Neither would I be able to blind her or her senior partner with my “just a writer” routine.
I’d have to think harder, be smarter, in order to stay on top of the investigation.
“You appreciate that this will be a complicated process,” she said. “We’ll need your cooperation.”
“Did you find the money?” A quarter of a million dollars gone from my father’s safe. Stacks of hundred-dollar bills he’d kept as insurance against some unforeseen event. He still did the same thing. I’d figured out the combination to the safe years ago, even though he’d replaced the entire system after my mother’s disappearance. My father wasn’t a terribly imaginative man—not in certain ways.
Constable Neri gave me a blank stare. “As I’ve made clear, we can’t disclose evidentiary findings.”
“You didn’t find it.” It was a guess, Neri’s poker face back in place, but what were the chances you’d murder a woman only to leave behind a huge stash of cash that no one could trace? Zero. “You know where I’ll be if you want to talk.”
Getting out of the vehicle, I braced myself on the top, then moved across to the back passenger-side door. Neri said nothing as I pulled out my crutches before shutting the door. She didn’t do a U-turn until I’d walked up the road and was clearly visible.
The engine noise soon faded, leaving me cocooned in a hushed silence.
All these trees, all the green, it was why properties here were so coveted. Titirangi homes didn’t reach the eye-watering prices of the mansions in Herne Bay, or the sprawling estates in the South Island, but the rich who built their homes here preferred privacy above all else.
Rarely did the streets that snaked through the Waitākere Ranges Regional Park ever come up in those articles about New Zealand’s wealthiest streets. That was because the wealth here was hidden behind a shield of green, and spread out over a considerable distance. No one knew of the stunning architectural homes built deep in the trees until those homes went up for sale. Most were lone sparks in the wild, the Cul-de-Sac with its cluster of quiet wealth concealed by a long drive, a rare breed.
My mother had been the flashiest member of the enclave.
I stared down Scenic Drive. Not so far in the distance lay the pounding surf of Piha, where the water had no mercy and the black sands burned under the summer sun. That sun had faded what felt like months ago, the sky sullen and resentful today. As my father’s expression had no doubt become on the drive home.
Nina, once again wrecking Ishaan’s perfect life.
The first time I’d woken that night, it’d been because of his voice. Tired from a day of running in preparation for the half-marathon I planned to complete in a month, I’d groaned and put my head under a pillow.
“You’re a whore!” My father’s voice, thunder smashing into my brain.
“Oh, that’s rich coming from you! Have you forgotten I found your secretary tits-up on your desk? You can only get it up for simpering girls young enough to be your daughter, huh?” Even after nineteen years in New Zealand, my mother’s voice had retained echoes of her village-girl accent, and the ugly words sounded incongruous coming out of her mouth.
At times, I’d thought she clung to her accent deliberately. Maybe to embarrass my father—though I could never understand how. He’d gone bride-shopping in rural India for a reason. He hadn’t wanted or expected a sophisticate.
No, Ishaan Rai had wanted a meek and obedient and beautiful doll.
Other times, I’d been certain my mother was ashamed of her lingering accent. She’d become polished and urbane in every other way—designer dresses, flawless makeup that aimed for sexual attractiveness rather than “appropriate” wifely elegance, rapid-fire words full of razored wit.
“Your mum’s hot,” one of my teenage friends had said once, his eyes devouring her as she lay sunbathing on the edge of our pool in a red bikini made up of small triangular pieces of fabric, a bit of string, and not much else.
I’d punched him.
Her lush and scalding heat had alternately confused and angered me. Why, I’d thought, couldn’t she be like other mothers? Soft and warm and comfortable. Yet at the same time, I’d been proud of having a mother others craved.
Fucked up wasn’t the half of it.
“You watch your mouth, Nina! I’m still your husband!”
“So articulate, piya-ji.” My mother’s smoky tones as she used the affectionate term for husband with venomous intent. “To think I was so