Reet’s Car wasn’t parked in front of Niyasa, and it wasn’t in the employee lot in back either. The business was dark, and when Varun tried the front door it was locked. Two cars were tucked next to the curb in front of the boutique a few doors down, and beyond that a car here or there dotted the mostly deserted thoroughfare.
Varun climbed back in his Car and pulled into the gas station across the street, sliding into a parking spot beside a seasonal snow cone shack. Three festive tables clustered around the tiny establishment, and the row of empty parking spaces served both businesses.
Reet obviously wasn’t at the salon, but he didn’t know where else to look. Maybe he’d just missed her. Maybe she’d gone looking for him.
He doubted it.
Reet had a soft heart but a good chin. He’d dealt her some blows, and she’d still been standing. She wouldn’t be the one to come looking for forgiveness. He’d stormed out. He would have to storm back in. Her phone rang and rang.
“Come on, Ri,” he whispered. “Pick up. Don’t ignore me.”
A tapping on his window had him flinging the phone across the front seat.
“Shit!” he cursed, startled. A grizzled face peered at him through the window, palm pressed to the glass, a tentative smile revealing broken teeth.
“Varun?” the man said. “Please don’t be afraid. I’m worried about Reet.”
“John?” Varun said, his voice calm despite his galloping heart.
Reet told Varun about an old man named John who lived across the street from Niyasa and visited her for haircuts .
The man nodded eagerly. Varun eased his car door open and stepped out, facing the man across the roof of his Subaru. He liked having the distance between them. Plus, the passenger side doors were locked.
“Do you want to be called John. . . or should I call you something else?”
“Like what?” the man stammered.
“Mr. Cutler? Reet told me about you.”
“Oh.” The man seemed disappointed in the alternatives.
“Isn’t that your name? John Cutler?”
“Yeah. It is. you can call me John.”
“You said you were worried about Reet. Why?”
“She went inside.” He pointed at the salon. “I know she works there. But it’s late. I think she's in some trouble.”
“Trouble?” Varun stammered.
“Reet is nice to me,” John whispered. “I’m worried about her.”
“You saw Reet go in the salon? When?”
“I’m not good with time, Varun .”
“Tonight? She went in tonight?”
“Yes. Tonight,” John affirmed.
“Before I came?”
“Yeah. She parked somewhere else. She walked from somewhere and went inside. A little while later, you drove by.”
As Varun watched, a dark truck pulled up in front of the salon, and John started to back away, obscuring himself in the shadows.
“You don’t want to let that one see you, Varun,” John warned. “Get back in your car.”
The pumps in front of the gas station were well lit, but the corner where the snow cone shack stood was dark and partially obscured by two tall pines. Varun’s car was dark, and his lights were off, but sensing John’s distress, he slid back behind the wheel of his car and watched as Klaus Tate and another man stepped out of the truck and scanned the street as they approached Niyasa’s entrance. Klaus unlocked the front door and looked around like he was uncomfortable about something.
The man with him urged him inside and the door swung closed behind them.
John rapped on the passenger side window. Varun flipped the locks and John, not missing the subtle invitation, slid into the seat beside him. His knees crowded the glove compartment, and he was unable to recline because of the bulging pack he wore on his back.
“That was Daze,” John muttered. “I don’t like Daze.”
“Daze?” Varun questioned.
“The guy with Klaus. Everyone’s afraid of him. He never opens his eyes all the way. Looks like he’s half-asleep.People call him Daze.”
“Why would he be with Klaus?”
“Drugs,” John answered.
“Klaus Tate has a drug problem?”
“Lots of drug problems,” John muttered. “His biggest drug problem is Daze.”
A few minutes later the front door opened and the man—Daze—exited Niyasa pushing three Rubbermaid containers, one stacked on top of the other, on a dolly. He didn’t look around, didn’t slow, but continued at a leisurely pace to the truck parked in front of the boutique. Varun watched as he hoisted the bins into the back of the vehicle and then returned to the salon, leaving the dolly sitting on the sidewalk.
“Do you think I could have that dolly?” John asked after they’d waited several more minutes. “I would like that.”
“Are you sure you saw Reet go inside?” pressed. The thought of Reet being inside Niyasa with Klaus and Daze wasn’t sitting well with him.
“I think so,” John hedged, worrying his lip.
A few minutes later Daze was back, jangling a set of keys. He opened the driver’s side door of the truck and climbed in. Varun expected to see Klaus exit Niyasa as well, but Daze wasn’t waiting. He started Klaus’s truck, and without a second look, pulled away from the curb and headed south down the street.
“That’s Klaus’s truck. Where’s Klaus?” John said. “And why didn’t Daze put that dolly back?”
Varun waited a few minutes more, his eyes glued to the front door. No lights. No Klaus. No Ri. Maybe she wasn’t inside. Poor John wasn’t giving him much confidence with his talk of towels and his innocent coveting of the abandoned dolly.
“If you call the police . . . will they take me away?” Johnsaid abruptly.
“Why—” he stopped, sniffing the air.
“Do you smell smoke?” Varun hissed.
John sniffed the air too, and then sniffed at his clothes. “I always smell like smoke.”
Varun was out of the his Car and running across the street before John even managed to entangle himself from the front seat. Varun wrenched on the door of the salon, but it was locked. He pushed his face to the glass, peering into the gloom, trying to see what was happening inside.
John was suddenly there beside him, his face pressed to the window, hands framing his eyes.
“What the hell?” Varun hissed. His instincts were screaming, and a red glow had begun to glimmer from deep in the store. It was on fire, and Klaus Tate had gone inside and he had not come out. That much Varun knew.
"We need rocks. "John muttered and started searching for it, in his backpack.
Varun eyed the enormous rock John pulled from the depths. “I’ve been feeling extra floaty lately,” he explained, self-conscious. Without warning, he heaved it through the glass.
“Was that wrong, John? It didn’t feel wrong,” John worried.
Varun picked up John’s backpack, still brimming with an assortment of rocks, and zipped it closed. He swung it at the window, clearing away the shards. Smoke billowed out around them. Handing John the backpack, he grabbed the man by his shoulders.
“I need you to go back to my car, find my phone, and call 100. Tell them there’s a fire at Niyasa Salon. I need your help, John.”
“But . . . I can’t talk to the police,” John stammered. “They think I'm mad. They won’t believe me.”
“None of that matters now. I need you to call the police, and then wait for them. Wait for me. Don’t go inside the salon!”
“But Reet is in there. I know it. I think it’s hard to breathe,” John wailed.
Varun didn’t want to believe him. He wanted to put a hand over John’s mouth and tell him to shut up, to stop scaring the shit out of him.
But he did believe him.
And that belief meant Reet was inside a burning building and Klaus Tate was unaccounted for.
“Call Police, John!” Varun demanded, and without waiting to see if John obeyed him, stepped through the gaping hole they’d made in the glass.
The smoke was so thick he pulled his T-shirt up over his nose and mouth and ran forward, looking for signs of life. The building was old, but the surfaces were stone and glass and faux wood floors. Ceramic sinks and metal chairs were all less flammable than the ceilings, and the flames had traveled upward, licking up the more incendiary surfaces.
Varun felt for the row of sinks he knew should be just to his right and found the nozzled end of a long hose. Turning the water on full he doused the area around him, soaking himself and everything within range.
“Reet!” he roared. The back wall was on fire, and the flames had climbed to the ceiling tiles. On the other side of the wall was the stockroom—the stockroom would be full of accelerants—and beyond that, the rear exit that led to the employee parking on one side and the warehouse/Cross-fit gym on the other.
The locker room and a row of smaller rooms for waxing, facials, and massage were to the right, just across the hall from the stockroom.
“Reet,” he shouted again. He could smell hairspray and something else. He’d smelled it in the hospital in Kabul. Burnt flesh.
“Oh no,” he groaned, choking. “Reet! Where are you?”
He stumbled forward several steps, trying to see through the roiling waves. He would never find her. She could be lying five feet away, and he would never see her.
He continued on moving forward until he felt someone lying in his path.
He sank to his hands and knees, the air clearer closer to the floor, and found Reet, her hair lank and soaked in blood, her white blouse black with it. With a cry of both horror and relief, he scooped her up in his arms and turned toward the front of the salon, moving as fast as his oxygen-starved lungs would allow, begging Reet to hold on even as he choked and clutched her still form to his chest.
He staggered through the smoke, the distance to the entrance feeling like a city block. He fell against the front doors, only to have them wrenched open by a fireman on the other side.
“Anyone else inside?” the fireman shouted, reaching for Reet. Varun clutched her, unwilling to release her.
“Anyone else?” the fireman repeated.
“I don’t know,” Varun said. “I don’t know.”
“We’re going to get you and the lady to a hospital, okay?” the fireman said. “Can you tell me your name?”
“I need to stay with her,” Varun rasped.
“We’ll do our best, okay?”
Then ambulance workers were running toward him, a gurney between them, and Varun relinquished Reet to the professionals.
She was breathing on her own and her pulse was steady—he heard that much—but she was unconscious. They slid an oxygen mask over her head, and before Varun knew it, they were slipping one over his head as well.
“It’s for the smoke inhalation. We treat it with oxygen. Just breathe deep, man. You can sit up here by the lady. We’re going to get you guys to the hospital.”
Varun lifted the mask, needing to check on John. “There was another man here. Did you see him?”
“We got him. He tried to go inside—he was the one who told us you were there—but we kept him back. There’s another ambulance pulling up now. We’ll make sure he gets checked out. Now put the mask back on.”
Ri was intubated en route, and Varun closed his eyes, gripped her hand, and prayed that she wouldn’t leave him. She didn’t appear burned—miraculously—and her color was rapidly improving, and as they pulled into the emergency room entrance, she opened her eyes and looked at him.
* * * *
Varun was treated for smoke inhalation in the ER at the hospital, and released hours later with medicine to ease his raw throat and his pounding head. Reet had been immediately admitted and undergone a series of tests and treatments. He’d called Amma and Annika, who’d come at once, with Gia in tow. Amma had stayed with Reet, Annika, upon seeing that he would be just fine, took poor Gia back home, and Varun, still grimy, his clothes foul with smoke, found his way to Reet’s bedside. She opened her eyes and lifted her hand in greeting.
They’d removed the tube from her throat, but when she tried to speak, Amma shushed her.
“Doctor says no, Reet. Your throat needs to heal.”
Reet kept her hand extended, and Varun sank into a chair beside her bed, taking it and pressing his lips to her palm, needing to tell her how sorry he was, how much he loved her, and how scared he’d been. Amma stood, rounding the bed to reach him.
She ran a hand over his filthy hair, kissed his cheeks like he was precious to her, and whispered her gratitude.
“You found her, Varun. You saved her.She was my responsibility in this city. How will I ever repay you?”
Varun could only shake his head, guilt and grief making him resistant to her praise. Amma told him she would be back with coffee and fresh clothes for him to change into, and left them alone, pressing a kiss to her Reet’s forehead. Ri waited for her to leave before she disregarded the doctor’s orders.
“Klaus was there with someone. A man. I couldn’t see him. But he killed Klaus. Shot him right in the head. And then he made a bonfire. I was hiding under the shelves,” she rushed. “I managed to slide out, and I called 100, but I couldn’t wait for help, and I couldn’t go out the door without walking through the fire. So I went up.”
“Up?”
“I climbed the shelves, and I pushed out a ceiling tile and crawled out on one of the rafters. There was so much smoke, and I was coughing. I was afraid I’d fall. I couldn’t see anything else.”
“Then What happened? ,” he said, overcome.
“Once I was up, I had to get back down. I slipped. One minute there was a beam beneath me, the next minute there wasn’t. I remember falling right through the ceiling tiles, but nothing after that. They think I hit my head and knocked myself out. But I know what I saw.” She was quiet for a moment, her eyes fierce, her lips trembling.
Their eyes met and held, and for several heartbeats, they said nothing and everything without exchanging a word.
Varun hugged her. For a moment they clung to each other, their emotion making conversation impossible. But after several minutes, Varun pulled back, anxious to speak.
“I’m sorry, Ri, for all the things I said,” Varun choked out. “I was angry. Hurt. Embarrassed. But none of this was your fault.”
“I made such a mess of things,” she said. “I was trying to fix something that I couldn’t fix, and I made everything worse.”
“We save each other, remember? It’s what we do,” he repeated, but this time his voice was wry. “But we can’t save Natasha from this.”
"Natasha put me in a position where I have to betray my daughter, I have to keep something away from her and that just sucks so bad. The betrayal—the fact that she messed around on me—that was the easiest thing to face. But she robbed Gia. And that’s going to take me a while to get over.”
“She robbed you both.”
“Yeah. She did. And yet . . . I’m still trying to protect her. You’re still trying to protect her.”
“Old habits.”
“Yeah. So you didn’t tell me what you knew. And I didn’t tell you what I knew. We just suffered and worried,” he said gently. “We can’t do that anymore.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
“Okay?”
She nodded slowly, her throat working. "Amma said the police want to talk to me.”
“They’re going to want to talk to us both. I talked to them a little already,” Varun agreed, nodding.
“Do they think I killed Klaus?”
Varun reared back, stunned. “Why would they think that?”
“Because I . . . paid him . . . to leave. And he came back. I had good reason to hate Klaus, and I was there when he died.”
“You paid Klaus to leave?” Varun gasped, incredulous.
She nodded, wincing with the movement of her head.
“Reet,” he breathed. “Why?”
“He promised he would go and leave you and Gia alone.”
“How much money did you give him?” Varun pressed, anger billowing up his charred throat.
For a moment Reet didn’t answer, and Varun raised her chin and made her meet his gaze. Fear and remorse warred in her eyes, and he smoothed the hair back from her face.
“How much, Ri?”
“Twenty grand.”
“Reet Kapoor ,” Varun whispered. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“I couldn’t let him do it. I couldn’t let him take Gia,” she cried, her face crumpling with the confession.
Varun pulled her into his arms and held her as sobs wracked her small body. Ri cried like she’d been holding it all in for decades.
Varun wanted to cry with her, but he was too stunned. Too humbled. He’d known Reet for years, and she never ceased to blow him away.
That was chapter 47 guy's. Hope y'all like it.
So Varun was thankfully able to save Reet.
John was helpful. And Varun got to know about Reet paying Klaus for leaving him alone too.
Let's see what is in store for Varun and Reet ahead?
Tell me your favourite moment in whole chapter?
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