Chapter 11

abjeya

@abjeya

CHAPTER 10

Everyone’s attention shifted to Khushi and Khushi’s eyes shifted down, overwhelmed with the attention. She felt someone squeeze her hands and looking at Arnav, she could see the assurance in his eyes. Taking a deep breath, she said “To hear what happened, we have to go to the starting of my meeting with Arnav.” She told the story of what happened in Lucknow and her first meeting with Shyam. She then explains her journey from Lucknow to Delhi, her interactions with Arnav, her marriage with Arnav and Shyam’s role in it. She spoke continuously but then stuttered. Arnav squeezed her hand in assurance and she took a deep breath fortifying herself for what she is going to say next. She said “And then Arnav was kidnapped.” Rathore and Ayesha looked at each other in shock as they had received no such police report in their investigation. Their attention shifted to Khushi as she said “It was around 2 and half month back, I had no solid proof to say that Arnavji was kidnapped but I knew somewhere in my heart that something was wrong with Arnavji. And after receiving that phone call, I was even more sure of something being wrong and someone was preventing me from finding out that Arnavji is kidnapped. At first, I had no one to tell then Mamiji found out and then NK. After NK found out, we knew it was too risky to involve Mamiji anymore so we kept her out. One day we got a lead and when we followed it, we reached a place.”

Flashback

Khushi and NK look at each other in frustration as the lead did not pan out. NK went to get the car, and Khushi was pacing racking her brains up on how to find Arnavji. Suddenly, her mouth was covered and she was pulled to the side, and pushed against the wall,her front to the wall. She heard a voice whisper, “If you want to know more about your Arnav, meet me at the pool at midnight.” The hand was removed from the mouth, and she turned to see no one present behind.

At midnight,

Khushi paced around the pool thinking who can tell her more about Arnav. She heard a voice say “Khushi.” Turning, her mouth opens in shock seeing Lavanyaji standing in front of her. She said “Lavanyaji.” Lavanya puts her finger upto her mouth making a silent gesture. Khushi nodded her head silently. Lavanya gestures to Khushi to follow her.She took Khushi out of the back entrance of the house and making her seated in the car, she drove for sometime until they reached an apartment building. Khushi was bursting with questions but she kept quiet, until they reached the flat and Lavanya locked the door. Khushi couldn’t contain herself anymore and she said “Do you know where Arnavji is ? Is he okay? And how do you know where Arnavji is? Did you know that he is kidnapped?”. Lavanya put her hands on Khushi’s shoulder and said “Stop, Khushi take a deep breath. In total the answer to your question is I don’t know where Arnav is but I know that he is kidnapped.” Khushi takes a step back and looks at her with suspicion. She questions “How do you know that Arnavji is kidnapped? NK still is unsure about him being kidnapped.” She sees Lavanya take a deep breath and puts her hand in her back pocket. Taking something the size of rectangle, she shows it to Khushi, Khushi takes the rectangle, and opening it her eyes widen in shock seeing that it is a police identification badge saying Lavanya’s name as Riya.” She looks at her and said “You are a police officer?”.

Riya nods her head and said “Yes,and my name is not Lavanya, its Riya. Riya Lavanya Kashyap Mukherjee.” Khushi clutches the badge tightly and asked “Your relationship with Arnavji was fake?”.Riya makes her way to the kitchen forcing Khushi to follow her, she makes Khushi sit on the chair and said “Actually My relationship with Arnav was a cover to hide the real purpose of our interaction.” Khushi dumbly said “Cover? Cover for what? What real purpose?”. Placing a hot cup of green tea in her hands,Riya said “Khushi, ASR was working as an informant, for me. We were working together to take down human trafficking rings.” Khushi stares at Lavanya dumbly and gulps down the tea without tasting it. Keeping the cup on the side, Riya takes Khushi’s hands in hers and said “Khushi, I know it’s a lot to process but we don’t have time. Arnav and I had set up a routine, he is supposed to call me twice a week at a pre-decided time. Its been two weeks and I didn’t receive a call. I know Arnav and he is meticulous. That’s why I have come here Khushi.Khushi, I need you to tell me everything on what happened, since your last contact with Arnav.”

Flashback ends

Khushi looks at Rathore and Ayesha, “For four hours, Riya continued to question about everything I knew.For the first time, I got an idea on what a police interrogation was like and I wasn’t even in the police station.” Khushi gives a watery chuckle as she said “That must have been the only time, I drunk so much green tea. After that, I have always thought green tea with that night.” Khushi looks at Arnav and clutching his hand and said “But she believed my suspicion about Shyam. Riya had already pulled the phone call records of Arnav’s kidnapping day and was able to match the number on Shyam’s phone records. We tracked down the location to the house,where Arnavji was held but I was caught by Shyam. To rescue me, Riya and Arnavji had to leave behind gathering the evidence. She was able to get the cell phone from one of the kidnappers, which we were able to use to prove that Shyam was behind Arnav’s kidnapping.”

Arnav then took over the tale “Because Di begged me, so I didn’t file a police complaint on Shyam, just threw him out of the house. It was a rough one month. All of us was stressed. Then Dadi happened.”Ayesha looks at Khushi and asked, “Then how did you become Riya’s informant?”.Khushi replies, “During that night, when I explained why Shyam would do Arnavji’s kidnapping, I had also explained the reason, Riya made sure, I never hid anything from her. After that, I used to get one call from Riya for the past one month, asking more information about Shyam’s interaction with me.”

Rathore asked “Did you both know that Riya was also investigating a case?”. Arnav said “I just knew that it was a missing person case. Further details Riya never shared with me. And after,she had transferred to the ETF, she also stopped sharing the details of the human trafficking cases.” Ayesha said “Did you not find it suspicious, that when you were going to take down the main person for the human trafficking, at that time only Riya was transferred to the ETF.” Arnav nods his head and said “I did find it suspicious and Riya also found it suspicious, but there seemed to be no foul play involved and I know that none of the usual human trafficking methods have been used even when Riya has been shifted to the ETF. I have been sponsoring one of the NGOs for human trafficking victims, and they have reported no new news of any human trafficking having taken place due to fake fashion modelling agencies. It was also to my understanding that since the case had gotten bigger, her superiors thought that it was now a case much suited to the resources of the ETF. But since the transferring of the case would take sometime, so she would be transferred and she can brief the ETF in time for this case.”

Ayesha said “Did you not note anything during your interaction with any of the suspects during the investigation? Anything, which was suspicious enough to warrant evidence?”. Arnav thought long and hard and said “The most involved suspects, used to always take one name,but we couldn’t find any evidence for the name to exist. Riya thought it was more likely a codename, so she planned to find the patterns in the crimes committed in the ETF archives. At least that was what she told me the last time, I spoke to her. Further discussion was never done, giving the reason that it was too dangerous to discuss over the phone and after her transfer, she never got the time to spent longer that two days with us.” Rathore said, “What was the name the suspects used to mention?” Arnav said immediately “Sikander. The name was Sikander.”

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