A Walk Across the Sun Read online

  “We’ll be there soon,” she said, delivering a smile that found no reflection in her sister’s eyes.

  “What will we do?” Sita asked.

  “I don’t know,” Ahalya admitted.

  She fought against the grief tugging ceaselessly at her heart, but this time the pressure was too great. Tears spilled down her cheeks, burning her eyes and tickling her chin. She took Sita into her arms and promised Lakshmi on her father’s grave that she would allow no harm to come to her. She would be a mother to her. She would make the sacrifices necessary to ensure that Sita would find life on the other side of the horrors of this day. Her sister was her charge.

  She could not fail.

  A few minutes before six o’clock, the truck stopped beside an upscale complex of flats. The shadows were long upon the tree-shaded lane, and the sun was close to setting. Ramesh climbed out of the cab, smoothed his shirt, and gave the girls a sympathetic smile.

  “I regret that I can’t take you all the way to Tiruvallur,” he said, “but I have an engagement in Chennai this evening. I have paid Kanan to take you the rest of the way.”

  He gave Ahalya a business card with his mobile number. “I can’t express how sorry I am for your loss. Call if you should ever have a need.” With a slight bow, he bid them farewell.

  Kanan didn’t speak to the sisters after Ramesh left them. He placed a brief call on his mobile phone and then turned the truck around and headed northwest toward the city center. They crossed the Kuvam River and took a left on a major thoroughfare. Kanan navigated through the traffic toward the western suburbs.

  All was well until they passed through the intersection at Jawaharlal Nehru Road. Without warning, Kanan took a left into an industrial park.

  “Neengal enna seigirirgal?” Ahalya demanded of him, knocking on the cab window. “What are you doing?”

  Kanan ignored her and drove faster down the dirt road. They entered a neighborhood of dilapidated flats. Dirty children and mangy dogs milled about, men smoked in the shadows of doorways, and elderly couples sat silently on cramped terraces. The neighborhood was unfamiliar to Ahalya, but there were countless others like it in the city. It was a place where generations had eked out a living on the margins of society, a place where people looked the other way and didn’t ask questions. Ahalya knew that if she cried out, no one would come to her aid. Her instincts had been correct. Kanan was not trustworthy.

  She reached for her phone in her satchel. Just then, Kanan slammed on the brakes and the truck slid to a stop. Grabbing the phone, Ahalya hid it in her churidaar. She took in her surroundings. The truck sat at the end of a row of dingy flats beneath a high stone wall. The area was poorly lit and deserted except for a group of three men standing in the gloom. The men surrounded the truck, and the youngest one climbed onto the flatbed.

  Stooping in front of them, he said, “You have nothing to fear from us. If you do what we say, we will not hurt you.” He noticed Ahalya’s satchel. “What do we have here?” he asked, reaching for the bag.

  Ahalya clutched the satchel tightly. Without hesitation, the young man backhanded her across the face. Ahalya’s cheek smarted from the blow and she tasted blood on her lip. Beside her, Sita began to whimper. The violence had been sudden and shocking. Ahalya handed over the bag.

  The young man poured out its contents onto the flatbed and picked up the wooden box, unfastening its clasp. The jewelry sparkled in the light of a streetlamp.

  “Kanan, you old bandicoot,” he said exultantly, holding up one of Sita’s necklaces, “look what you brought us! You must be blessed by Ganesha.”

  “Good,” Kanan said, turning to a fat man with a pockmarked face, “then you can double my pay.” The fat man scowled and Kanan immediately retreated. “Okay, okay. Double is too much. Make it fifty percent.”

  “Done,” the fat man said and counted out the bills. “Now get out of here.”

  After the young man forced the girls out of the truck, Kanan hopped back in the cab, gunned the engine, and sped away in a cloud of dust.

  The youth took Sita’s arm, and the fat man flanked Ahalya. The third of their captors, a bespectacled man with a silver watch, trailed behind. Ahalya’s heart pounded as the men led them into a dark hallway and up a flight of stairs. The door to a flat stood open. A hamsa charm was strung above the doorway as a talisman against the Evil Eye.

  The men ushered the girls into the living room. An overweight woman in a sari sat on the couch watching television. She glanced up at the girls and then returned to her program. The youth and the fat man shook hands with the bespectacled man, whom they called Chako. The fat man spoke briefly to Chako in low tones. Ahalya heard nothing of the conversation except the fat man’s promise to return in the morning.

  Chako bid the others farewell and closed the door, locking two deadbolts. He turned to the girls with a neutral expression.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  Ahalya’s stomach rumbled. The thought of food had not entered her mind in hours. She traded a glance with Sita and nodded at Chako. Chako turned to the woman and spoke a terse command in Tamil. The woman rose from the couch, glared irritably at the girls, and made her way into the kitchen.

  Minutes later, she emerged bearing two steaming plates of rice with chickpea and potato chutney and a pitcher of water. The sisters ate ravenously. The food was too spicy and the water lukewarm and unfiltered, but Ahalya had long since ceased to care. They needed to bide their time until they were alone and she could place a phone call to Sister Naomi.

  After the meal, Chako told the girls to sit on the couch beside his wife. He took a seat in a nearby chair. Chako’s wife was riveted by a talk show that the girls’ mother had never let them watch. A Tamil movie star was the celebrity guest, and the topic of conversation was her most recent production, a saccharine drama set amid the civil war in Sri Lanka.

  Ahalya sat next to her sister in a state of mute disbelief. In a single day her family had been ravaged by the sea and she and Sita had been kidnapped. What did Chako and his wife want with them? Had other girls been imprisoned here, or were they the first? Ahalya recalled that Kanan had received a commission from the fat man. That suggested they had done this before. But why? What was their motive?

  The show lasted an hour and then Chako switched the channel to an international news station. Ahalya and Sita sat up in their seats, captivated by footage of devastation wreaked by giant waves along the coastline of the Indian Ocean. Orphaned babies squalled in the arms of aid workers, women wailed in grief before the camera, and whole villages lay in ruins, felled by a wall of water that appeared without warning.

  According to the anchor, the tsunami had started its journey in the tumult of a colossal earthquake off the coast of Indonesia. A succession of waves generated by the quake had spread outward from the epicenter at the speed of a jetliner. In the span of less than three hours, the tsunami had left untold thousands dead along the shores of Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, India, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The station showed projections of the death toll. Some said fifty thousand people had perished. Others estimated five times that number. The scope of the catastrophe was unimaginable.

  They watched television until ten o’clock. When Chako finally switched off the set, he led Ahalya and Sita into a small room furnished with two beds and a bedside bureau. Chako told the sisters they would sleep on one bed and his wife would sleep on the other. The room had a window on the far wall, enclosed by rusting louvers and iron bars.

  Chako’s wife entered the room after a few minutes dressed in a nightgown and carrying a glass of water and two round pills. Chako told the girls that the pills would help them sleep. Thinking quickly, Ahalya trapped the pill beneath her tongue and swallowed only the water. Her phone was still hidden in the fabric at her waist; she intended to use it after everyone fell asleep. Chako’s wife, however, probed her mouth with her finger and discovered the ruse.

  “Stupid girl,” the woman spat
out, cuffing Ahalya on the back of the head. “You don’t know what’s good for you.” She gave Ahalya the pill again and forced her to swallow it.

  Chako took a look at his shiny watch and bid the sisters good night. Closing the bedroom door behind him, he turned the lock with an audible click. His wife sat down on the bed nearest to the window and fixed Ahalya with a nasty glare.

  “There is no way out,” she said. “Do not try to leave or Chako will bring a knife. Others have learned the hard way. And do not disturb my sleep.”

  Ahalya and Sita lay down beside each other on the bed. Sita cried silently into the sheets until she drifted off to sleep. Ahalya wrapped her arms around her sister like a protective shield, trying desperately to ward off the unseen forces that had turned their world into a nightmare. As the sedative took effect, Ahalya fought to stay awake, but the medication addled her mind and weighed down her eyelids.

  With the last of her strength, she pushed her mobile phone deeper into her churidaar. Then her resistance gave way and she lost consciousness.

  Chapter 2

  Confess it freely—evil prowls about the land, its secret principles unknown to us.

  —VOLTAIRE

  Kiawah Island, South Carolina

  On the morning after Christmas, in the twilight before dawn, Thomas Clarke took a walk along the shoreline of Vanderhorst Plantation. He was the first of his friends at the beach house to greet the day. The holiday bash the night before had been wild, the wine and brandy had flowed, and most of his companions had drunk themselves into a stupor. Thomas had showed restraint, but only because his mind was on other things.

  He regretted making the trip from D.C. It wasn’t his idea. His best friend from law school had heard about Priya and invited him to spend Christmas on the island. Thomas appreciated Jeremy’s desire to keep him company, but the diversion had had the opposite effect. It had been years since he had felt so lonely.

  He crossed the dunes to the beach. The scene before him was picturesque—sky uncluttered and blushing pink, whitecaps on gunmetal surf kicked up by a blustery wind, and wide swaths of unbroken sand. Stuffing his hands in the pockets of his coat, he trudged toward the waterline and headed east, against the wind. At six foot two and a trim 180 pounds, he was built for exercise. In other circumstances, he would have gone for a long run. Today he was preoccupied. He set a steady pace and played mental games with himself, shuffling his thoughts like a deck of cards and searching for a safer subject. But eventually his mind rebelled and he saw his wife, standing beside the taxi, saying goodbye.

  Her name was Priya, meaning “beloved.” He remembered saying it to himself over and over again when they first met. The innocence of those days seemed surreal now. So much had happened. So much had changed. The blows when they came had been crushing, and the wreckage they left behind had been complete. The look in her eyes when she left him said it all. Beyond bitterness, anger, and despair, beyond emotion itself, was a place of unfeeling. She hadn’t looked at him as much as looked through him.

  Their story had many parts, many stages. Some were comprehensible. The rest was a confused mess of fault and pain. There were tragedy and betrayal, divided loyalties and unspoken needs, and a gulf of culture never quite bridged. But that was how life so often went. Solid ground could turn into quicksand without warning. The rational world yielded to madness, and good people lost their minds.

  Thomas reached the westernmost fairway of the Ocean Course and turned around. The empty beach on Vanderhorst Plantation was chilly in the winter air, but the rising sun shimmered on the water and gave the appearance of warmth. Heading back to the beach house, Thomas increased his pace. He had been raised by a championship athlete and ex-Marine who now served as chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The Honorable Randolph Truman Clarke, steely-eyed jurist and master of the Rocket Docket, was a glutton for early-morning punishment and raised Thomas and his younger brother, Ted, to crave the thrill of cool wind upon their faces and the sight of a distant sunrise.

  When he reached the boardwalk that led across the dunes, Thomas paused for a moment and allowed the cadence of the ocean to steady his mind. He had a long day ahead of him. The thought of it made him cringe, but he couldn’t put it off any longer.

  For as long as he and Priya had lived in the city, they had spent Christmas Eve with his family in Alexandria. It was a tradition he had broken this year without explanation. His father had expressed his displeasure in few words, as was his way, but his mother had been crestfallen. She had asked about their plans, and he had given her no detail. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her that Priya was gone.

  In the end, however, they had boxed him in. His mother had insisted—insisted—that they come over for dinner—before or after the holiday, it didn’t matter. He had pushed back, blaming his caseload at the firm, but the Judge had picked up the phone and intervened.

  “The day after Christmas is a Sunday,” he had said. “Nobody is going to be at the office that day. I’m sure you can take a break.”

  “The firm party is that night,” Thomas had rejoined.

  The gambit had worked until the Judge asked when the party started.

  “Eight thirty,” he had admitted.

  “You can stop by beforehand,” the Judge had said.

  He returned to the beach house and packed his bag. Most of his companions were still asleep, and the house was a disaster. Dirty plates and shot glasses were strewn about, and the air still carried the faint scent of liquor. He didn’t envy Jeremy the task of cleanup.

  His friend met him in the foyer, dressed in a gray T-shirt and boxer shorts.

  “Leaving so soon?” he asked. “I’m making pancakes later. Fuel for the road.”

  Thomas ran a hand through his dark hair. “It’s tempting, but I have to get back. Clayton’s party is tonight, and I have to stop by my parents’ house for dinner.”

  “Sometimes it seems like the holidays never end,” Jeremy replied with a grin.

  “Thanks so much for thinking of me,” Thomas said.

  Jeremy clasped his shoulder. “I know this wasn’t the same as sharing Christmas with Priya, but it was good to see you again. If there’s anything I can do …”

  “Thanks.” Thomas gave his friend a thin smile, collected his bag, and took his leave.

  He drove toward the gate in a daze. He was not looking forward to the ten-hour drive to the District. He left the resort property and headed in the direction of Charleston. Traffic was light, and he reached the city in forty minutes. He wasn’t really in a hurry, but the absence of highway patrol officers encouraged his lead foot. He tried his best not to think about the empty brownstone waiting for him in Georgetown or the jasmine and lilac scent of Priya’s perfume still clinging to the bedsheets.

  Merging onto I-95, Thomas found a classical music station on the radio and ignored the speed limit. The Audi was as quiet at eighty-five miles an hour as it was at fifty-five. Around noon, he stopped for gas and remembered he hadn’t eaten breakfast. At the recommendation of the station attendant, he bought a pulled pork sandwich from a local greasy spoon and drove half a mile to the Cape Fear Botanical Gardens. By midday, the air had warmed sufficiently to allow for alfresco dining.

  He parked in the visitors’ lot and entered the gardens on foot. The place was idyllic—lush with foliage. A few couples were out walking, an elderly man was throwing rice to a family of pigeons, and a blond woman in a hat was snapping pictures of a man in sunglasses beneath an oak tree. Not far away, a young mother and a girl about ten years old were heading down a path toward the Children’s Garden. Thomas watched the girl run ahead of her mother and felt a familiar ache inside. When Priya was pregnant, he had a dream of Mohini taking her first steps at Rock Creek Park. It was one of so many hopes dashed by the little girl’s death.

  He walked to a gazebo in the middle of a grassy field and took a seat on the steps. He watched as mother and daughter disappeared into a stand of
evergreen trees. Soon the woman with the camera lost interest in photographing her companion and turned her attention to the flora. Shutter clicking, lens tracing random arcs across the scene, she meandered toward the path to the Children’s Garden, her male friend trailing after her.

  Thomas took out his sandwich and began to eat. He watched the clouds drifting lazily in the jet stream and relished the tranquility of the place. After a while, he looked out across the grass and saw that the elderly man had taken a seat on a bench at the edge of the trees. Everyone else had disappeared. For a moment, all was serene. The air was still, the forest unperturbed, and the December sun hung like a lantern from the sky.

  Then, in an instant, the silence was shattered by a scream.

  Thomas put down his meal and stood up. The scream came again. It was a woman’s voice, coming from the direction of the Children’s Garden. His decision was instinctive. In seconds he was running down the path toward the trees. There was no doubt in his mind. The scream had something to do with the girl.

  He entered the forest at top speed. The path was lonely and dark beneath the evergreen boughs. He emerged from the trees to see the young mother doubled over in the midst of an empty meadow. She was clutching her stomach with one hand and her face with the other, repeating a name over and over again—Abby.

  Thomas looked around.

  The girl was gone.

  He ran to the woman and knelt down. Her cheek was livid with the beginnings of a nasty bruise. She looked at him with wild eyes.

  “Please!” she rasped. “They took her! They took my Abby! Help me!”

  Thomas’s heart lurched. “Who did?” he demanded, scanning the trees again.

  “A woman with a camera,” she gasped, trying to stand up. “And two men. One of them came up behind me.” She motioned toward the trees separating them from the parking lot. “They went that way! Do something! Please!”