A Change of Heart by Sonali Dev Read Free Book Online Page A

them.
    He grabbed her arm and pressed her against the little cabin room—the only patch of shade on the wide-open deck—and reached for her hood.
    She pulled it off before he could touch it.
    â€œIs the hair real?”
    She took a breath but her eyes didn’t waver. “No.” The wind whipped the short strands around her face.
    He continued to hold her gaze, but he couldn’t get himself to ask the question.
    She answered it nonetheless. “Jen knew you’d believe me if I had the hair. That’s why I had it done.”
    He took a step back, needing to pull breath into his lungs.
    It made him a fool of gargantuan proportions, but if there was any chance, any chance at all, he had to take it. He had to know. “Can I talk to her?”
    Sympathy flared in her eyes, a hot, harsh flash making him sick to his stomach.
    â€œNo,” she said, shaking her head and spinning that hair around her face. “You can’t. I’m sorry.”
    He lifted his hand and stopped it inches from the flaming strands. The wind teased them to within a breadth of his fingers, but they didn’t reach him. “It’s amazingly like hers.”
    Relief swept across her always-calm features, making her look as weary as he felt. “I got it colored at the same place Jen did.”
    â€œAnd where was that?”
    She gave a small nod, acknowledging the endless swirl of doubt churning inside him. “Beauty’s Beauty Parlor in Dharavi.”
    He pulled his hand away and rubbed the stubble on his head. He’d forgotten to shave it today. “I hated it.” He had been such a jerk about it too.
    â€œI know,” she said. “Jen didn’t like it much either.”
    And yet Jen had done no more than be amused by it. He walked to the railing and leaned back into it. She had always been so damn patient with him.
    Silence stretched between them, unruffled by the wind so violent everything in its path had to be bolted down.
    But silence didn’t have the answers he needed. “How does this work? This”—he twirled his finger between them—“her talking to you.”
    She sagged against the wall behind her. It was the slightest move, but there it was again, the relief she was trying to hide. He hungered for some of his own.
    â€œIt’s really hard to explain.” Her voice was a whisper above the wind. “I feel her inside me. It’s not hearing words so much as knowing them. Like a mist of thought sinking into my brain and becoming my own thoughts.”
    He tried to tamp it down, but the hope that unfurled inside him sped up his breath. He knew he was going to regret this, knew what a pathetic asshole this made him, but there was no backing out now.
    â€œOkay, hit me. What does she want?”
    â€œJen was working on something,” she said quickly, as if sensing how badly he wanted to change his mind. “She was collecting evidence against someone who was stealing organs from undocumented slum dwellers.”
    His heart started slamming. “Shit. The cop sent you!” He wasn’t just a pathetic asshole, he was a pathetic, gullible asshole. Of course Rahul Savant would pull something like this. He was desperate.
    He backed away from her, heading for the stairs. Rahul wasn’t the only one who was desperate. Nikhil’s own desperation had made him crazy. This conversation had gone on too long.
    â€œNo one sent me,” she called after him. “Certainly not the police. You have to believe me. Her death, they—”
    He stopped but couldn’t turn around. “I was there. If you know all this you must know that I . . . I watched my wife die. I watched what they did to her.”
    Her hand rested on his shoulder. But there was no comfort in it.
    There was no comfort.
    â€œThen how can you let them get away with it?”
    He spun around, throwing off her hand. All the scattered scraps of feelings from these