Meera's day

BUT Meera takes a one-day job — girlfriend for a Bandra restaurant dinner, a nervous client named Karan whose mother is flying in from Delhi. She plays the role perfectly: warm, articulate, comfortable in Karan's space at the table. The dinner ends well, Karan's mother approves, the money lands in her account. She takes the local home to Saki Naka and is unlocking her door when her phone buzzes. A text from an unknown number: her photograph, taken that evening outside the restaurant. In the image she is mid-step, hand on the door frame, unaware. Beneath the photograph, one line: We know where you are. We know what you did. She stares at it for a long time. She does not respond. She sends the screenshot to her own number — a backup, a record — and sits on the edge of her bed with the wall vibrating from the train and understands that Pulkit's family has found her and they are watching.