Pirate Vishnu (A Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mystery) (28 page)

Chapter 57

“You don’t remember
anything
?” I asked Sanjay.

“Nothing. Did I really faint?”

“For the second time this week.”

Sanjay groaned. He lay back on the modern black couch in the main room of his apartment and covered his face with his bowler hat. 

“But it was after you heroically captured one of the bad guys at gun point,” I said. “Even if it was plastic gun point.”

“I didn’t do anything too stupid, did I?”

“That’s not the word I would use.” I felt my cheeks flush as I remembered Sanjay’s kiss. It was so intense that it surprised me he’d forgotten it, regardless of the drug. It must have been, because he thought nothing of it. It was nothing of consequence to him, only something he’d done because he was drugged. Otherwise he would never have dreamed of kissing me.

I, on the other hand, found myself wondering what it would feel like if he kissed me again… I pulled my thoughts back to the present. It was the day after our adventure at Lands End, and Sanjay had slept off the remaining effects of his accidental drugging.

I went over what we’d learned from Christine, spelling it out for Sanjay since he said he didn’t remember anything. How Christine had confessed to plotting to find the Heart of India and steal the valuable pearl before returning the statue, and how she told us that Connor had stolen the treasure map because he didn’t want the person who killed his father to get the treasure.

But neither one of them was Steven’s killer.
So who was?

Christine was right that I didn’t have to take her word for it. Before coming over to Sanjay’s loft I’d gone to see Inspector Valdez, who had triple-checked Christine and Connor’s alibi, confirming that they were at an art show the whole night Steven was killed. They were telling the truth that neither of them had killed Steven.

“It wasn’t Tamarind, either,” Sanjay said, shaking his head.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you admit to being wrong before,” I said.

“I wasn’t completely wrong about her, you know. She
was
keeping something from you.”

I picked up a fluffy rabbit stuffed animal sitting on the end table and threw it at Sanjay. It knocked off his bowler hat.

“Hey! What was that for?” Sanjay bent down to pick up the rabbit and the hat. A few rose petals fluttered out of the hat as it hit the floor.

It was definitely easier to stop having ridiculous romantic feelings about Sanjay now that he was acting like an eight-year-old again.

“I tend to agree with Christine that Naveen doesn’t have it in him to kill anyone,” I said. “Plus we know he couldn’t have been the person who left the booby trap at your door to scare you off. Who does that leave?”

“I’m sure that detective is on it,” Sanjay said.

“Instead of following up on finding the Heart of India,” I grumbled. “Even after I gave him all the information!”

“If you’re right about where it is,” Sanjay said, “it’s been safe for over a hundred years. Another couple of days won’t hurt.”

“It’ll only hurt my sanity.”

“Ever wonder if you’ve got the wrong temperament for a historian?”

“Do you want to go get some food? I’m starving.”

“You’re always starving, Jaya.”

“Are you coming out to eat with me or not?”

“I can’t. Grace is coming over with takeout. When I told her what had happened, she was worried and didn’t want me to have to drive anywhere.”

“That’s nice of her.”

“I feel bad,” Sanjay said. “She still seems really shaken up about that death in her family.”

The buzzer alerted us that Grace had arrived at the front door of the building. A minute later, she came into the loft with a large enough bag of Thai takeout to feed at least half a dozen people.

“Hi, Jaya,” she said, smiling shyly at both of us. “I thought you might be here, so I got some extra food. This restaurant makes curry almost as good as my mom’s.”

“You are a doll, Grace,” Sanjay said. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Grace blushed and took the food to the island in the kitchen.

“Sanjay told me you found the treasure,” she said to me. She unpacked the large paper bag, not looking at me as she spoke. The scent of Thai curry and peanut sauce wafted out.

“They haven’t unearthed the sunken ship yet,” I said. “So I can’t be sure that I’m right.”

“I should have known if anyone could do it,” Grace said, “it would be you.”

Sanjay took plates and small clay bowls out of a kitchen cabinet. “Jaya was telling me how the police still don’t know who killed the guy who brought Jaya the map.”

One of the take-out containers slipped out of Grace’s hands. A splash of coconut milk soup spilled onto the marble counter.

“Don’t worry about it,” Sanjay said, wiping it up with a kitchen rag that appeared out of thin air.

“Why do you care about that?” Grace asked. “Isn’t it dangerous? Didn’t the threat against your life convince you not to worry about that?”

Sanjay stopped mopping up the counter. “I thought I didn’t tell you about that,” he said.

“Sure you did,” Grace whispered.

“I didn’t want you to worry,” Sanjay said, “so I thought I was careful not to tell you.”

I stared at Grace. Sanjay had been convinced Tamarind was the culprit because she was the only one who could have known about the treasure that night and wanted to act on it then. But
Grace
had been at the restaurant the evening I met Steven Healy. I replayed the night in my mind, feeling my pulse quicken as the pieces fell into place. We’d seen Grace not long after I texted Tamarind. As usual, she had been so quiet that we had no idea how long she’d been standing there…

Sanjay shrugged. “Guess I was wrong.” He tossed the kitchen rag aside and began to fill the bowls with soup. “I’m not at my best today.”

I thought through the timing. Grace had showed up to talk to Sanjay in the early part of the evening, and Steven’s body wasn’t discovered until hours later.

Grace saw me staring at her. Her expression changed in reaction to mine. Her eyes were pleading.

“Why did you do it?” I asked.

“You don’t know what it’s like,” she whispered. “Being invisible.”

Sanjay stopped dishing up food. “What are you two talking about?”

“I think Grace has something to tell us,” I said.

Sanjay looked back and forth between us. “About what? Did you need more time off, Grace?”

“I knew you were as smart as I thought, Jaya,” Grace said. “I should have known—” She broke off and ran away from us.

She didn’t go for the door, but instead ran to the section of Sanjay’s loft that served as his practice magic studio. The large sliding door that separated it from the rest of the loft was already open. She fiddled with a switch on the wall, and a light that mimicked a spotlight shone from the high ceiling onto the loft’s stage. She stepped into the spotlight.

When she turned to face us, shy Grace was gone. She held herself with the confidence she used on stage. 

“I didn’t mean to do it,” she said, her strong voice projecting through the loft. “You have to understand that. I only wanted to be more like Jaya.”

“You overheard me talking to Sanjay that night at the restaurant,” I said. “When I was telling him about the treasure map Steven Healy had given me.”

“You two didn’t see me,” she said. “I was invisible. I tried to interrupt, but you two were so caught up in your conversation that it took you forever to notice me.”

“What does this have to do with anything?” Sanjay asked.

“As smart as you are, Sanjay,” Grace said, “you haven’t got a clue sometimes.”

Sanjay frowned and walked closer to Grace. I followed.

“You dismissed me so quickly that night,” Grace said to Sanjay. “I thought you needed me. You’re always telling me how you can’t do your magic shows without me, but you didn’t care that I had to miss the show! You said Jaya could replace me.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Sanjay said, the look of confusion still on his face. “Jaya can’t do most of your acts. We had to modify—”

“You don’t get it! I see the way you look at Jaya. I could never compete with her when it comes to how smart she is… But I thought at least she could never take my place as your assistant. You showed me I was wrong. But at the same time, I knew something you two didn’t know. You were talking about Steven Healy like you didn’t know who he was.
But I did
. I followed the scandal on TV last year. The TV news loves to cover people falling from grace. They camped outside his house.”

“That’s how you knew where he lived,” I said.

Grace nodded. “I knew more about him than you did. I thought if I could talk to him, I’d find out more about the treasure than he’d told you. I could be as smart as you. Even smarter. Then Sanjay would notice me. He wouldn’t think I was stupid.”

“Grace?” Sanjay said, staring wide-eyed. “I’ve never thought you were stupid—”

“I was that night,” she said. “I pretended I was on stage. I told myself I was playing a role. I thought he would listen to me… But instead, he got angry. So angry! I knew from the scandal last year that he had a temper, but I thought that was only because it was so important for him to give a bad man what he deserved. I didn’t think he would do anything to me—but he grabbed me so hard.” She rolled up her sleeve. A large bruise was visible on her toned upper arm.

“It was self-defense?” I said.

“You mean—” Sanjay began, finally catching on. “You mean
Grace
killed Steven Healy?” 

“I didn’t mean to! He was so angry, I got scared. When he grabbed me, I picked up something heavy from his desk, just to get him to stop… Only after I hit him, he didn’t move. I was so scared.”

“That’s why you wanted to get us to stop looking for Steven’s killer,” I said. “You sent Sanjay a harmless booby trap to scare him off.”

Grace nodded. “I couldn’t read the instructions on the rat poison. I must have used too much.”

“Grace?” Sanjay said.

“I never meant to hurt you, Sanjay,” she said. “I never meant to hurt either of you.”

Sanjay swore. “It was self-defense. The police will see that. This was all a big mistake.”

“Will they believe me?” Grace asked.

Sanjay and I looked at each other, unsure of what to say.

“I taped it,” Grace added. 

“You
what
?” Sanjay and I said at the same time.

“With my phone,” Grace said. “You know I can’t write very well. I wanted to be sure to remember what he told me, so I turned on the tape recorder on my phone before I knocked on his door. You can hear him grab me, and me scream before I found something to hit him. Do you think that will help?”

Chapter 58

San Francisco, 1906 and beyond

The earthquake on the eighteenth of April
wasn’t the worst part of the disaster.

It was the fire that followed.

Flames ripped through large swaths of the city, especially destructive to buildings that were too close together -- which included most of Chinatown.

The water supply failed, leaving nothing to stop the flames.

Mai had been living with her parents in a section of Chinatown that had enough warning for them to escape. Li, however, lived in an unsafe building on the edge of the neighborhood.

Two days after the earthquake, Mai was camping at Golden Gate Park when she heard the news. Her brother Li was dead.

She had escaped with one bag, which included Anand’s map and letter. She and Li had been arguing about whether Li should risk jail by returning the stolen treasure he and Anand had stolen back. Mai needed him, but Li felt honor-bound. They were at a stalemate. Neither had taken any action that week since Anand’s death.

And now the earthquake. Mai had lost both Anand and her brother. What could she do?

Mai would have mailed the letters and map then, if not for the chaos of the city following the earthquake and fire. So she waited for the postal service to return to normal. Days seemed surreal.

She didn’t know how he did it, but Samuel found her. He cried in her arms like a babe as he spoke of his regrets. He wished he could take back his actions. Mai knew he was a good man, deep down. That’s why, when he told her he would take care of her and her child, she gave him a chance to prove himself. She didn’t have any options. Anand was dead. Her brother was dead. Her parents wouldn’t support her having Anand’s child. What else could she do?

Samuel took a job at the shipyard where Anand had worked. He gave up his fantasies about striking it rich, instead working hard each day to support Mai and her child. He did not ask anything of her in return. He came to love the child as his own. That was when Mai forgave him.

Mai put the treasure behind her. It had caused too much heartbreak already. Samuel was a good man, but she did not want to tempt him with the treasure and upset the balance in their lives. She never told him that Anand had left her with a map she was supposed to send to Anand’s brother. Instead, she wrote to Anand’s brother Vishwan, telling him that his brother died a heroic death in the earthquake. It was true enough. Her beloved Anand had died heroically. There was no need to upset Vishwan. People were more important than treasures. She wouldn’t ruin her and her son’s life by involving them in returning the Heart of India. Instead, she would leave the map and letter to her grown descendants when she died.

As her son grew up, Mai saw so much of Anand in him. His sense of adventure, his curiosity, his loyalty. As Anand had often told Mai, life does not follow the course we expect. But looking at their beautiful son, she knew he was right that it was enough.