26. Has The Castle Started Breaking...

                                    

                                          
3:45 PM, 4th April, Construction Site, Bangalore
                          
It was not that Shreekant had not suspected one of his family members, especially his father to be behind all this but his heart wanted his suspicion to be untrue, after all in end it was his family. The emergence of the brooch from the site where Anna was found dead had compelled his worst fears to become true. Every ounce of his body surrendered to that horrifying truth that his father might be hiding.
                          
For every child, his or her father would have been a hero, protecting and caring for him or her but for Shreekant it was never so, and he could never get close to him. Despite their differences, he had never hated his father for anything. The only thing that had tormented his heart since childhood was that, he never even tried to understand what his son wanted. He burdened Shreekant with the prestigious title of being the eldest son of the Mhatre family and had to live up to those expectations. 
                          
Those anticipations were so heavy for him sometimes that he felt unable to breathe. Once that he started resisting his father's ideals, it was followed by more friction between them. The gap of communication and understanding further deepened and intensified due to Aruna's interference while his siblings were already distanced from him due to various reasons. But it was not always like that. 
                          
There were days when the Mhatre Niwas used to gleam and glisten with the friendship between the four but ultimately the situations changed... Emotions changed... People changed and now one of these people was responsible for throwing him into such a big misery.
                          
Shrugging off his agony and straightening his trembling limbs, he proceeded rationally and spoke, "This brooch is the ultimate proof that someone from my family is involved in Anna's death and if this button is of that same dress then the angle of suicide is almost eliminated"
                          
She nodded glaring at him while he continued, "We have to search four more floors, and check if we can find something else." Proceeding with their hunt, they continued examining every area and finally reached the twentieth floor... The floor from which Anna had fallen into the vicious trap of death.
                          
As they reached the top-most floor, the open sky was dangling over their heads and both had a similar feeling of an unknown fear strangling and choking their further movement. They both looked into each other's eyes and wondered the same thing that they can't let the other person struggle in the fear alone.
                          
Sourcing the strength from each other, they moved ahead in their venture and inspected the place stringently. Even though no considerable piece of evidence was found there, both had successfully managed to overcome their fear and pain together.
                          
Moving out of the dilapidated building after almost three hours, they threw their overly exhausted bodies drenched in sweat and dust into the AC car. Taking a few minutes of rest, Amna started driving the car towards the airport where they had to catch a flight back to Mumbai at nine.
                          
Disha had also informed them that she had done her work, and they all would be sharing the information once they reach Bangalore airport. After racing through the traffic for more than one hour, all of them finally met at the Airport lounge to discuss the data they had collected.
                          
Shreekant and Amna explained about the three important pieces of evidence that they had got while Disha then began narrating to them the information she had collected, "Sir, first about Dr. Damodar... He has taken a leave of about a month to spend a lavish holiday with his family in Switzerland, he would probably be back by next week or so."
                          
Taking a small pause and crossing her arms around her chest, she continued, "Dr. Rathore resigned from his job after he returned from Delhi on 12th of March and none of the staff at the hospital know about his whereabouts now. About the arson case of that attendant Keshav, the police reports suggest the fire happened due to gas leakage and no other evidence could be found. Interestingly, a burnt piece of a railway ticket to Nashik scheduled on 7th March night was found in his house. Probably, he was planning to back to his hometown when that fire happened"