Jasmine In The Rain

Chapter 1 - The Third Jasmine (Edited)

Chapter 1 – The Third Jasmine

3:42 a.m.
Crime-scene tape slaps my cheek like wet cloth trying to wake me from a nightmare I’m already living.

The Triplicane alley reeks of jasmine and death, and the smell has already crawled inside my skull and made a home.

I duck under the useless blue tarp the constables tied up five minutes too late. Rain still leaks through and falls on the dead girl’s open eyes like tears she never got to shed.

Twenty-four. Keerthana Vasudevan. Software engineer. Last seen leaving her PG in Mylapore at 11:18 p.m.

Now she’s a red-smiling doll with my worst fear buried in her throat.

I crouch, careful my khaki doesn’t drink the blood crawling toward the drain.
Same golden knot. Same delicate jasmine, now the colour of dried rust.
Third girl. Seventeen days. Always when the sky breaks open.

“Ma’am,” Ramesh whispers behind me, voice trembling, “same bastard.”

I don’t answer.

I’m too busy breathing it in—slow, deliberate—letting the sweetness and iron slide down my throat the same way it slid down his.

I need to understand what kind of monster stops in a Chennai monsoon just to smell this.

“Photos done?” I ask without turning.

“Yes, ma’am. Forensics is waiting.”

“Let them wait.”

I peel off one glove, touch a single blood-soaked petal with my bare finger.

Cold. Slick. Still fragrant.

My stomach flips—not from the gore (I’ve seen worse), but from the tenderness.

He knelt here, in the pouring rain, arranging flowers while her pulse faded.

My phone vibrates against my hip.

Unknown Chennai number.

I stare at the screen.

Thumb hovers.

I answer.

Three seconds of hard rain, so loud it feels like he’s standing right behind me.

Then the voice—soft, amused, intimate:
“Tell me, Officer… does the third one smell sweeter than the first?”

Click.

I stand slowly. Every uniform in the alley is staring.
“Trace it,” I order, voice pure steel even though my insides have turned to water.

Ramesh is already on the walkie. Thirty seconds later he shakes his head.

“Four seconds, ma’am. Too short. Central Chennai only.”

Of course.

I look at Keerthana one last time.

The jasmine gleams under the floodlight—obscene and heartbreakingly beautiful.

I bend to her ear and whisper, soft enough only the rain hears:

“I’m going to find that sick bastard.

And the last thing he’ll ever smell is his own blood.”
Thunder answers for him.

I walk out, boots splashing through red water, already knowing the city will wake up screaming again.

5:21 a.m.

I let myself into the third-floor flat in Alwarpet.

Mom is asleep on the folding cot in the hall, TV glowing some old Ilaiyaraaja song on mute.

She pretends she doesn’t wait up, but the remote is still warm in her palm.

I pull the bedsheet over her shoulders, kiss the silver in her hair.

She smells of Ponds powder and worries.

I don’t turn on the light.

I know the dark by heart.

Duty belt hits the teapoy with a heavy thud.
Khaki peels off and lands in a soaked heap.
Cold shower—geyser dead since last month.
I scrub until my skin is raw, but the jasmine clings like sin.

I make coffee because my hands need something to do.

Cup in hand, I step onto the tiny balcony.
Chennai is still crying.

Across the street the old banyan drips like it’s bleeding slowly.

I lit the last cigarette I swore I’d quit.

Inhale smoke and rain and jasmine together.
The smell is fainter out here, but it’s there—riding the wind like a promise.

I’m almost asleep, face buried in the pillow that still smells of coconut oil, when the doorbell rings.
Once. Sharp.

My heart slams awake before the rest of me.
I reach for the gun on the bedside table, thumb sliding the safety off.

Second ring. Longer.

I move through the dark flat barefoot, silent.
Peephole.

A black umbrella fills the entire circle.
Water drips from its edge like slow blood.
The person holding it stands too close—no face, only black fabric and one gloved hand clutching something white.

Then the voice.

The exact same voice from the alley.
Now outside my door, low and amused:

“Open the door, Pooja.
It’s pouring…
and the fourth jasmine is still warm.”

The smell floods the corridor before I even touch the chain: fresh jasmine, fresh blood, tonight’s rain.
My fingers freeze on the latch.

And the doorbell rings a third time.

He knows where she lives.
He brought tomorrow’s murder to her doorstep.
Comment fast:
Will she open the door?
Chapter 2 drops tomorrow night, when the next rain starts. Lock your doors