His private security head, not the one hired by Vikram.
His old college friend, now a senior police officer.
And Advocate Leela Rao, the one lawyer Vikram had once warned him was “too aggressive for family matters.”
By dawn, a quiet investigation began.
No media.
No household staff informed.
No relatives called.
At 9:30 a.m., Advocate Leela stood in the hospital room holding the old crash file.
Her face was grim.
“The bodies were never independently identified by you,” she said.
“I was told not to look.”
“By whom?”
“Vikram. Doctors. Officials. Everyone.”
Leela turned one page.
“Your wife’s body was identified through jewellery. Your daughter’s through the locket.”
Arvind looked at Tara’s neck.
The locket had not been in a coffin.
It had been on a living child.
“So whose body was buried as Ira?” he asked.
Leela’s silence answered before her mouth did.
“We need exhumation orders.”
Sushila clutched the chair.
“Sir… will they take Tara from me?”
Tara stirred in sleep.
Arvind looked at the maid who had saved an unknown baby when everyone else had buried the truth.
“No,” he said. “If anyone tries, they will pass through me first.”
At noon, Tara woke.
Her eyes were heavy but clearer.
She looked around, saw Arvind, and became shy.
“Are you angry I used my inhaler?”
He sat beside her bed.
His throat tightened.
“No, beta. You saved my life.”
“Mumma says if we help someone, God writes it down.”
“Your mumma is right.”
Tara looked at Sushila, then at Arvind.
“Will I have to leave?”
Sushila bent quickly. “No, no, my jaan.”
Tara touched the locket.
“Real mumma said if bad uncle finds me, I should hide. But I don’t remember her face properly now.”
Arvind leaned forward.
“What did your real mumma call you?”
Tara thought hard.
“Sometimes Tara. Sometimes little moon.”
Little moon.
Ira’s nickname had been moon because of the locket.
“Did you know a girl named Ira?” he asked, barely breathing.
Tara frowned, searching through fever and childhood memory.
“Didi,” she whispered.
Arvind’s heart stopped.
“You called her didi?”
Tara nodded slowly.
“She sang when I cried. She had hurt hand. She told me not to cry when the car burned.”
Sushila covered her mouth.
Arvind gripped the bedrail.
“What car?”
Tara’s face twisted. Too much memory hurt children like reopened wounds.
“Big noise. Smoke. Real mumma sleeping. Didi crying. Bad uncle shouting. Then another aunty took me.”
“What aunty?”
Tara shook her head and began to cough.
The doctor came in and ended the questions.
But it was enough.
Too much.
Not enough.
At three in the afternoon, Arvind returned to his mansion.
For the first time in five years, he unlocked Ira’s room.
Dust floated in sunlight.
Pink curtains.
Storybooks.
A dollhouse.
A schoolbag still hanging behind the door.
On the wall, Ira had drawn a crooked family picture: Papa, Mumma, Ira, and a baby in Nandini’s arms.
Arvind froze.
A baby.
He had always thought it was imagination.
Children often drew siblings they wanted.
But now he remembered Nandini’s tired smile in the weeks before the crash. The way she avoided wine at dinner. The way she once placed his hand on her stomach, then laughed it away when he asked.
Could Tara be Nandini’s child?
His child?
No.
Timeline twisted like a snake.
The crash was five years ago. Tara was five.
