"A plan to spy on Dheeraj Malhotra."

As soon as those words escaped her lips, she sent me into another fit of being frozen. Looks like she's into the wrong profession after all, she should have been a sculpture - and work with her mouth and those scandalizing words rather than her hands.

"Why do you invariably say things that should have been banned from ever uttering a long, long time ago?"

She laughed at that. Loudly. And then looked at me with eyes that were shockingly twinkling and sparkling to no end. Did this make her excited? Adventure? Huma? What was the damn connection?

"Oh come on, don't be hypocritical now. You always told me to let loose and live a little, so that's what I'm doing and proposing now. Why are you being so frigid about it?"

She was genuinely confused now.

"Yes, yes I told you to live a little, but not stupidly. How can we just go and spy on him, and for what?"

I looked at her incredulously, trying to drill some sense in her.

"Because you so desperately want to solve this case, and don't you think it's kinda strange and unusual that he has been spending very little time in the hotel since the murder of the manager? He obviously knows the police will know about his fallout because basically everyone in the hotel knows. He has been evading your interrogation, and that lead me to take a final decision that he indeed is hiding something from us. And that's what we need to find on our own. Where is your sense of adventure? Did you seriously leave it all behind in one of the Sherlock Holmes books?"

I was unexpectedly silent, definitely not anticipating an answer of that intensity and tenacity from her. Her words started to make more and more sense, in the sense that he was definitely evading the police. I also didn't know what it was that they argued about, and why did he threaten the manager so menacingly? Was he really connected to the murder, and would I take a good decision by following Huma blindly, not to mention that I would be putting both myself and her into inescapable danger, if things went south?

"I- I don't know Huma. This is crazy, anyone would know that. We don't know what lies beyond this step. Its unexpected and unanticipated, and it's all smoky. There are black clouds looming all over, and nothing is clear. Will we be able to do it?"

"We will. We will because we have a desire to. We will because we have to. My instincts are speaking to me for the first time Shreya. They are telling me something isn't right. For some reason, Dheeraj is still here, otherwise he would have fled a long time ago. We shouldn't waste this opportunity to catch him red-handed."

She told me with finality in her voice. I had never seen her so determined in anything, perhaps except the time when she was actively avoiding her admirer in college.

I sighed. This was going to be hard to get out of, at the same time, my inner adventurous self was jumping with joy, wanting to let go without any inhibitions and join the dark, wild side.

"But, how will we do it? We have no idea where he is at the moment?"

Huma grinned like a cheshire cat.

"Why are you asking me all this when you are the one who's supposed to know everything?"

"Because I'm totally unprepared and completely spent."

I said with frustration, already wishing for this night to end, since we wouldn't actually be able to spy on anyone.

"Its simple, really. We will hide ourselves next to his room, and follow him ourselves."

"We have CCTV surveillance for a reason. And we really don't want the hotel staff to find us snooping around like that."

At this point, I was just desperately searching for excuses to evade this, to get out of this situation. I still vehemently opposed this action, but I couldn't bring myself to reject Huma's idea with so much brutality, especially since I had been a bad friend, leaving her all alone while I roamed about town. This was the least I could do for her - no matter how insane this plan was.

"Oh yeah, I didn't think of that. But then, we only need to know when he's leaving right? We can do that from our balcony too, because it gives us the full frontal view of the hotel and its main gate. Anyone entering or leaving will be spotted from here, and we can finally put those binoculars to use!"

She proposed again, her ingenious plan finally making sense. The entirety of the plan started to spin around in my head, the various bits and pieces floating about my cerebrospinal fluid and coming together magically to form the whole puzzle - solved and laid out in front of me, ready to be easily accessed and followed.

I finally smiled at her, showing her that I was seeing eye to eye with her. It had been a rough and lengthy argument, but the genius who obviously knew more words than me won, and now we were going to carry out her plan actively.

"Now, its perfect! I will go to the concierge tomorrow and arrange for a vehicle, and we already have some comfy, yet shady clothes. That coupled with our sunglasses and the foggy weather of this town, we will be the perfect spies in Shimla! You really are a genius Huma."

She too, grinned from ear to ear, unable to contain her excitement any longer. We laughed at our silly, yet efficient plans for a while, and then talked some more about our respective day. When it was finally time to sleep, around midnight, I knew whatever rollercoaster ride was to come the next day, we both were probably not even expecting it. But for the first time in my life, I decided to not weigh the pros and cons of everything too much, and to just try and live one of my mystery fantasies, straight out of one of my favourite books.

It wasn't common that some opportunity as thrilling as this would come by any random day in my borin, almost samey life back in Mumbai, and I wanted to make sure I had made full use of my time here, and actually had the fun that was coveted before all of this took place.

Normal could wait, but right now, I couldn't wait to be insane.

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