Memories

23

Bharat

This case was gnawing at me day by day, like a splinter buried too deep to pull out. Every morning, I woke up with the same bitter taste in my mouth — frustration. Every night I went to bed with unanswered questions echoing in my head.

We were back at square one.

No fresh attacks on Karthik. No suspicious movements from the relatives we were tailing. No sudden transfers of money that we could trace. Just... silence. And silence in cases like these was the worst enemy of all.

It wasn't that I wasn't trying. God knows I was. Ever since Karthik's accident, I had put my entire reputation, my career, and frankly, my sanity on the line to solve it. But the more I dug, the more the dirt slipped through my fingers.

I thought about the sketch we got from the lorry driver — the one Karthik had practically scared out of him. A rough face, early twenties, lean build, a scar running diagonally near the jawline. It wasn't much, but it was something. I had immediately circulated it to every friend I trusted in the force, attaching strict instructions:

If you hear even a whisper about this guy, you call me first. Day or night, doesn't matter.

But days had passed. Nothing.

On the other side of things, Shivani and Anjali had been relentless. For two women who weren't trained investigators, I had to admit, their instincts were sharp. Shivani in particular had a knack for hacking into records, finding discrepancies in bank transfers, catching sudden jumps in shareholdings across Karthik's relatives' companies. Anjali wasn't far behind — she was more methodical, cataloguing everything, cross-checking patterns that the rest of us might overlook.

Together, we had been... stalking. Yes, stalking was the right word. Every cousin, every uncle, every relative with even a tiny claim to the Varma empire was under our microscope. Phones, accounts, travel records — nothing was off the table.

And still, my gut churned with the same thought: We're close. We're circling the truth, but something is deliberately keeping us out.

I rubbed my temples, staring at the growing wall of evidence on my office board. Pictures, bank slips, maps — and yet no clear trail. The clock ticked louder in the silence, and I wondered if I was letting Karthik down.

Then suddenly—

RINGGGGG!!!!!!! RINGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!! RINGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!RINGGGGGG!!!!!!!RINGGG!!!!!!!!!!!

The sharp, continuous ringing of my phone snapped me out of my thoughts. I grabbed it off the table without even checking the caller ID.

"Hello..." I muttered, voice heavy with exhaustion.

The response on the other end wasn't what I expected.

It wasn't information. It wasn't casual chatter. It was a breakdown.

The person on the other side — I couldn't even tell if it was a man or a woman at first — was crying. Not soft tears, but heaving, choking sobs.

"P-please... please you have to help me," the voice finally broke through, raw with desperation.

I sat up straighter. Every nerve in my body went on high alert. "Who is this?"

"They'll kill me... oh God, they'll kill me if they find out I called—"

"Calm down. Who will kill you? Listen, you're safe right now. Talk to me." My voice shifted into the tone I used with witnesses on the brink — firm, steady, grounding.

The caller hiccupped, trying to breathe. "I... I can't say much on the phone. They've been watching. Always watching. But I know about the accident. I know who planned it."

My heart slammed in my chest. After weeks of nothing, finally— finally— a crack in the wall.

"Where are you? We can meet. I'll make sure you're protected."

"I... I can't... not yet." The voice cracked again, trembling like dry leaves. "But you need to know... it wasn't random. It wasn't just some hired lorry driver. They wanted Karthik dead. And if he's alive, then... then they'll try again."

I clenched my jaw, my grip tightening around the phone. The weight of those words pressed into me like lead. I wanted to demand names, dates, evidence — but I knew better. Push too hard, and frightened sources vanish.

"Alright. Breathe. Listen to me. I don't need everything now. But I need something. Anything. Give me one detail. One thread I can pull."

There was a pause. The sound of muffled sobs, maybe even the rustle of footsteps as if they were hiding while talking to me.

Then the voice whispered, so soft I had to strain to hear it.

"The man... the one who paid the drivers... his name isn't on the papers. But he's close. Closer than you think. He's family."

My chest went cold. Family. That single word narrowed the circle drastically.

"Who?" I pressed.

But all I heard was a sharp gasp and then — silence.

The line went dead.

I pulled the phone away, staring at the screen. Call ended. No caller ID. No trace.

But my pulse was racing. I had the first real lead in weeks. Not just speculation, not just suspicion — a voice from the shadows, confirming what we feared: this was an inside job.

And worse — the killer wasn't done.

I leaned back in my chair, exhaling shakily. My mind raced. If it was family... that meant the enemy was sitting under the same roof, sharing meals, smiling for pictures, pretending to be concerned.

I thought of Karthik, who had just gotten his memory back but was keeping it hidden to protect everyone. I thought of Shivani, who was already risking her neck digging through systems she shouldn't have access to. I thought of Anjali, whose optimism could shatter if she realized just how close the traitor was.

I clenched my fists.

This wasn't just about justice anymore. This was about survival. About making sure the next attack didn't succeed.

As I pinned the sketch of the scarred man higher on my evidence board, I whispered to myself, almost like a vow:

Whoever you are... I'll find you. And when I do, you won't have anywhere left to hide.