Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 106422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 532(@200wpm)___ 426(@250wpm)___ 355(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 532(@200wpm)___ 426(@250wpm)___ 355(@300wpm)
Her little toy whom she’d delighted in breaking…until he’d broken her.
My chest heaved, my breathing choppy.
The therapist I’d seen, under duress from my father after Callum Baxter put a target on my back and zeroed in, had been a sanctimonious old prick, but he’d said one thing that stuck with me: “You’re looking for validation, Tavish. Each time you win, you get that rush. False validation, but validation nonetheless. You’ve been searching for it all your life.”
Well, fuck that. I was done with being a mess because my mother was a narcissist who could only love one child, the one she’d so carefully molded in her image. I almost felt sorry for Raja at times. My brother had never had a chance to be anyone but who Audrey wanted him to be; he didn’t even enjoy acting as far as I could tell, but Mommy dearest wanted him in the land of make-believe and so Raja trudged on with a string of mediocre guest appearances, his life funded by Audrey.
Unfortunately, my decision to shrug off the strangling chains of the past came too late, the damage already done. A fact that became crystal clear when I found Ackerson waiting for me in the busy arrivals hall of Auckland Airport late that afternoon, a uniformed officer at her side.
Lips pinched, she said, “I told you to stay close.”
I hitched the duffel over my shoulder, trying not to notice all the people staring in our direction. “I went to fetch a religious relic for the funeral rites. I wanted to have it ready for Diya when she wakes. So she can do right by her family.”
“I’ll need you to accompany me to the station.”
I smiled. “Sure.” Soon as I was in the back of the marked police cruiser, I sent a text to the criminal defense attorney my father had hooked me up with—he’d shot me the man’s details two hours after we spoke.
Still trying to protect me as he hadn’t when I was a child.
The lawyer was waiting at the station when we arrived. Broad shouldered, with rich black hair cut with flair, his skin the same shade of brown as mine, he wore a suit fitted to his body with such perfection that I knew it had to be bespoke.
A greenstone pin glinted on one lapel, the design intricate.
“Kia ora, Detective Ackerson,” he said with a beaming smile. “Andrew Ngata. You’ll remember me from the Piri case. I’ll be sitting in on this interview with my client.”
Ackerson’s face flushed a scalding pink, a balloon about to explode blood. “You don’t need a lawyer,” she said to me. “This is just a chat.”
“You picked me up from the airport with a uniformed officer and put me in a cruiser in front of the public,” I said, my tone tight. “Sorry if I’m pissed off. I want to be by my wife’s side, not here while you waste time looking at the wrong man.”
The balloon pulsed.
My lawyer touched me on the arm. “Detective Ackerson is just doing her job, Mr. Advani. Let’s keep this cordial.”
Let me do the talking was the unspoken order. Since there was a reason my father was paying this man’s significant three-figure hourly rate, I obeyed.
Once in the interview room, Ackerson raised her eyebrows. “Funny how you had your passport handy for your jaunt to Fiji. I’d have thought it was at the house. We know the Prasads had a safe—thing came through the fire.”
Only after Ngata gave me a small nod did I say, “I wanted to ask the bank if I could open up a local account.” It was the truth. “Figured my California driver’s license might not be enough ID so took my passport along.”
“What did the bank say?”
“I blew it off. Wanted to get home to Diya, thought we could come in together later in the day.”
Ackerson set her jaw, her next questions hard and flat. I let Ngata head them off for the most part. She’d met the cooperative Tavish Advani; now it was time for her to meet the Tavish Advani who was the son of one of the most successful criminal defense attorneys in Los Angeles.
It soon became obvious that she had nothing beyond my lack of solid employment and apparent lack of money. The staff at the bakery where I’d picked up the cakes had verified my alibi—God, that cheerful interaction where they’d teased me about the wedding madness to come seemed about a million days in the past—but with no way for Ackerson to know the exact time of death, she continued to insist that I could’ve done it before I left.
“I had a very interesting conversation with Detective Callum Baxter yesterday,” she said at one point. “He had a lot to say about the Virna Musgrave investigation.”
“Which isn’t your bailiwick, Detective,” Ngata inserted with unflinching calm, his faint smile chiding.