Not clothes.
Not a laptop.
Not even toiletries.
It was a thick brown folder.
Under it were several smaller envelopes, a digital camera, and what looked disturbingly like printed photographs.
Meera’s throat tightened.
— “What… what is all that?”
Ajay didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, he calmly placed the folder on the table and opened it.
The first thing Meera saw made her blood run cold.
A photograph.
Of her.
Walking out of her apartment building two weeks earlier.
Another photo.
Her sitting at a café with her coworker.
Another.
Her buying medicine at a pharmacy.
And then another.
Meera staggered backward.
— “W-what is this…?”
Ajay finally looked at her.
His face no longer carried the gentle warmth she had trusted for an entire year.
Now he looked… cold.
Calculated.
Like a stranger wearing Ajay’s face.
— “I needed to be sure,” he said quietly.
— “Sure of WHAT?!”
He slid another paper toward her.
A hospital record.
Her hospital record.
Meera’s eyes widened.
Her hands began shaking uncontrollably.
— “How did you get this?”
Ajay leaned back calmly.
— “You’d be surprised how easy it is when you know the right people.”
Meera felt nausea rise in her stomach.
The room suddenly felt smaller.
The air heavier.
— “You investigated me?”
— “For eleven months.”
That answer hit harder than a slap.
Eleven months.
Almost the entire time she had known him.
