The Selfie

7:10 p.m- same day

And that's how it all began; just a touch; just the sight of him-

Diana shut the book. Her head was aching now and she couldn't concentrate on the story anymore.

Her friends had left half an hour ago; Kalki and Hiya wanted to resume their investigation while Prithvi had to help her parents out for dinner as they were expecting guests. Ankit was going back to his workplace. "I still have a lot of paperwork to send off. Some guy wanted quite a few of those hologram things I was talking to you about the other day. And another guy bought fifteen washing machines. Like seriously, fifteen?!" He had told them. But he had come back to sneak in some edible food as a break from the  "hospital junk" that she was forced to eat till she got out of there.

Sighing, she opened the covering on her burger and was just about to take a bite when the door to her room creaked open. She looked up to see who it was.

Rudy stood there with a packet in his hand, grinning. "How's the head?" He asked Diana while taking a seat on a chair.

"Why are you so late?" Diana asked him, not bothering to reply.

"Had some paperwork to finish. And the traffic; my god! Sometimes I wish my car could fly!" Rudy said with a frown on his face. Diana chuckled and took a bite of her burger. Rudy took out a roll from the packet that he was carrying and took a bite.

"So... What happened?" He asked her.
Diana explained the story to him. "-and that's how I'm here."

Rudy gave out a low whistle. He had a very thoughtful expression on his face. "Hey." Diana called out to him. "What's wrong?" Rudy looked up at Diana. He drew out a small piece of paper from his back pocket and gave it to Diana.

Diana looked at the note and her eyes widened. She looked up at Rudy. "Where did you find this?"

"On the windshield of my car. I didn't even notice it until I got inside." Rudy said.

Diana pursed her lips. "Pass my phone. Its on the table next to you."

Rudy handed her the phone. Diana immediately called Kalki. "Hey." Kalki answered from the other side.
"Hey, do you still have that note with you?"

"Obviously, I mean, it's still considered as evidence, right?"

"Okay good. Can you come here and give it to me?"

"Sure. Let me guess, you got a header on the case?"

"Something like that."

"I'll be there in fifteen."

Diana cut the call. She turned to look at Rudy, who was staring out of the window with an unexplainable expression on his face. "Hey Rudy, we're all here for you. No one's going to hurt you, okay?"

Rudy didn't answer. He didn't even turn to look at her. Diana sighed and went back to devouring her burger.

"I loved her."

Diana's head snapped up. "What?" She looked at Rudy in confusion.

"I loved her. Atisha. I just never had the guts or the chance to tell her."

Diana's jaw dropped. "How come we never knew?" She asked after a while.

"I never meant for it to be known."

"Why didn't you tell her?"

Rudy paused, thinking hard. "We weren't meant to be. We could never live together. Besides, she considered me as her brother. I didn't want to ruin the relationship that I had with her because I wanted another kind of relationship." He said, finally looking at Diana.

"Rudy.."

"Don't say anything, I don't want to snap at you."

Diana hesitated but then let it slide. "Okay."

"You don't know how many times I blame myself for what happened to her."

"Its not your fault, Rudy."

"Yes, it is!"

Diana turned a little so that she could look directly into Rudy's eyes. She held his cheek with one hand. "No, its not. Don't blame yourself; I hate to see you beat yourself up like this. Trust me, its just lover's guilt."

Rudy just looked at her. "Yeah, you're probably right." He answered after some time.

The door opened and both of them turned to see who it was.  "Hey. What are you doing here?" Diana asked in surprise.

"I saw Kalki bringing the note down, so I asked where she was going. She told me that she was coming down here to give it to you. I was missing you already so I thought I'll get it." She said, smiling. "So why did you want it?" She asked Diana, nodding at Rudy in acknowledgement.

Diana handed the paper over to Hiya. She looked at the paper and then looked back at Diana, gaping. "Where did you find it?" She asked Diana in pure shock.

"I didn't, Rudy did." And Diana launched into Rudy's story. Hiya paid the utmost attention to Diana and once she was done, she pursed her lips. "So what are you going to do now?" She asked her.

"I'm going to look for similarities between the two notes. You know, to see if there was a marking of some sort; whatever that may help us move on in the case. Its a far fetched idea, but its worth a try." And then Diana took both the notes to compare them.

One look at the notes and her excitement dropped.

"What's wrong?" Rudy asked, leaning in to check the two notes.

"The handwritings are different."

Frowning, Hiya took them and checked. "She's right. The one that she found had an almost illegible handwriting, while the other one has a very elegant one."

They stared at the notes for some more time, as if willing the answers to come to them. Obviously, it didn't work.

"Okay, this isn't working."

Rudy and Diana turned to Hiya questioningly. "Look, I'll just run these in the scanner again. We may find finger prints. Maybe Kalki's was faulty or something."

Diana sighed. "Yeah, okay. Call me as soon as you get the results.

"Okay."

Hiya got up and immediately her phone, which was on her lap, fell down.
"Shit." She bent down to pick it up; cursed again when a crack slowly made its way up the screen. "I'm going and getting this fixed first. See you later, Di!"

"Bye!" Diana called out to Hiya as she walked out the door.

"I should get going too. I'm leaving this weekend; I need to start packing."

"Leaving?.." Diana asked him.

"You forgot? Oh wait, you would, you just took a hit on the head." He said, chuckling.

Diana made a face. "Shut up."

"My job offer, Di. I'm leaving for Mumbai."

Diana slapped her hand on her forehead, and immediately regretted the decision. "Oh yeah. How could I forget? Sorry man."

"Na, that's OK. You have a lot going on, I understand." He replied with a smile.

"So, how are you going?"

"I'm driving."

Diana just stared at him, open-mouthed. "Its an eleven hour drive! You know that, right?" She asked him.

"Yeah. But I don't mind it. In fact, I think I'm going to enjoy this journey."

"Yeah, I bet you will. Especially when your tire gets punctured or you run out of gas." Diana joked.

This time, Rudy made a face. "Shut up."

They spoke for some more time and then Rudy left.

Sighing to herself, Diana switched off the light and readied herself to go to sleep. Then she realised that a small source of light was coming from her right. She thought it was her phone, and turned to reach out and switch it off.

When she turned she gasped. And then yelled out a blood curdling scream...