Page 21 of The Matchmaker

Good. A distraction. Except—

As she grows closer, I realize she’s not walking so much as she’smarchingtoward me. Her sari is bunched in one hand. Her eyes are swollen and puffy.

I jump out of my seat and hurry toward her. “What’s going on? What’s the matter?”

Her response tilts my world completely off its axis:

“The wedding is off.”

Six

“You can go,” I whisper to Azar. “Party’s over.”

“I’ll wait for you,” he replies, his expression lined with concern.

Wordlessly, I follow the mother of the bride out of the mehndi hall. Down a nondescript corridor. She hasn’t said a word since the bombshell revelation.

I slip into the luxurious bridal suite. Plush sofas. A makeup table with ten different lights spotlighting a singular velvet chair. Which is empty.

“Where’s Avani?” I ask. “What happened?”

Tears spring to her mother’s eyes. She tosses me a balled-up paper.

I unfold it as Avani’s father storms in. The door trembles when he slams it shut behind him. Prying apart the sheets, I see two pieces of paper. The first is a mug shot. Dev, the groom, stares blank-faced into a camera. A booking date from three years earlier is listed beneath it. Felony assault. The next, a court order showing a two-year sentence, commuted to six months for good behavior.

What the hell?

Avani’s parents stand in front of me with their arms crossed. Waiting. The silence in the room amplifies the sounds outside. It’s a loud din, like the roar of the ocean crashing against a cliff—a cliff the three of us inside this room have already fallen off.

I flip back and forth between the papers. I understand anyone is capable of unspeakable actions. Seemingly debonair gentlemen with battery charges sealed away by powerful parents—they exist. But my job is to shake out the skeletons. To ensure that there are no surprises, that moments like this do not happen. And they neverhave. Until now. And now the people standing before me want an explanation. I can’t explain why these documents are in their possession, but there is one thing I know above all else: These papers are fake. They must be. I trust my team, and I trust our process.

“Well?” Avani’s father asks. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

His Adam’s apple quivers. He won’t believe me. I know before I even open my mouth, but I tell him the only thing I can: the truth.

“These documents are fabricated.”

“Fabricated.” He looks at his wife, who is clutching her waist as though she might vomit. He glares at me. “You’re going to pretend you didn’t miss critical information?”

“They can’t be real.” I try to keep my voice steady. It doesn’t matter that I’m shocked and shaken—I have to keep it together. “A mug shot and a court order are both public information. If they were real, we would have found them immediately.”

“Or they are real, and you missed something glaringly obvious and put my daughter in danger.” He turns and barks at his wife, “How much did we pay her? Because youknewshe got results? Because Asha’s daughter issohappy?”

I need to stop this from spiraling out of control. I need to fix this.

“Where did you get these?” I ask.

“What does it matter?” The mother lets out a sob. “There are five hundred people out there. My mother flew in from Toronto last night. She’s eighty-three. She’ll have a heart attack. How are we supposed to show our faces to the crowd out there?”

“Nothing has to happen,” I say as gently as possible. “I understand how scary this is. I’ll ring up my people. They can figure out who is behind this, and we can fix it. If I could speak with Avani—”

“Maybe these papers were sealed by court order,” the father interrupts. “Maybethat’show you missed it.”

Except we pay Borzu handsomely to get around such seals. To find whatever doesn’t want to be found.Especiallywhat doesn’t want to be found. There’s no use arguing with the father, though. He is terrified. Humiliated. He is suffering and wants someone to blame.

“Where did you find the papers?” I ask again.

“Avani said they were left here, in the bridal suite,” the mother says.

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