For three days, Aarav told no one.
He went to work. He sat in meetings. He reviewed evidence reports. He discussed the case with Pankaj, with the cyber cell, with Kavita herself — sitting across from her desk, watching her face for any flicker, any crack in the composure. There was none. She was perfect. The same steel-grey bun, the same incisive questions, the same authoritative calm.
Either she was innocent and her visit to the farmhouse had an explanation he couldn't see, or she was the most disciplined liar he'd ever encountered.
On the third night, at 11 PM, alone in his apartment — Simran and Rhea still in Lucknow — he opened his notebook and wrote down everything.
The timeline. The four victims, alive, in a farmhouse owned by a dead man's trust. Raghav Saxena's visits. The nine-cot arrangement. The ritual painting. And Kavita — his boss, his mentor — driving to the same farmhouse in the dead of night.
He needed to talk to someone. Not Pankaj — Pankaj was good but not equipped for this. Not the SP — going above Kavita's head without evidence would end his career before breakfast. Not the CBI — they'd take weeks, and five more women were on the list.
He called Dr. Sahil Mehra. At midnight. The psychologist answered on the second ring — he was apparently a fellow insomniac.
"I need to meet you. Tonight. Off the record."
"Come to the clinic. I'm here."
The Hauz Khas streets were empty — that rare Delhi silence that exists only between 1 AM and 4 AM, when even the dogs are asleep and the city feels like a drawing of itself. Sahil was waiting with two cups of black coffee and the expression of a man who's been expecting bad news.
Aarav told him everything. Sahil listened without interrupting, his coffee going cold, his eyes fixed on a point slightly above Aarav's head — his thinking pose.
"The nine cots," Sahil said when Aarav finished. "Arranged in a circle, heads pointing inward. That's a mandala configuration. And the painting — a goddess receiving nine offerings. This isn't a criminal enterprise, Aarav. This is a religious operation."
"A cult?"
"Something close. But not a cult in the Western sense — no charismatic leader, no communal living, no public face. This is a closed practice. One person, maybe two, enacting a private theology. They believe — genuinely believe — that collecting nine specific women, keeping them in a state of ritual purity, and presenting them as offerings will achieve a transcendent result."
"What kind of result?"
"Salvation. Rebirth. The completion of a spiritual cycle. The number nine again — the final single digit before zero resets the count. They're trying to complete something. To close a circle."
"And Kavita?"
Sahil set down his cup. "That's the piece that doesn't fit. A senior police officer, decorated, rational, with a thirty-year career — how does she connect to a ritual abduction scheme?"
"Unless she's been connected since before it started. Unless the scheme grew from something she was already part of."
