken in the accident and how it had shaken a few things from their usual places, but decided there was no point. They wouldn’t take me seriously if they knew I was under the close supervision of a neurosurgeon and a neurologist.

  “I fell asleep to the sound of my parents arguing,” I began.

  “Anything unusual in that?”

  So, the police had gotten their hands on information about my parents’ vicious marriage. I wondered who’d given up that dirty little secret. If I had to guess, I’d say Diana. She’d always been fiercely loyal to my mother while being unable to stand my father. “No,” I said. “Might as well have been a lullaby.”

  No one laughed.

  “What time of night was that?”

  “I don’t know exactly when, but it was late. They’d come back from some dinner or ­other—­so I’d say it was after eleven. Usually, it’d be even later, but I guess with the weather turning so bad, they decided to head home.”

  I frowned, thinking back to that night when my world had shifted on its axis. “I’d been to a party the night before.” Sixteen had been my transition from nerd to ­hot—­that’s how one of my old classmates had put it in that same article.

  “Aarav used to be this skinny, quiet nerd. No one bullied him because he always had the kind of smarts that gets respect, but he wasn’t popular. Then we went on summer break, and he came back built, and sort of ­intense-­quiet. Nerd to hot.”

  I’d been exactly the same boy, just one who’d grown into my body. “It was my first big party.” A chaos of lithe young bodies around a campfire on a beach, my first kiss a mash of mouths behind a sand dune. “To be honest, I had the hangover from hell the next day. I still wasn’t feeling too crash hot that night, and that’s why I went to bed earlyish for me.”

  “Did you wake up at any point?”

  “I heard a woman’s ­scream—­my mother’s—­and it woke me up.”

  Regan leaned forward. “How can you be sure of what you heard if you woke out of a deep sleep?”

  “That scream’s haunted me for ten years.” I held his ­dishwater-­blue gaze. “I almost went back to sleep again, but then I heard the front door slam twice.”

  “How do you know it was the front door?”

  “My room’s always been right above ­it—­I know the sound.”

  “And you’re sure it was twice?”

  “Yes. With a gap in between of a few seconds. I ran to the balcony that overlooks the ­street—­I knew both my parents had been drinking and I didn’t want them driving.” It didn’t matter if they knew the truth now; this wasn’t a ­drunk-­driving ­case … or was it? Had my father skidded out and just left my mother there? Murder by incompetence? “I was calling out my mother’s name, but I’d injured my leg ­and …”

  My eyes fell on my leg, on the moon boot.

  “A broken limb?”

  Jerking out of the strange slip in time, I shook my head, the facts having re-­emerged in my bruised brain. “No, I’d cut myself when I fell onto some glass at the party and I had stitches all up my calf.” The faint line was still there, a scar that marked the night of my mother’s death. “It made me slow, and then the door to the balcony stuck. It always used to do that in the rain.”

  I could feel the strain in my biceps from how hard I’d had to pull at it, how I’d struggled with the lock. “It was too late by the time I got out there and called out for my mum to stop. All I could see through the storm were the red taillights of her car and then the Jaguar was moving down the Cul-­de-­Sac and away into the night.”

  Neri, who’d been silent throughout, said, “You’re sure it was her vehicle you saw?”

  “The taillights were distinctive and no one else on the street had a Jag. Plus, I saw her park her car in the main drive earlier that ­day—­my father had blocked our drive and internal garage with his own vehicle.”

  So many small pieces that had all contributed to her death. I would’ve been fast enough if she’d parked in the garage. I might’ve been able to stop her. I always had before.

  “What happened after that?” Detective Regan asked, his voice calm and soothing.

  As if I was a wild animal that had to be stroked into compliance. I wondered if that type of gentling really worked on suspects. It must do, if they kept on using such things. “I stayed on the balcony for a while, hoping she’d come back, but I heard nothing. Since I was already awake, I went downstairs to see if my father was around.�
��

  I’d really gone to ask what asshole thing he’d said to her now. Sixteen was also the year I’d begun to call a spade a spade when it came to my father. “There was no one in the house. The living area was empty, but I saw shattered glass on the hearth.”

  “Shattered glass?”

  “My parents were both big believers in throwing crystal tumblers at any available wall or surface when they fought.” I shrugged. “I left it, and decided to go back to bed.” A sense of wrongness gnawed at me, but that was no revelation; everything about that night had been bad. “I thought my mother would be there when I woke up. She always came home once she’d cooled down.”

  The two officers exchanged a look, before Neri said, “So this wasn’t unusual? For her to drive off?”

  “No, though she usually didn’t give him the satisfaction of thinking that he’d scared her off. She’d stand and fight and take pleasure in telling him to take it like a man.”

  “Aarav, I know it’s a difficult thing to imagine, but do you believe your father could’ve harmed your mother?”

  I answered almost before Regan had completed his sentence. “It’s not difficult at all. They hated each other but they also had this weird compulsion to be together. It was toxic.” The kind of toxic that poisoned from the inside out. “I can imagine him following her to her car to continue their fight, doing something he couldn’t take back, then dumping her body.”

  It struck me all at once that that didn’t explain the rug. I’d seen shards of glass on it that night, but no blood or anything else incriminating. Was it possible my mother had actually come back that night, only to be murdered in the living area?

  “We’ve found no reports of domestic violence at the home.” Regan made a show of looking at his notebook.

  “Rich Indians don’t report domestic violence, detective. It’s bad for the ­reputation—­and reputation is everything. The shame, the shame, what will people say?” Popping open the tab of my Coke on that mocking litany, I listened to the gas fizzing out. “And the houses in the Cul-­de-­Sac are far enough apart that the neighbors can’t hear anything. Even if they could, they’d keep out of it. None of their business.”