The Forbidden Daughter (36 page)

DAUGHTER 263

his face with one shuddering hand. “Not directly. I didn’t want it to happen, Neela. I swear!”

“How could you stoop to
this?
” Her eyes were ripe with enraged disappointment. “How could a doctor
kill
a man deliberately?”

“I didn’t! That . . . that man, who just left, ended up killing him when he shouldn’t have. I never wanted anyone dead.” He knew his excuse sounded lame. And it
was
lame, even to his ears. He was just as guilty as Gowda.

“And you never told me about this?” The anger was gone from her eyes now. There was only pain there, and it broke his heart to see what he was doing to her.

“What could I tell you? That I hired someone to do something mildly illegal, but things didn’t go as planned, and somehow it ended up in a man’s death?”

“Then why
did
you hire someone?”

“Because I had to protect myself and you and our reputation.”

“And what exactly is mildly illegal?” she demanded. When he hesitated, she groaned like she was in real, physical agony.

Maybe she was, just like he. “All this has to do with killing unborn female babies, doesn’t it?”

He sucked in a stunned breath, wondering how she had figured all this out. Always caring, always nurturing and supportive of his career, she had never once asked pointed questions about his work, nor indicated that she suspected anything—at least not in this fashion. “You know
that,
too?” he asked, frowning.

“I may not be highly educated like you, but like I said, I’m not without a brain. Don’t you think I can figure out why your patients have so many baby boys and so few girls? Even my friends ask me how you can be so lucky as to have practically every patient of yours give birth to a boy.” She sighed. “I have no logical answer to their curious questions.”

He remained silent. While he’d gone about his tasks quietly and efficiently (or so he had assumed), his wife and everyone else had been drawing certain conclusions.

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Shobhan Bantwal

“And why is it that only in the last few years you have been working so often on Sunday afternoons and very late evenings?

At a time in your life when you should be taking it easy and not doing additional work, you have been working harder than ever. What does that say?” She stopped to stare at him. “You have been secretly performing abortions, haven’t you?”

In all his years of marriage to Neela, he’d never lied to her, nor hidden anything from her, except this matter of abortion—

and all the nasty things that had come as a result of it. Because of how honest and religious she was, he had never worked up the nerve to confide in her. He couldn’t lose the respect of the one person who loved him unconditionally. She had been a faithful, trusting, and adoring wife.

He nodded. “It was wrong on my part.” And foolish.

“Why, Vivek?” she queried softly. “You are such a brilliant doctor and you have made more than enough money with a large and wonderful practice. When God has been so generous to us why did you need to do something unconscionable like this?” She put a hand to his face. “Does it not bother you to kill so many unborn babies?”

He leaned his head back and gazed at the rotating ceiling fan.

She was right—so bloody right.

“Don’t you think of our own daughter when you get rid of all those tiny infants?”

He mulled over her hurtful questions. At first he
had
thought of his own daughter and the joy she had brought into their lives.

But just like a doctor gradually learns to accept blood and pain and disease and death as part and parcel of the medical profession, he’d become immune to the procedure.

That’s all it was after the first few times—a sterile clinical
procedure
.

“What will you teach your grandchildren, my dear?” she asked, her voice a mere murmur. “And don’t forget you have a young granddaughter who loves you very much. What if she had been eliminated when she was just a fetus?”

His precious little granddaughter! Dear God! Hearing those words from his wife’s mouth was like a knife being thrust into THE

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him again and again. He felt his chest constrict. The angina was worse than ever. The pain was becoming unbearable.

Despite his iron control on his emotions the floodgates opened up. Everything he’d been holding inside for months erupted at once. He leaned forward, placed his arms on the desk, and rested his head over them. The sobs that came were loud and pitiful.

He felt Neela’s hands gently stroke his back. “Shh. I’m sorry I said some hurtful things,” she said, weeping with him. “But you needed to face this, Vivek. You need to resolve it. You cannot go on like this. All this internal turmoil is killing you little by little.”

As a strong man, he had never wept before his wife. In fact, he couldn’t remember crying since he was about twelve years old, when his bicycle had been damaged in an accident. Now he just couldn’t stop sobbing. He lifted his head, turned around, and wrapped his arms around Neela. “I’m s-sorry. I’m so very sorry.”

She cradled his head on her bosom. “Shh, it’s okay. It will be all right. You can stop this abortion nonsense right now, and ask God for forgiveness. Then we’ll pray together,” she consoled.

“We’ll do a special
vrath,
” she said, referring to an intensive religious cleansing ritual that included fasting and praying and making special offerings to the temple.

“No
vrath
in the world is going to absolve me, Neela,” he sobbed. “You don’t know the worst of it.”

He felt her stiffen. “You mean there is more?”

Retrieving a handkerchief from his pocket, he pulled away from her and dried his eyes and nose. He
had
to confess to his wife, or he would explode. Now that the cathartic process had been put in motion, he couldn’t seem to stop it from barreling ahead. He wanted to get the burden off his chest. If he died tonight for some reason, he would at least go with a clearer conscience. “Some time ago, my records of the abortions were stolen.”

Neela’s eyes went wide. “You actually kept records of those . . .

horrible procedures? Where?”

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Shobhan Bantwal

“In my home computer,” he said, inclining his head toward it. He tried to take a deep breath to ease the increasing tightness in his chest, but it didn’t help much. His wife’s expression was so full of contempt it made him squirm. “I had to, Neela! Don’t you understand? It was a medical procedure. Somehow I had to keep an account of when and where and how much money was involved in each transaction.”

Comprehension slowly descended over Neela’s face. “But what does Nikhil Tilak have to do with all this?”

“Tilak was the one who stole my abortion data and threatened to take it to the police. So I paid Inspector Gowda to get it back from Tilak.”

“Who is this Inspector Gowda? How do you know him?”

“It is a long story.” He haltingly explained to her everything from the beginning, including his recent run-in with Isha Tilak.

“So he ended up murdering Tilak. He claims it was self-defense.”

“Dear God!” Pressing her hand to her mouth, Neela sat in silence for a minute.

Karnik could see the grief she was suffering—feel it. She had never had any part in his actions, and yet, he now realized, as his wife, she suffered just as much as he—perhaps far more.

She looked up. “Clearly the murder investigation was hushed up somehow. But what was Gowda doing here today, at this time of the night?” She searched his face with narrow-eyed suspicion. “Is he blackmailing you?”

“Not really. But the news is bad—worse than the murder.”

“What could be worse than murder?”

“When he couldn’t find the records in Isha Tilak’s house, he kidnapped her infant and took her hostage.”

“Kidnapped!” Neela drew in a stunned breath.

“I tried to tell him to return the child, but the man will not listen. He is a pervert, a lunatic.”

“Has he . . . killed the child, too?” Neela sounded like she was terrified to ask.

He shook his head. “He says the baby is with his wife and he will return her when Isha Tilak hands over the abortion data.”

“What are
you
going to do about it?” she demanded.

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“What
can
I do?” he asked with a helpless shrug. “He is a policeman—and a ruthless killer.”

“Then ring his boss, that Patil chap, right now, and tell him everything!”

“Tell him what?” Karnik managed to work up a bitter laugh.

“That I’m an abortionist and that I had Tilak killed and his child kidnapped? I will end up in prison for the rest of my life.

Your life, my life, and our children’s lives will be ruined.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t think of all this when you started performing those abortions?”

“I did . . . in the beginning. But as time went by—”

“You ignored your conscience,” she interrupted. “Greed got the better of you,” she said with a resigned sigh. “So what do we do now?”

He rubbed his chest and shoulder. Perspiration was gathering on his face. He knew he was in the first stages of a heart attack.

“That’s what I was trying to think about when you came in.”

“What’s there to
think,
Vivek? A man was brutally murdered because of you, and now his child is missing. Poor Isha Tilak must be beside herself.”

“If I go to the police, I’m ruined, Neela.” Breathing was becoming harder.

“You were ruined the day you performed your first abortion,” she informed him matter-of-factly.

She was so right. Tears of regret gathered in Tilak’s eyes once again. His soul was ruined a long time ago—if he had one left anymore. His reputation was going the same route. His heart was giving out. The pressure on his chest was increasing by the second.

How had he managed to sink to this level? What kind of monster had he turned into?

He took his wife’s hand. “I should confess to the police.”

She nodded. “At least you will have saved an innocent baby from a brutal death. It is your last chance to redeem yourself.

And apologize to Isha Tilak and her family. The poor girl has suffered such hell because of you.”

He rubbed his chest and struggled for breath. “I’m not . . .

feeling well, Neela,” he admitted.

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Shobhan Bantwal

She gazed at him for a moment. “Vivek, are you having a heart attack?”

“Y-yes,” he whispered. “I may not be able to . . . rescue my soul after all.”

She took his clammy hand. “Yes, you will! I won’t let you die, Vivek.” Then she picked up the phone and rang for an ambulance.

He tried to take a breath but managed to suck very little air.

The agony was spreading like fire from his chest through his entire body. With some effort he whispered, “Death will be better . . .

than prison.”

“No! You will live! And if they send you to prison we’ll find you a good lawyer.” Tenderly she loosened the buttons on his shirt and wiped the sweat off his brow with the handkerchief he’d left on the desk. “Don’t worry. I will ring Isha Tilak and apologize for both of us.”

“But . . . this is . . . not your fault,” he argued weakly. His vision was beginning to blur.

“As husband and wife, we’re in this together.”

“But . . .”

“Shh, don’t talk. Save your breath.” She took off his glasses and put them aside. “I hear the ambulance.”

Two minutes later he was being lifted onto a stretcher and loaded into the ambulance. “Neela . . .” he called out, but couldn’t complete his sentence.

She patted his hand, her eyes filling with tears. “I know. I will take care of everything.”

Karnik’s last conscious thought was of the kidnapped child.

Lord, please save that child.

Chapter 30

Isha hugged the tiny yellow dress with the white dots against her chest. Diya had been wearing it the day before. It smelled like Diya. The baby had been changed out of the dress and into clean pajamas before being placed in her cradle.

And sometime after that she’d been abducted. Even now they didn’t know exactly when she’d been taken. It was somewhere between the hours of ten and midnight, after Isha had checked on the sleeping kids and Sundari. She’d made sure all the windows were secured before she’d locked the door behind her and gone to work.

Bad decision. Shortly after that, the kidnapper had managed to break in, destroy the place, and snatch the baby.

Isha could deal with the invasion of her home, the ruined furniture, bedding, and personal belongings. But Diya’s disappearance had left a gaping wound that wouldn’t stop bleeding.

Isha sat in the semidarkness of her bedroom, all the life squeezed out of her.
It’s all my fault,
she rued for the thousandth time, the tears rolling down her cheeks. The previous night’s numbness had diminished, only to be replaced by tears and pain. And guilt. Despite knowing how dangerous the situation had become, and in spite of being warned by Harish again and again, she had still neglected her children and gone over to the other flat to sew her dresses, to conduct her business.

If only she’d done her work right here at home, Diya would 270
Shobhan Bantwal

have been here now, crawling, making baby talk, and getting into all kinds of mischief.

Isha should have at least left that stupid disk and the spreadsheet in the
almirah
. The intruder would have taken that and left Diya alone. Maybe. Who knew how evil minds worked?

As she stared at the empty cradle with its ruined mattress in the glow of the nightlight, Isha could picture Diya’s sparkling, long-lashed hazel eyes, and smell the baby powder on her neck.

Isha could almost feel it now—the oh-so-soft skin, the warm weight of Diya in her lap, the steady thumping of the baby’s little heart beating against her breast when she fell asleep in her arms.

Where was Diya? Was she crying now for her mother and sister and Sundari? Was she locked up somewhere, all alone? The poor darling didn’t like the dark. Was she cowering in some filthy, smelly, godforsaken hole, suffering excruciating hunger pangs? Or was it too late for any of that? Had the breath been snuffed out of her tiny lungs already?