Page 112 of The Rules of Playing with Fire

I thanked Malati for her kindness and hospitality and for opening her door to two strangers. Then, on impulse and driven by old habits, I pulled out my visiting card and wrote my Indian cell phone number on the back. “Here’s my card. Can you please call me if you remember anything?”

She nodded.

“Did he keep a diary, a journal, or notes of any sort?” I asked from the experience of having conducted several interviews over the years.

She pulled back with a frown. “I’m not sure.”

“Well, thank you. And please call me if you think of anything.”

While Sanjay brought the car around, Mihir and I stood in silence. There were so many unanswered questions between us, but he seemed disturbed, and I decided not to pry.

“Can you drop me off at the hotel?” he said when we started our ride back home.

“Yes,” I said and instructed Sanjay.

“Thank you for everything, Sona,” he whispered and slipped his hand in mine.

I quickly wrapped my fingers around his palm and gave a squeeze. “I’m sorry you didn’t find what you were looking for.”

I waited for him to trust me, confide in me, but he still refused to let me near his pain.

He glanced away. “I’ll probably leave in a day or two. I have nothing else left to do here now.”

With a sinking heart, I withdrew my hand promptly. “Yes.”

“Your mom mentioned you’re moving to Houston. Congratulations.”

If I weren’t so absolutely furious and hurt, I might have been swayed by the forlorn look in his eyes.

“I’m not celebrating,” I said, deliberately avoiding his gaze.

“I’m very proud of you, nonetheless.”

“It’s irrelevant now.” I threw him a glance and then looked out the window. “And meaningless.”

RULE # 9

Never leave a live fire unattended.

Unattended fire can burn down everything in its wake.

SONA

Sanjay turned the car around to take me home, but dropping Mihir off at the hotel after the devastating day he’d had didn’t sit right with me. My anger had cooled, and all I could see was the desolate look in Mihir’s gaze. I instructed Sanjay to drive me back.

When the car stopped under the porte-cochère of the stately building, I caught Mihir smoking a few yards away from the hotel entrance. As I watched him, a sudden thought hit me. The last thing Mihir told me was that his parents had been keeping secrets. Tara had said they were estranged. And now he was here to find his mother…was it possible that Mihir was adopted and he hadn’t known?

My heart raced as I tried to come to terms with my own wild theory. My stomach clenched. If it was true, what would that do to a person? To discover you weren’t who you thought you were?

“Can I get one?” I said when I sidled next to him, and he practically jumped out of his skin.

“What are you doing here?” A guilty frown accompanied that remark.

Pulling the cigarette from his fingers, I dragged a deep puff, let out a cloud of smoke, then handed it back to him. He did the same. When we’d sucked the filter into a sad, thin shriveled end, too weak to hold its shape and its dignity, he squashed it in the sand on the bin near him.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” he said.

“I don’t. I didn’t know you smoked either.”

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