CHAPTER ELEVEN

The hospital was a blur of white corridors, antiseptic smells, and fear.

Ruby Hall Clinic's emergency wing smelled of iodine and desperation. The fluorescent lights were the kind that made everyone look slightly dead -- ironic, given the number of people here fighting not to be. A child was crying somewhere down the corridor. An old man in a wheelchair was being pushed past by an attendant who looked like he hadn't slept in days. A woman in a nurse's uniform walked by with the brisk, purposeful stride of someone who had long ago learned to separate other people's emergencies from her own emotional equilibrium. This was a factory of crisis, operating at full capacity twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and the only people who noticed the horror of it were the ones who hadn't been here before.

Runal was pacing. His shirt was spotted with blood -- Shruti's blood -- and his hands wouldn't stop shaking. The blood had already dried to a dark brown, stiffening the cotton, and every time he moved, he could feel the fabric pull against his skin like a second layer that he couldn't remove. He had tried to wash it off in the hospital bathroom, standing at the sink with water running pink down the drain, scrubbing at his sleeves with paper towels that disintegrated in his hands. He had given up when a man walked in and stared at him with the wide-eyed alarm of someone who has just encountered a potential murderer in a public restroom.

He had been in the car when it happened. Right there. Twenty feet away. He had seen a figure jostle against Shruti on the pavement, seen her stumble, seen her fall -- and then he was slamming the brakes, tyres screeching, the bonnet coming to a halt mere inches from her face. For one horrifying moment he thought he had hit her. Then he saw the blood pooling beneath her and knew it was worse.

A knife. Someone had stabbed his wife and shoved her onto the road.

The image replayed on a loop behind his eyes -- Shruti crumpling, the blood spreading across her cream blouse like a flower blooming in time-lapse, the way her mouth had opened in surprise rather than pain, as if the knife had moved faster than her nerve endings could register. He had caught her before she hit the ground. He remembered that much. He remembered her weight in his arms, lighter than he expected, and the heat of the blood soaking through his shirt, and the sound she made -- not a scream, not a cry, but a small, bewildered oh, as if someone had bumped into her on the metro and she was about to apologise.

He had screamed loud enough for both of them. Screamed for help, screamed for someone to call an ambulance, screamed her name over and over as if the force of his voice could keep her conscious. People had materialized -- bystanders, security guards, a woman who said she was a nurse and pressed her scarf against Shruti's wound while barking instructions that Runal couldn't process. The ambulance had arrived in eleven minutes. He knew because he had been counting. Eleven minutes that felt like eleven hours, during which he held his wife's hand and watched the colour drain from her face and bargained with every deity he had ever dismissed as superstition.

Now she was in surgery and he was pacing, and Sanika was sitting in the plastic chair beside him with her arms wrapped around herself, and the cop -- Samar -- had asked his questions and left to investigate the scene. An hour had passed. Maybe two. Runal had lost all sense of time.

"I was so pissed off at you, you know?" Sanika said quietly, breaking the silence. "For a long while, I was just so mad and..." She gestured with her hands. "Shratz had been with me through some of the worst days of my life. Shratz and Mira. They always have been my pillars of support. Unquestioning, unwavering."

She smiled ruefully. "I'm not sure how it happened or why. Destiny, probably. Three of us had joined Prisma around the same time, became friends within a month. She had been a bubbly, cheerful woman with that dry sense of humour, blushing whenever we ragged her about you two. She used to get that dreamy look whenever she talked about you." Her smile turned into a grimace. "She lost all those things. Especially the last one year. Mira was the patient one, always advising her, stressing on the importance of relationships, what you guys had..."

Her fingers dug into her hair, messing it up some more. "But I'm not like that. I guess I'm more cynical when it comes to relationships and stuff."

"I think you have a reason to be," Runal inserted in a quiet voice.

Surprise held her silent for a few moments. She certainly hadn't been expecting him to be understanding. "Maybe. Or maybe I'm like a horse. You know, they tie those things to a horse so that it can't look sideways and get distracted?" Runal nodded with a wry smile. "All I could see was that she was not happy. That you were not making her happy. That she was always the one doing the compromising. But the last few days, she's been happy again, Runal. Despite Mira's death, despite our tears and loss and fear, she has been happy. She told me it's like having her Runal back. The one she had fallen in love with."

Runal swallowed. It would do no good to bawl like a baby even though that's all he'd been wanting to do for more than an hour. The tension was killing him. The not knowing was killing him. He had called his parents and hers. He didn't tell them anything except that she had been in an accident and was in surgery. Her parents were going to take the first flight out.

"I hated you too," he said. "You and Mira, both. Ritu never had many friends before. We had been best friends long before we became lovers, and suddenly someone else had taken my place. She stopped talking to me, sharing things with me. You two took up her every free minute. You were the reason she smiled, laughed. So I resented you. And the more I resented, the more I lost her until it became a vicious cycle. In the middle of that, she said she wanted kids. All I could think was, I won't have even that little of her." He shrugged. "Selfish, I know. But I promised myself that I would change. I would make her fall in love with me a-again..." His throat clogged up.

Sanika laid her hand on his shoulder. "Hey, d-don't worry. She's going to be fine. She's going to be just f-fine. I mean, she's a fighter and she has a lot to fight for. She... she is going to walk o-out of here..."

It was past midnight by the time they heard the voice they had been waiting for. "Excuse me?" Both of them stood up and faced the surgeon. He was still in his scrubs, his face haggard. Sanika felt the icy claw of dread and, judging by Runal's cold fingers gripping hers, she was not alone.

"I was told that it was an accident case," the surgeon said.

"We don't know. The police are looking into it right now. He'll be back to talk to you," Sanika replied quickly.

He nodded. "I think she's going to make it," the surgeon said, and smiled a smile of such pure personal triumph that she knew there had been a real battle in the OR. "I had to remove part of the liver and resection her small intestine. The wound to the liver, I'm presuming some kind of knife, is what caused the extensive haemorrhage. We had to replace almost her complete blood volume before we got things under control." He rubbed his hand over his face. "It was touch and go for a while. Her blood pressure bottomed out and she went into cardiac arrest, but we got her right back. Her pupil response is normal, and her vitals are satisfactory. She was lucky."

"Lucky," Runal echoed, still dazed by the combination of good news and the litany of damage. "So... she is going to be fine?"

"She needs to be in the ICU and the next forty-eight hours are extremely critical as there is a high risk of secondary infection setting in. At this point I can only be cautiously optimistic."

Runal's knees buckled. Sanika caught his arm before he could fall and guided him to a chair. Then she pulled out her phone and called Samar.

"She's out of surgery. Surgeon says cautiously optimistic."

"Thank God." She heard the exhale. The relief in his voice was real and immediate. "I'm wrapping up here. Scene's been contaminated by the rain. There's nothing left."

"What about..." she couldn't say it. Couldn't ask if there was any evidence that would lead them to the monster who had killed one of her friends and nearly killed another.

"We'll talk when I get there. Don't go anywhere."

"I'm not going anywhere," she said, and meant it in more ways than one.

---

Two down, one to go-o-o. Two down, one to go-o-o.

The rocking motion continued without a pause. The hand holding the carving knife was still red. With blood. Her blood. Head tilted to the side, studying the knife and the hand. Eyes glinted with disappointment. It had been too rushed. The bitch hadn't known who was doing it and what was happening. She hadn't known or felt the pain for long. It had been too quick.

But what else to do? There had been no other way. The two of them had gotten themselves those muscle-bound bodyguards. And punishing them couldn't be delayed until everyone relaxed and forgot about it. What would be the point then? Yes. It should not be delayed. And patience was an overrated virtue.

Bottom line, they had to die. They would die. They are dead. Two of them. One more left.

Satisfaction quickly replaced the disappointment. Fingers formed into fists. Red. Blood. Her blood.

Eyes closed, thinking back to the moment when the knife pierced her insides. Deep. Slashing and slaughtering the organs. The temptation to keep going, keep digging into her again and again had been so overwhelming. But the car had been right behind and so were the group exiting from the Prisma building.

The rocking motion slowed down. There was still one more to go. No time to relax. No time to celebrate. Not yet. Not just yet. The sharp steel turned in the fingers, glinting in the light. It had to be cleaned up and sharpened again. It had to be ready to get red again.

Sinister laughter echoed off the empty walls. Ready to get red. Ready to get red. Laughter got cut off as abruptly as it had begun. Two down, one to go-o-o. Two down, one to go-o-o.

---

"One brutal murder, one attempted murder which could turn into another murder if that girl dies in the hospital, another girl lined up, no evidence, no clues, no witnesses." The big guy growled, as he paced the confines of his cabin. "If the press gets hold of this..."

"Sir, for now, people assume that Shruti Gokhale stumbled and fell in front of the car and has been rushed to the hospital. The quick arrival of the ambulance has helped us in more ways than one. Let's keep it that way for now. Let's not give out the details unless absolutely necessary." Salim suggested quietly.

"You mean don't let people know that there is a serial killer on the loose in the city?" The commissioner looked dubious. In his twenty-six years of service, he had seen many cops. Good, bad, dirty, and downright bastards. But Samar and Salim were among the very few he was truly proud of. They, especially Samar, excelled at understanding the twisted mind of criminals.

"This guy is not a random killer. He has specific targets. I've made sure Sanika is safe."

"Who is Sanika?" The commissioner frowned at the seemingly abrupt change in topic.

"Sanika Joshi," Samar clarified. "The third girl among the three friends."

"You know her?"

"He is going to marry her," Salim imparted the news gleefully. Never mind that there was a killer out there. He couldn't resist sharing that titbit with their boss.

"But you told me a few days back his girlfriend is his neighbour."

"Yes, sir. And he is going to marry his neighbour."

He glanced at both his men, bewildered and slow on the uptake. "You just said he wants to marry this Sanika Joshi."

Samar looked heavenward, as if praying for divine intervention. "Sanika Joshi is my neighbour, sir. She also happens to be one of the three friends."

"You want to marry one of the girls who made that video? God save you, Rane!" he muttered. "Stop looking at me like that. My daughter watched that video, rejected two good alliances because of it." Samar bit back an involuntary smile.

"Provided we keep this latest thing out of the press, how are we going to go forward with the investigation? What do we have now?"

He had been to the crime scene. Not that there was much of it left, with the rain washing away any evidence left by the killer. To attack again so soon after Mira's murder meant the guy was totally out of control. For now he was operating on a particular agenda, a particular target. If that hadn't been the case, he was sure there would have been a bloodbath in the city.

"This at least proves that it's someone from Prisma. The attack happened at the entrance. Technically within the Prisma campus."

"Security cameras?"

Salim shook his head. "Nothing in that area. The one at the security gate is too far. Either it was a coincidence or he is cleverer than we thought."

"Humph!" Like most cops, the big guy wasn't big on coincidence. To know where the security cameras were located and plan the attack according to that, it had to be an insider. Someone who knew the company inside out, had been working for a very long time.

"I'll see if I can get a warrant." He looked frustrated and tired.

Samar's phone rang, interrupting the commissioner's rant over the increasing crime rate. Samar frowned at the unfamiliar number. "Yes?"

"Samar Rane?"

"Yes?" His frown deepened at the slightly familiar voice before clearing. He knew this one.

"This is Pramod Gadkari, CEO of Prisma," he confirmed. "I just heard. It wasn't an accident, was it?"

"No."

"Did she survive?"

"She is in surgery. Chances are 50-50."

Pramod sighed, running a hand over his face. "I have to accept I didn't want to believe that one of my employees is a killer. I still don't want to believe it. But I can't deny the possibility anymore. And I don't want this thing to go to the press. I'm a CEO, so that's my immediate thought. And I most definitely don't want a psychopath working at Prisma and killing my employees."

"I understand. We're trying to keep the press out of it at this point."

"How can I help?"

"We need access to your employee details."

"Give me your email address. I'll personally email you right away. That way there would be no leak. If he does work for Prisma, a court order might alert him, so let's skip it. I'll leave it to my legal team to think of the repercussions."

Samar started to like the guy. "That would really help." He passed on his email and thanked the CEO before ending the call.

"Any luck with the fingerprints at Mira's residence?"

"Still processing," Salim replied. "And no, they are not Mira's," Salim added before Samar could ask the question. "The partial print has blood on it. Mira's blood. The killer must've missed a spot while cleaning up because there was nothing else on that door, not even Mira's prints. Considering that she would've held the knob to open it..."

They had a killer who acted on his own weird rules without leaving any evidence behind. An intelligent killer was tougher to catch than one operating on rage or impulse. He wasn't even sure if the partial fingerprint would do any good if the bastard wasn't in the system.

The commissioner saw both his juniors eyeing his brand-new laptop. "Take your eyes off my laptop," he snapped. "I'll tell the guys to lend you a couple from the outer office."

Both of them grabbed a laptop each and got to work. The Prisma employee database was massive.

"Damn, I'm exhausted just looking at the size of the attachment," Salim grumbled.

"Just be thankful the women were so careful with their privacy settings. Imagine our suspect pool if we had to wade through their Instagram and X accounts." Salim looked horrified at the mere thought. "Let's first filter out males and females, then you take half and I'll take half."

"Thank Allah we only have to do the men."

Samar nodded absently, his attention already on the downloaded document. "Focus on the complaints, grievances, feedbacks, that sort of thing. This one has behavioural issues, especially with regard to women, and that's bound to have come out somewhere and it would have increased significantly in the last couple of weeks."

They worked through the night, the silence of the office broken only by the click of keys and the occasional grunt. By dawn, they had narrowed the list from over three thousand male employees to forty-seven with some kind of disciplinary record. Of those forty-seven, twelve had complaints related to women -- inappropriate remarks, refusal to work with female colleagues, complaints from female team members about hostile behaviour.

Of those twelve, three had complaints filed within the last six months. And of those three, one name kept coming up with a frequency that made both cops sit up straight.

"Salim."

"Hmm?"

"Look at this."

Salim came around to look at Samar's screen. "Multiple complaints from different departments. Refusal to work with female team members. Disciplinary warning six months ago. Another warning three months ago. Request to change groups denied. Performance reviews flagging 'interpersonal issues.' And look at this -- transferred from the Pune office two years ago."

"What was the reason for transfer?"

"Doesn't say. But I can find out."

Samar leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. Something was bothering him. Something about the case that he couldn't put his finger on. The way the killer acted -- the rage, the hatred, the specific targets, the use of a knife, the deliberate avoidance of sexual assault. Everything pointed to a man. The profiling, the statistics, the pattern -- it all screamed male.

And yet.

"Salim, pull up the complete file on Ruhi Sharma."

---

End of Chapter Eleven.

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