A Romantic Mystery
By
Paramita Choudhury
Copyrights 2013 Paramita Choudhury
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1-The beginning
Chapter 2-A new turn in Kriti's life
Chapter 3-A mystery solved
About the author
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The beginning
Kriti and Anita were friends right from their first grade. They had shared a lot of hardships together. Now after so many years Kriti 26 was a successful doctor and Anita a lawyer. “Hey, where are we going? You have got to pack your bag for tomorrow’s flight, as far as I know. “Said Anita. “Anita we are going where we should be going right now. “Kriti replied in a calm manner. What do you mean Kriti? “Just be a little patient Anita”.
After some time they reached a marriage hall. It was decorated in a very beautiful way.“Kriti, why are we here? You know I can’t bear that guy, who deceived you”. “He didn’t deceive me Anita. It was me who made the mistake .Alright let’s get in. “As they were entering the hall someone said “Kriti, I can’t believe, you would come here”, it was Tess. She was a friend common to both Anita and Kriti. “I had to come here; you see this will be the last time ever that I’ll be meeting him. Where’s he?” “He’s standing near the balcony.”“Should I come with you?” “No, that won’t be needed.”Saying this Kriti makes her way through the crowd towards the balcony. "So, there you are….”said Kriti.” I thought you wouldn’t be here today” said Ryan. Ryan was the guy to whom Kriti fell in love with since she was in her 12 grade. And today he was getting married to some other girl. “This is a gift I brought for your wife, hope she likes it.”
Handing over the gift to Ryan, Kriti returned to the place where Anita and Tess were standing. The three of them drank coffee each and then Anita and Kriti returned home. On their way back home Kriti asked her friend what was the timing for her flight. Kriti said”7 in the morning”. “Alright then I’ll directly reach the airport to see you off.”
Next morning both the girls exchange hugs on the airport and Kriti leaves for her research work in Philadelphia.
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A new turn in Kriti’s life
After a month of Kriti’s arrival in USA, she got married to a well- known businessman Samuel Stephens. It was an arranged marriage. Though Kriti promised herself never to fall in love with anybody after Ryan, but it seemed that she had started developing feelings for her husband. Kriti knew very less about Sam, so she had very little idea about his likes and dislikes. He seemed to be a person much different from Ryan. Sam always managed to maintain seriousness; on the other hand Ryan was a jolly kind of person. From the day she arrived US Kriti was missing her parents and her friend Anita. She wanted to go, visit her family but afraid to speak to Sam about it, in case he would be angry at her, she wouldn’t be able to bear that.
One morning, while Kriti was checking out her e-mails and her husband was in his office she found an e-mail from Anita. It was Anita’s marriage and she wanted her friend to attend it. Kriti thought of speaking about it to her husband. So, she called Sam and said”Hey Sam it’s me, sometimes back I was checking out my e-mails and there was e-mail from Anita. It said her marriage will be held next month….so I was hoping if we could attend it.” Sam was quiet for some time and then he asked “When did you say is her wedding?” Kriti replied “next month”. Then Sam said “perhaps we can go there, as I have a meeting to attend which will be there, so…….you tells your friend to be happy because we are going there.”Kriti wasn’t expecting Sam to agree to her, so wasting anytime she called up Anita and told her that she would be in her country within a week because this was the last of the month and Anita‘s wedding was to be held in the first week of the next month. Kriti’s friend was overjoyed.
Kriti started planning of what to take for her parents as a gift because it was the first time she was going to her native country after her marriage and she also planned for the gift that she would give Anita as her gift for her marriage. Anita was someone special who had helped Kriti to overcome all her difficulties since they were kids. So, a gift for her had to be something very special. Kriti decided to gift her friend with the memories of their childhood which was framed in the form of a photograph.
It was 5th of June and Kriti and Sam had reached India after a long flight from USA. Kriti was quiet tired after the journey but Sam thought to himself “I’ve got a hard day’s work, so I should start getting ready for the meeting”. As for Kriti she got to bed as soon as they reached the hotel room, after getting a few hours sleep, she took shower for another half an hour, then she got her parent’s home. Sam had already booked a car for Kriti, so she didn’t face much difficulty in finding the car. Thereafter, she reached her parent’s house after a journey of two hours. When her mom asked her why she was alone she replied “mom Sam will be here after his meeting gets over and we’ll be going to Sumatran right from here.”Both mother and daughter within a few minutes were busy recalling those days whenKriti was in India. She would spend most of her time with her parents then. After gossiping for about an hour with her mom Kriti looked at watch it was 6 pm (IST) and told her mom that Sam would be there in no time. Sam arrived there within 20 minutes his mother –in –law was quite glad to see that her daughter had married such a handsome, wise looking person. As in Indian custom Kriti’s mom gave Sam sweets to eat which were specially made for him by her.Kriti’s mom wanted to talk Sam something about her daughter and in the same way she would also know something about him. But the tycoon had very less time to spend, so Kriti convinced her mom saying they spend the next day with her and she could talk the whole day. At sharp 7 pm they reached the Sumatran, where Anita’s wedding was to take place.
“So you guys have finally come! I’m just so glad to see you darling after so many days”, Said Anita.” It’s fine, but first of all I want to meet your ‘would be ‘hubby “, replied Kriti. “Hrishi is standing, don’t you think he’s handsome?”. “Off course he is dear”, Said Kriti. “Kriti today is my wedding and as a friend I would like to know why you get married to Samuel suddenly without letting anyone know, I mean you could have at least informed a week before, you know what I mean”, Said Anita.
“Yeah, sometimes late after my marriage I was thinking to tell you about it, but it’s quite. You see after I reached US I was staying in a quarter provided by company. One night while returning to my quarter, I heard a man shouting filthy words to someone, but I didn’t give much attention to it. Then I had to take a turn and walk through an alley which was quite dark, after walking a few steps I found that the sound was getting louder and louder finally when I reached the end of the alley. I saw the man who was shouting and then a man came out the car which was parked in front; he took out a gun of his pocket and shot the other person. Seeing this I got quite nervous and fainted there. After I woke (as if from a deep sleep) I found myself being embraced by soft hands. Those were the hands of Mrs. Claire Stephens, now my mother-in-law, she told me that I had fainted seeing someone is getting killed and then there was huge laughter, as if killing someone is not a sin. Then she told me her son wanted to compensate me so that I don’t tell anyone about this murder. I told her that I wanted to go home. But then she told me that this was not possible and asked her men to lock me in the store room. I don't know how long they kept me locked in that room. Everyday whenever anyone came to serve me my meal (though I kept on fasting) I would ask them to let me out. One day instead of any stranger Mrs. Stephens herself came to serve my meal and put forward the same question she asked previously. I told her I just wanted to go home. Hearing this she smiled and said you can go home but you'll have to marry my son in tha
t case and since I had no other way so I agreed with her. Perhaps she knew I was going to say that. So in this way I got married to my man”, Said Kriti.
“But aren’t you afraid to stay with him, he may kill you someday “. “No, dear I can read faces and I know it very well that Sam would never kill me, if he wanted he could have done it much before.”In the meantime while Anita and Kriti were talking, Sam got a phone call. When he returned he looked quite worried and Kriti asked what the matter was? He replied that his mom was dead and no one knew the reason.
Then he told her that they must leave for England within an hour because her funeral ceremony would be held there. Kriti started crying after she heard about her mother-in law. She was the only person who cared for her just like