Page 98 of The Matchmaker

She pushes the recorder toward me. She nods.

I click the red button.

Please, Nina,I pray frantically.Please call for help before it’s too late.

Thirty

“My name is Nura Khan, and this is my last confession.”

The old-fashioned tape whirs inside the machine. I’m starting to grow woozy.

She points at the pills. I take another.

“Many people know me from the Piyar app. We help people find authentic connections online. I’m proud of the work we do. But there’s more to the story. And the burden gets heavier each day. The truth is, I’ve been getting greedy. I took on more clients than I could handle. I got sloppy.”

She nods and points. I take another pill. The room fades in and out. I keep talking. About how I worked with Basit. Helped Farhan until I couldn’t control him anymore.

Darcy reaches over and hits pause on the machine. “This…this is great stuff, Nura. Thanks. Do you mind if we close out with Lena and Tanvir’s kidnapping? I thought I’d evaded the street cameras when I went to check on them, but I think I was spotted at some point. Luckily, you and I are the same size. I dropped a lookalike of your bracelet near the driveway. Figured once they eventually found it, it’d tie things together nicely, but it’ll be way simpler if you just confess that it was you helping Farhan.”

Confessing to aiding and abetting the kidnapping of a couple I only ever wanted to help? Will I die knowing that’s how people will think of me after I’m gone?

My surroundings grow hazier. If the message didn’t go through, then my trade for my family’s protection may end up being the only good thing that will come of this.

With shaking hands, I hit record.

“I kidnapped Lena and Tanvir. I guess I’ve been unraveling for a while.” She nods at the last pill. I pick it up and take it.

“I leave my business to Darcy Jacobs. She can steer the agency in a better direction. I only ask that she care for my family. To provide for them. They are blameless. I bear all the fault.”

My stomach heaves. I lurch forward as though I might vomit, but nothing comes out. Darcy shuts off the recorder. Her eyes well with tears.

“Nura. Thank you. Really. You’re a true friend to the end. Whoa. You look pretty out of it. Let me move you over to the sofa. It’ll be more comfortable. I’ll be right with you until you go.”

My elbows slump on the kitchen table. My head rolls to the side. I’ve lost count of how many pills I’ve consumed at this point. I couldn’t move even if I wanted to. Darcy’s speaking, but the words don’t reach me. Her nails press into my skin. I’m being dragged by my underarms. Off the chair. Toward the sofa.

“We’ll miss you at the wedding,” Darcy’s voice says from afar. My knee bumps into the sharp edge of the coffee table. “I’ll have your family there. Lilah can be the flower girl. We’ll have a moment of silence, in your memory.”

She heaves me onto the sofa. Covering me with my favorite throw. I remember the last time I slept here. That late, rainynight I lay across from Azar. His voice growing groggier as we talked, until he fell asleep. I’m so grateful for the last two nights. So grateful we cleared up our decade-long misunderstanding. I can’t believe I’ll never see his face again.

Darcy’s still talking. At least I think she is. I don’t hear her anymore. I hear nothing at all. Is this how death works? Slipping you in phases from the living world to the beyond?

There’s a loud bang in the distance. Someone coming to save me? Or a frantic hallucination of my dying mind? Turns out you don’t lose hope for rescue, all the way until the end.

But not all stories have happy endings.

Sometimes you play the cards you’re dealt and lose.

Thirty-one

I awake in a fluorescent-lit hospital. Once again, bright lights above make me squint as I come to. Once again, I wear a thin fabric gown. Azar’s face leans over mine. There’s a halo of light around him. His hand rests on the bed railing. His beautiful, worried face. His mouth relaxes into a smile when I gaze up at him.

“I’m alive?” The words come out between a croak and a whisper.

He grips my hand in his. “It’s over.”

A button pings. There’s a flurry of movement. People checking my eyes. My pulse. My temperature. A doctor in a white coat hurries inside, clipboard in hand,Piedmont Hospitalembroidered on her lapel.

“We had to pump your stomach,” she explains. “You were coding when they found you. They had to administer naloxone. You’ve been in an induced coma for the last three days while we got your system cleared up.”

---