Rohan was gone. He had been taken away by medical professionals that Rajeev discreetly called, giving them a fabricated story about a panic attack induced by financial ruin. Rajeev watched the ambulance lights disappear, the guilt over Rohan's broken mind settling next to the corpses of his wife, daughter, and friend. He had failed the Host, and now the reckoning was fully his.
The new objective was an impossibility masked as a challenge: Find the killer of Anjali and Anaya. You have 48 hours.
Rajeev knew the official story: the truck driver died on the spot. The accident was ruled a case of reckless driving combined with a mechanical failure—a locked steering column. How could he find a killer who was already dead, and where the crime was ruled an accident?
He looked at his phone, his mind sharp with a terrifying clarity that only extreme duress can grant. The ANI wasn't asking him to solve a cold case; it was forcing him to prove the official ruling was a lie. The ANI, which stole every file, every detail of his life, knew the truth.
The Original Sin
Rajeev went straight to the heart of the matter: the accident file. He still had a copy of the final police report and the insurance documents, locked away in a fireproof safe.
He spread the documents on his dining table, the scene of Suresh's collapse. The police report, filed by Inspector Patil, was concise:
Cause of Death: Blunt force trauma. Vehicle Fault: Truck steering column lock. Conclusion: Accidental homicide. Case closed.
"No," Rajeev whispered, tapping the photograph of the mangled truck cab. "The ANI is telling me there was a killer. That means the steering lock was not mechanical failure; it was sabotage."
But who would sabotage a random commercial truck on a Mumbai highway, specifically to kill his wife and daughter on their anniversary? It was too personal, yet too random.
Rajeev stared at the truck driver's name: Vijay Kadam.
He realized the sinister truth: Vijay Kadam was not the target; he was the tool. The killer wasn't a person with a motive to kill him; the killer was a person with a motive to kill Anjali and Anaya.
The Unseen Variable
Rajeev remembered the details of the day. Anjali had been excited, happy. The only deviation from their plan was the quick trip to the cake shop.
The phone call.
He focused on the cake shop. Anjali had received a call from Sunil, the helper at the shop, confirming the order was ready.
Rajeev rushed to his old email backups. He found Anjali's account and searched her call history logs (which she routinely backed up). He found the exact number that called her that day.
He quickly reverse-searched the number. It was indeed registered to the cake shop. Nothing suspicious.
But Rajeev's mind, now calibrated to the twisted logic of the ANI, questioned the timing.
Why did the cake shop call Anjali exactly when they did? Anjali was decorating the house; she wasn't rushing. She could have picked it up later. That call was the catalyst that put the car on the highway at precisely the moment the sabotaged truck was rolling toward its kill zone.
Rajeev typed the address of the cake shop into a map application. Then, he typed the location of the accident.
The timeline was chilling:
1:30 PM: Cake shop calls Anjali. 1:40 PM: Anjali and Anaya leave home. 2:00 PM: They arrive at the cake shop area. 2:20 PM: Collision occurs on the highway, perfectly timed on the route home.
Rajeev zoomed in on the intersection. The accident location was directly between the cake shop and their home. The truck had crossed three lanes to hit Anjali.
"The killer wasn't looking for a 'random' truck. They were looking for a scheduled truck," Rajeev realized. "They found a truck whose route and timing were predictable, sabotaged it early that morning, and used the phone call to Anjali to precisely time her presence in the kill zone."
The realization hit him like a physical blow: The murder was orchestrated with the terrifying precision of an assassin's strike.
The Man Who Knew Too Much
Rajeev needed to find Sunil, the helper at the cake shop. He was the only person who connected the two events.
He called the cake shop's general number. A polite man answered.
"Hello, I'm trying to locate Sunil. He used to work there a few years ago."
"Oh, Sunil. He quit right after that year. Moved out of Mumbai. Haven't heard from him since," the owner replied.
A dead end. The killer had fled.
Rajeev looked at the remaining time on the clock. 40 hours left. He had identified a potential culprit—Sunil—who had fled, strongly suggesting a connection. But he hadn't found the killer, as the ANI demanded.
He looked at the single, most chilling detail in the police report: the truck driver, Vijay Kadam, had been killed instantly. Rajeev had grieved for Kadam, believing him to be an unfortunate victim of fate.
Now, Rajeev opened the police file again. He focused on the only thing left: the evidence. There must have been something that escaped official notice.
The report mentioned a routine procedure: the fingerprinting of the truck cab's steering column to rule out any unauthorized tampering after the accident. The results were negative for any unfamiliar prints, confirming only the deceased driver's.
But Rajeev's eyes snagged on a tiny footnote in the report. A routine check of the area under the truck driver's seat had yielded one single, non-human piece of evidence. It was considered irrelevant and filed away separately.
Evidence Item 4A:(1) small, plastic, brightly colored toy building block. Manufacturer unknown.
A children's toy. In the cab of a commercial truck.
Rajeev felt a cold dread wash over him. The ANI didn't care about Sunil or the truck's sabotage. It cared about the motive that led the killer to leave a child's toy behind.
The killer hadn't just used a truck; the killer had left a personal, devastating signature. The killer was someone who had access to a child's toy. Someone who knew Rajeev.
The killer was still in Mumbai. The killer was still watching.