Paakhi

F O U R

"I...I really don't know anything, Shaan. You have to believe me."

Shantanu bit his lip, his palms were trembling for some odd reason, and his breathing was quite unsteady. He pressed his eyes close, willing himself to exercise more caution and patience as he grabbed his phone more steadily,

"Nishant, please. She's missing. There has to be something you know."

On the other end of the phone, Nishant Ahuja let out an exasperated sigh. "I just told you. I don't know anything!"

Silence crept in the air. And then,

"What are you hiding?"

There was no answer on the other end of the phone, only a weird shuffling, and then, a muffled voice, "I can't have my wife getting involved in this mess, Shaan. I'll call you later-"

"-let me reason with you Nishant." Shantanu deadpanned, his voice professionally calm, but uncomfortably threatening. "You tell me whatever you know now and I will consider not dragging your wife into this, you don't tell me now and I'll find whatever you're hiding anyway; with or without your help. But what I will and can do after that is something I'm sure you can easily imagine for yourself."

Another silence. This one however, had a couple of audible, ragged breaths. Nishant let out a defeated sigh, his voice a careful whisper, "Mohit...he didn't like her meeting with me." he paused, "But she practically had no life outside of...of Mohit's world-"

"-Mohit as in...her husband?"

"Yeah."

Shantanu hated the sound of it. Her husband.

Nishant cleared his throat, "Mohit was under the impression that...that maybe we...you know...she and I had something-"

"-did you?"

"Of course not Shaan! Urgh, what have you taken me for? I have a wife!" He exclaimed, sounding offended. A weird part of Shaan sighed with relief upon that revelation. Tanima was wrong after all.

"Besides, Shaan. Vandana loved...er loves her husband. They were...starting a family together. I mean...I was just a friend. Just someone she liked to hang with sometimes."

Shantanu gazed at the plain wall of his living room quietly. A part of him, a selfish part at that, had almost hoped that it was her husband she was running away from. It gave him the opportunity to have a legitimate reason to hate this man he didn't even know in person.

But Nishant sounded convinced, and he was the only one who had been in proper touch with Vandana since after school. He had no choice but to believe him.

So, Vandana loved her husband.

But why then, would she call him? Why didn't she take her husband's help trying to flee from whoever or whatever she needed to run away from?

"Can you think of any reason she would want to run away?" posed Shantanu, his own mind in a frenzy with so many incomplete pieces of information.

"I uh...no. I mean, she did sound a little lost and...and off the past couple of months but...nothing I can put my finger on."

Great. So a dead end.

"Mohit called you up when she went missing?"

Nishant let out a sarcastic laugh, "More like barged into my house, seconds away from getting physical with me. He was convinced I was going to run away with her or something. That man has issues, Shaan, he has serious trust issues. And I mean, the first couple of years into a marriage I can understand this insecurity but...they've been married for over five years. I don't understand him at all."