The Blue Bar (Blue Mumbai #1)(90)

Tara. He had to reach her. He stared at the map and blinked. He couldn’t spot her signal.

He asked Tukaram to dial Naik. Her voice shook as she said hello.

“I don’t see her, Naik. You?”

“They turned toward the Versova jetty, sir. We lost her signal.”





CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE


TARA

The stench brought her around.

Tara had calmly walked between the two men who had escorted her into a large gray van, permitted them to search her and take away her phone, but when they didn’t respond to her questions about Pia, she’d asked them to let her speak with her daughter or stop the vehicle.

When she’d tried the door handle, one of the thugs had bound her hands behind her, silent and businesslike. Seconds later, the other smothered her with a rough, sweet-smelling cloth. She gasped at a pinprick at her shoulder. The last thought as she struggled with numbing drowsiness was Arnav. Was he still tracking her?

And now, over her dry mouth, a gag that tasted chemical, grassy. Nausea roiled within, and the seat moved in a way no car should.

Based on the noise of the motor and the metal bottom digging into her back, she was in a small boat. The stink came from the water around her. She didn’t want to alert the men who chatted on their phones in anxious bursts of quiet Malayalam. She resisted the urge to struggle. Her hands, still tied, had gone numb. Worse, she couldn’t feel Arnav’s watch at her wrist.

Tamping down rising hysteria, she strove to figure out where she was.

When you’re afraid, breathe. Notice everything.

Were they taking her to Pia, or away? Where was the jackal?

Once, long years ago, she’d boarded the ferry from Versova jetty to Madh with Arnav. His bike was allowed on the ferry, and it was barely five minutes before they’d hit the other side and ridden off to catch the shooting of a movie in a Madh Island bungalow.

A dull light shone from the front. She’d been left near the back, like a sack of goods. They were traveling along, not across, a canal. Ghostly trees on both sides reached their arms over the gloomy waters. The night was alive with the call of mating bullfrogs, a noise she knew from the mangrove marshes near her village in West Bengal.

A few minutes passed, Tara now shivering despite the sultry air. Whatever they had drugged her with had worn off, leaving behind nausea, headache, and the quaking.

The boat’s engine died. It glided onto the bank. The men stepped off. They lifted her, but stumbled and dropped her back into the boat with a thud. She let out a muffled cry.

“Get up and walk.” The tallest of the three dragged her up. With her hands trussed, she lost her balance and crashed again. Her legs hurt with the fall.

The men consulted between themselves in Malayalam, and one of them reached out to untie her hands. He dragged her out of the boat.

“Walk.” The man shoved her, and Tara blundered forward, about to upchuck her guts, her head heavy.

In the dark, she grabbled for her watch but couldn’t find it. She silently called to Ma Kaali. Protect Pia. Lead me to her. Bring us help. She staggered and nearly fell again. When a man hauled her up, she sagged against him, taking him by surprise, landing on top as he sank into the mud beside the narrow, scanty track. The others rushed in, pulling them up, cursing.

They trudged toward dim lights that outlined a large building beyond the trees.

In her other life, Tara had often lightened her drunken clients’ pockets. Part of the trade, Zoya had told her. Tara hadn’t planned on applying that long-forgotten skill, but she wasn’t one to lose an opportunity. Using the pretext of fixing her mud-spattered clothes, which had come undone, she tucked the item she’d filched into the waist of her saree. She’d managed to switch it off, and hoped the thug wouldn’t notice his phone missing anytime soon.





CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO


He smiled to himself. The Item Number was here—not knowing she wouldn’t leave. She used to be a sensation in her time, the queen of item numbers, thrusting her breasts at Bollywood male stars far older than her at one point, and eventually with younger newcomers, till she lost the right shape for sexy dance videos.

He sized her up from behind the curtains, where Bilal had left the wheelchair. It would come in handy later.

She’d worn the blue saree like he’d specified, and stood in the room that was once his father’s study, drumming her ringed fingers on the mantelpiece, scrolling through her phone. Her body had bloated in places, shrunk in others, despite all the surgical procedures she didn’t tell the world about. The outfit looked ridiculous on her—the blouse too small, the saree lying oddly because of her thickened waist. Why had she terrified him all this while? She had but one bargaining chip. He should have devised a way around it a long time ago.

She assumed he was giving away this place so she could build a resort here, in exchange for a nondisclosure agreement. She trusted Bilal because he’d been nice to her, ever respectful. She had come alone—her first mistake. Bilal had driven her.

“You’re here.”

“Let’s get this over with.” She didn’t look up from her phone. “I need to do a million things for Diwali. Make sure you’re on time.”

Always giving orders. That would stop soon.

“Why all this drama? Wear this, go there. You could’ve signed it and brought it along tomorrow,” she said.