Rana bypassed it all. He followed the child’s directions.
Behind the prayer room.
The prayer room was located at the back of the ground floor, a small alcove dedicated to Lord Shiva. A large, brass idol of the deity sat covered in cobwebs, its third eye staring blindly into the dark. Behind the altar, the wall was lined with heavy, crimson-painted wooden panels—the “red room” Arjun had screamed about.
Rana ran his fingers along the molding. For ten minutes, he found nothing but rough wood and termites. But then, his fingers caught a slight protrusion behind the base of the Shiva idol. It was a small, brass lever, hidden by a heavy layer of dried sacrificial paste and old flowers.
He pulled it.
With a grinding shriek of ungreased iron hinges, a section of the red wooden paneling slid backward and tilted outward, revealing a narrow, suffocatingly dark passage that descended into the foundations of the house. The air that billowed out smelled of old copper, formaldehyde, and something rotting.
Rana clicked on his tactical flashlight. The beam cut through the absolute blackness, illuminating steps carved directly into the damp earth.
He descended.
The space at the bottom was no larger than a prison cell, its walls painted a deep, suffocating crimson. This was not a storage room. It was a sanctuary of paranoia. Against the back wall sat a heavy, vintage steel safe, bolted into the bedrock of the house. On its center was a tiny, ornate keyhole that perfectly matched the shape of the golden key burning a hole in Rana’s pocket.
His hands shook slightly as he pulled the key out. The red thread danced in the draft of the underground chamber.
“You always were too curious for your own good, Devendra.”
The Shadow Steps Out
Rana froze. The voice came from the top of the stairs, echoing down the narrow earthen tunnel. It was smooth, cultured, and entirely devoid of human empathy.
Slowly, Rana turned around, keeping his flashlight pointed toward the ground so as not to blind himself with the reflection.
DCP Raghav Shinde stood at the entrance of the red room, stepping down the first few stairs. He had discarded his formal police cap. His uniform was immaculate, save for the dark mud on his boots. In his right hand, he held a silenced 9mm pistol. On his index finger, the black onyx ring gleamed like an evil eye.
Behind Shinde, two men in civilian clothes moved into the shadows—hired muscle, the kind of men who didn’t exist on police payrolls but did the work that courts couldn’t authorize.
“Raghav,” Rana said, his voice steady despite the hammer of his heart against his ribs. “You’re a long way from the headquarters. I didn’t know the Deputy Commissioner did field inspections of abandoned crime scenes.”
“An executive decision, Superintendent,” Shinde smiled, stepping fully into the crimson room. The flashlight beam caught the cold symmetry of his face. “A rogue prison official, suffering from late-stage dementia and stress, kidnaps a child witness and flees to a dead woman’s house. In a tragic turn of events, he commits suicide after destroying state evidence. It’s a clean narrative. The media will love it. It will dominate the news cycle right up until Arjun Thakur’s neck snaps at six o’clock.”
“Everything fit too perfectly five years ago,” Rana said, backing up until his spine hit the cold steel of the safe. “The fingerprints. The blood. You planted it all, didn’t you? Arjun didn’t kill Kavita. You did.”
