As soon as the police sirens were out of hearing, Reyansh and I ran inside to find Maya standing next to the reception with one hand on her hip and beaming at us. Both of us rushed forward and threw ourselves into her embrace. Reyansh actually cried in relief. I cried too. I didn't know when I had grown so fond of Maya.

"There, there Mishti you can't cry like that. Now this fool crying, I can understand.." Maya said, patting both of us on the back.

"Sorry, we panicked", I said wiping my eyes, "What happened? Did you see it all?"

"They took Sanam and Ameesha. They found cocaine in their rooms. I don't know who actually called the police", Maya said.

"Cocaine?", I asked, shocked.

"Yeah. They've been acting as dealers for Chameli".

"Oh my God...that would explain a lot", I said.

"They took Sanam and Ameesha?", Riya asked in a scared voice as she came up behind us.

"They deserve it", I said quickly "I always knew they were shady characters".

"Don't be so crude", Riya said.

"Crude?", I asked "You only liked them because of their sheeny way of dressing up. Good riddance".

Riya refused to talk to me after that.

•••

The next day Sanam and Ameesha's photos were splashed across the local newspapers with all sorts of unnecessary and unpleasant details.

There was a perfect outcry in the resort. All the bored staff members finally had something to gossip about. Good girls didn't go and get caught in resorts during police raids. Only prostitutes did things like that.

"Cocaine of all things! Thoo!" Revathi ranted, standing in the centre of the gossip aunties group, "I kept telling Neel sir that all that these North Indian girls were trouble, but who listens to me".

I thanked my stars (and Reyansh) that me, Zoya and Riya had wriggled out of this.

It was the same talk at breakfast too. Everyone was jabbing about the incident. We all thronged around Maya for more details as she had seen it up close. Zoya especially, who had arrived at the resort much later wanted to know what had happened. Maya enjoyed the attention, and squeezed out everything from last night.

"...it was a scary thing on the whole", she finished her narration for the sixth time.

"Thank God, it's over", Josh said putting a cross in the air.

That was when we heard the siren of the police van again.

•••

"Who are Riya, Zoya and Mishti?", the inspector who walked into the room barked.

The three of us raised our hands in slow motion.

"We will have to search your rooms and belongings", he said.

I felt like I had gone into freeze mode as I followed the large party upto our rooms. I couldn't bear to look at the faces of the rest of the staff. They looked thrilled to have more drama.

The police came out of our rooms holding sashes of white substance.

"We found these in one of your purses. We have to arrest you for possession of cocaine", the inspector said.

My knees went weak.