The Events Leading to the Mysterious Disappearance of Nisha Dastur
At the onset of her getaway to the hills of Himachal Pradesh in a secluded tourist spot, Writer's Hill, Nisha knew something terrible was going to happen.
Read an excerpt from The Girl Who Disappeared below:
A car cruises along National Highway 44. The weather is nice and balmy, and the traffic is mild. The man behind the wheel is humming to the sound of a Bollywood track.
His companion, Nisha, doesn't appear as relaxed as him; in fact, she looks nervous, scared. She peers at him, watching him for a minute or two. He continues humming and drumming the steering wheel with his thumbs.
Finally, she says, 'Rishi, are you acting calm, or are you really so at ease?'
The drumming stops. Rishi looks sideways at Nisha. 'To be honest, I'm trying.' He looks back at the road and takes a deep breath. 'I . . . I know what happened is very unsettling— my ex -girlfriend threatening to kill my present girlfriend . . .'
He shakes his head. 'Except she wasn't my girlfriend at all. Ha!' He lets out a short laugh.
'She's a psycho!' Nisha spits out. 'Why does she say she is your ex-girlfriend?'
Rishi raises his arms in despair. 'She's just my neighbour. Alright, we went out for movies, coffee occasionally, but that's it! There was never anything between us.'
'And she feels I'm responsible for'—she makes quotation marks with her fingers—'coming between you guys?'
Rishi lets a short hiss escape through his lips. 'I'm sorry for what happened, for what she said to you.' He gives her hand a tight squeeze.
Nisha, looking out the window, doesn't reply. They are passing Ambala. There is a row of dhabas to her left and she contemplates asking Rishi to stop for a quick bite. They'd left Delhi in the wee hours of the morning and she hasn't eaten anything. And now her stomach is grumbling. But she ignores the hunger pangs and decides to eat lunch at their destination.
They are headed to Writer's Hill, a quaint, secluded tourist spot in the mountains of Himachal Pradesh. This isn't a planned vacation, but a last-minute, get-your-stufftogether getaway. They want some peaceful time together, but primarily, they want to be away from Avni—Rishi's ex-girlfriend, or whoever she is.
Suddenly, Nisha feels a chill rising in her spine at a memory. She shivers.
'The way she . . . she screamed at me!' she says, horrified anew. 'How she pounced on me like a rabid animal . . .' She trails off, her face contorting as she relives the episode. 'We need to stay far away from her.'
When Rishi turns to her, he sees the fear in her eyes. She still looks frightened after almost twelve hours of the incident.
Justified to an extent, he thinks. Avni has been a revelation. He had known her for more than three years but saw the real Avni only yesterday. How difficult it is to truly know someone! Nisha is right, he agrees—Avni is a psycho.
'I get a strong feeling that something horrible is going to happen on this trip,' Nisha's voice is shaking when she speaks again.
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Will something happen to Nisha? Read The Girl Who Disappeared to find out!
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