A Game of Chess Ch. 01

"I've been watching over your daughters," Armaan said trying to reassure Neil, "They are safe with Aditi's parents and are being looked after well. I even had a word with their treating psychiatrist, the girls are going to be fine."

Reyansh squeezed Neil's shoulder to comfort him and said, "Hey, its OK brother. The whole thing is just so messed up and we are going fix it."

Neil buried his face in his palms and wiped away his tears.

"How exactly did this happen?" Reyansh asked looking at Armaan, "Especially you Armaan, you were always so cautious, and Meera flew right below your radar? You spotted Meera with Pankhudi outside the mall and that didn't ring any bells? And how does Pankhudi know Meera?"

"I don't know, I never got a chance to talk to Pankh..." Armaan said, "Meera caught me off guard, nothing really seemed too suspicious, maybe I was feeling too secure...but none of that matters now...we've gotta find Pankh and Meera will do everything in her power to stop us. You know what makes Meera so strong? The fact that she has nothing to lose!"

"Could you find out how she managed to do what she did?" Neil asked.

"Well, she had a clear motive and determination," Armaan said, "She hit us where it would hurt the most. And she most certainly had help. A lot of help. Most people worked for money, she has enough of that. She paid someone to make the bomb, she paid someone to hack Reyansh's laptop. Some people like Mithila may have had a personal motive for helping her. Meera had someone watching us for months together, she knew where we live, what we do, our families, our schedules, everything! And there was this..." Armaan said placing a GPS tracker on the table, "There was one of these on each one of our cars. She was closely monitoring our movements while we were off guard, and therefore she could perfectly time her ambush."

"There is one thing I need you to do, Neil," Armaan said placing Mithila's phone in front of Neil, "I need you to look through her phone thoroughly. Check everything, call records, messages, photos, especially something that was deleted. Try to recover deleted chat messages, photos, videos anything that you can find. I am hoping we will find something useful here."

"Sure," Neil said, "I'm gonna need my things, will you give me a ride home?"

"Sure," Armaan said, "You'll take care of things here, Rey?"

"Yes, don't worry," Reyansh assured.

Armaan and Neil got into the car and drove off to Neil's house. It was late evening.

Armaan got a phone call. It was his informer Raghav. Armaan answered and put it on speaker so that Neil could listen.

Raghav: You were right boss, that death of the mother story was bullshit.

Armaan: What's the real story then?

Raghav: Well, this person was actually a vegetable vendor. He has no immediate family. He lived alone and frequented a red-light area. He fell in love with a whore there, trade name Shabnam, real name Rohini. This girl was actually abducted from a village in Maharashtra and forced into prostitution. So, this man, somehow fell for this girl, and the love birds wanted to get married. And suddenly one day, the man goes to jail and the girl disappears.

Armaan: So, could you find this missing girl?

Raghav: Not yet, but I am working on it.

Armaan: What about that woman, Shakuntala?

Raghav: Well, the hospital records indeed have a woman named Shakuntala Jadhav who died after a surgery Aarav performed. But the death was due to natural cause. Shakuntala didn't have any immediate relatives and this man is definitely not her son. They just found someone with the same surname and tried to botch up the case.

Armaan: Well, I need to know about that missing girl. Find out, and let me know as soon as you can.

Raghav: No problem. Will call you right back as soon as I know more.

"So, vegetable vendors are making bombs, huh?" Neil commented.

"This man is most likely a decoy," Armaan said, "I figured it out when he made no attempt to hide in front of the CCTV cameras in Aarav's house. Its like he wanted to get caught. What motivated him to do that interests me. Once we know that, we can pay this man a visit."

Soon they reached Neil's house. They looked at Meera's house. The lights were off, she was probably away.

"It's late," Neil said as he got out of the car, "I might stay home for the night. You wanna come?"

"No, thanks, Neil," Armaan said, "I'll pick you up tomorrow."

"Where are you going?" Neil asked.

"Home," Armaan said with a weak smile and drove off to Pankhudi's house.