The connection wasn't in the obvious places. The four women didn't share a workplace, a gym, a college, a social media group, or a dating app. They weren't from the same hometown. They didn't have mutual friends on any platform. Their lives, plotted on a map of NCR, were as unconnected as four random pins on a dartboard.
But then Aarav looked at their medical records.
It required authorization — Kavita's signature on a request to four different hospitals — and the results came in staggered, one hospital at a time. But when all four were laid side by side, the pattern hit him like a truck on the expressway.
All four women had visited the same diagnostic centre within six months of their disappearance. LifeCare Diagnostics, a chain with branches across NCR. Megha Arora had gone for a routine blood test at the Gurgaon branch. Saloni Bhat had an MRI at the Greater Noida branch. Priti Verma had a thyroid panel at the Dwarka branch. Neha Rastogi had a health check-up at the Sector 62 branch.
Different branches. Different tests. But the same chain. And more importantly — all four visits had been processed through the same central database. LifeCare Diagnostics stored all patient records on a unified cloud system, accessible from any branch.
Someone with access to that database would have names, phone numbers, addresses, medical histories, and — critically — the daily schedules of thousands of women across NCR.
Aarav called Kavita. "I found the link. It's a diagnostic chain. LifeCare Diagnostics. All four victims are in their system."
"How many employees have access to the central database?"
"I'm checking. But ma'am — LifeCare has forty-seven branches across NCR. Their database probably holds records of two hundred thousand patients. The person we're looking for isn't just choosing victims — they're shopping for them."
Silence on the line. Then Kavita said: "Get me a warrant for LifeCare's employee records and system access logs. I want to know every person who accessed those four women's files."
"Yes, ma'am."
"And Aarav? Your wife called my office looking for you. Something about a school play."
He closed his eyes. Rhea's play. He'd missed it. Again.
"I'll handle it, ma'am."
He called Simran. She answered on the first ring, which meant she'd been waiting. Simran answered on the first ring when she was angry — it was her way of not giving him the satisfaction of thinking she was too busy to care.
"She was the tree," Simran said. Her voice was flat — the flatness of a woman who'd had this conversation too many times to waste emotion on it. "The main tree in the forest scene. She had four lines. She practised them for two weeks. She looked at the audience for you."
"Simran, I'm sorry. Something came up —"
"Something always comes up. That's the problem, Aarav. It's not that you miss things. It's that you don't notice what you're missing."
She hung up. He sat in his chair, in his empty office, at 11 PM, and felt the particular loneliness of a man who was good at solving other people's disappearances and terrible at preventing his own family from vanishing in slow motion.
His phone buzzed. Unknown Caller.
He stared at it. His blood cooled by two degrees.
It rang nine times.
He didn't answer.
The caller didn't leave a message.
Aarav put the phone down and looked at it the way you look at a snake that's entered your house — with the understanding that the danger isn't just in the room. It's already been here longer than you know.
Someone had his number. Someone who knew about the investigation — because why else would they call him now, of all times, at the exact moment he'd found the pattern? This wasn't coincidence. This was a message.
I know you're looking.
And I'm looking right back.
