Gurdwara Sahib Sukh Sagar was abuzz today, and when Sunny and his family arrived for langar, he discovered the reasons why when he volunteered to distribute the community meal.

The first reason: "We received the postcard in the mail on Friday," more than one of them said. "Your name is on the list!"

"List?" he asked the first time.

"The endorsement list from the New Westminster Labour Council!"

Sunny just stopped himself from shouting, "Holy shit!" Instead, he smiled broadly and said, the first time and every other time, "That is very good news, thank you for letting me know."

It was very good news. This was a big deal. A huge deal. Endorsement from the Labour Council went a long way, in New Westminster, to securing the votes needed to put a candidate across the finish line. Every municipal election, the Labour Council mailed a postcard containing the list of candidates they endorsed to New Westminster households, and many voters took that postcard to the ballot box and marked their ballots next to the names listed on the postcard. Sunny hadn't had a chance to check his mail for a few days with everything going on; that must have been why he hadn't seen the postcard yet, it was still in the pile to be checked. Still, he felt a bubble of joy expand in his chest knowing he was among the chosen, and it almost pushed out the dread gnawing at his gut since last night and this morning, when he'd escorted Tori home to make sure she was safe, even making sure no one had been waiting in her apartment before he'd left.

The second reason everyone was abuzz: "We saw your picture on the front page of the Record! What good publicity!"

Sunny didn't feel so good about this one. "Is it good? Were you at the debate? That woman accused me of plotting the downfall of the country."

"All publicity is good publicity, Parharji," they would say with an affectionate nudge on the shoulder. He wasn't sure he agreed.

Some of them showed him the postcard. There it was: Parhar, Sunil (Sunny) Singh. He wondered if this was how his name would appear on the ballot. He noticed Regan's name was also there, and that pleased him.

She'd called earlier that morning, before he'd seen Tori home, to ask him how the Arts Council event had gone last night. He'd told her everything that had happened to them, and when she'd heard what had happened to Lauren, she'd asked, "At which hospital are they? I want to go see them."

He'd been touched by her concern, knowing he'd been responsible for adding another honourary member to the Lawrence Street Detective Club. "Burnaby Hospital," he'd said. "Lauren will be pleased as punch to see you, I'm sure."

"Do you think Tosh would like a gift?"

"You don't have to do that."

"I want to. Just a small thing to cheer him up."

"That's very nice of you."

"What about Al? I feel terrible about him. I only met him the once, but he seemed like a nice guy."

"They won't let anyone but family see him, and only for a few minutes. I wouldn't bother there. Maybe you'll find Rachel there and you can convey your good wishes to her instead."

"Rachel," Regan had said, chuckling. "I think she's a little jealous over Lauren."

"Don't take it personally. They're very, very close."

"Oh, I know how close they are."

Sunny had blinked in surprise. Did she know about their physical relationship? If so, who would have told her? It would have to have been Lauren, and if it had, then Lauren was bringing her into the fold quicker than Sunny had predicted, which made him feel warm inside. He knew when he'd introduced them that they'd be friends, and this only confirmed it.

He could have been jealous himself about it, though, and he understood where Rachel was coming from; Lauren and Rachel had taken forever to tell him about their mess, and only when it had become unavoidable, while Regan had found herself in Lauren's confidence almost immediately by comparison. Then again, sometimes it was easier to unburden yourself to a stranger, someone who didn't know you well enough to judge you, and maybe that was why Lauren had confided in her.

"Just... be patient with Rachel," he'd said. "The more you're around, the more she'll come to accept you, as long as you don't threaten her place at the top."

"Don't worry, I have no intention of usurping her."

As Sunny came back around with his pot containing dahl and his ladle, he noticed the people sitting on the floor next to his family, and did a double-take.

There sat the Sandhus. Birinder, of all people, who'd sworn off the gurdwara, with Naira (nee Bains) and his mother and father, who sat next to his parents. The two fathers, coworkers of old, chatted amiably while Birinder stared off into space, chewing idly on a roti. He looked preoccupied, and Sunny wondered what in the world he was doing here, with his shorn hair covered anew by a patka, as it was custom in a gurdwara to cover the head. Naira, her hair also covered, was stoking Ajit's crush on her by looking at more of his photos of the sand sculpture competition from last weekend; maybe he was also showing her pictures of Glenbrook Ravine, the rock sculptures they'd found sitting on the park benches there, and the paintings up for sale at the silent auction.

When Birinder locked eyes with him, he brightened and waved him over. "Mr. Parhar!"

"Sunny, please, I think we're familiar enough that you can call me by name. Did you contact Mr. Randhawa?"

"I did, thank you, he's been wonderful."

"Have the police been giving you any more grief?"

"Like you wouldn't believe."

"Why? Wait, don't answer, I need to finish serving langar, but let's chat outside when I'm done."

"You're on," Birinder said, looking relieved. The man looked uncomfortable sitting on the floor, and would have welcomed any excuse to get up and walk around.

Sunny knew about Birinder being at the police station on Wednesday because Lauren had told him, but here was an unexpected coup, the chance to get information about his dealings with the police from his own mouth. He sped up his serving, then brought his pot and ladle back to the enormous kitchen where it was all made, with its restaurant grade appliances and vessels. He cleaned up and dried his hands, then hurried back into the great room. Birinder caught his eye and rose to follow him out.

After they put their shoes back on and emerged in the open air, Birinder took a deep breath and pulled off his patka.

"I don't understand," Sunny said. "If being here makes you so uncomfortable, why come?"

"Oh, you noticed, did you?" he said sheepishly.

"I'm sure everyone in the room noticed. I was surprised to see you here, actually. I know your parents go, but..."

"Actually, I was hoping to see you here."

"Me?" he asked in disbelief.

Birinder nodded. "So, that guy who was missing? The guy the police were asking me about? I went in with Mr. Randhawa on Wednesday to give a more formal statement about my movements in the last week, since they're not entirely sure when he went missing. Oddly enough, while I was there, I ran into the two women who were at the Open House with you that time I first met you."

"Oh, yes, I think Lauren mentioned seeing you," Sunny said, playing along. "You see, she was there because her husband was in jail for punching someone at the all-candidates debate I attended."

Birinder gasped. "Oh, you know what? I saw the story in the paper! You were on the front page! They mentioned a fight. What a debacle."

"Yes, a complete mess, and so unnecessary. You were fortunate to miss it."

Birinder chuckled. "So, the guy who was arrested was a friend of yours?"

"Yes, we go way back. He'll get off, the other guy threw the first punch, he was just defending himself. So, what happened next?"

"It went well, and they seemed satisfied with my answers, so I thought they were done with me. Then on Friday I got another visit from them, at my fucking place of work, this time! I was immediately on the phone with Mr. Randhawa, and he threatened to sue for police harassment."

"Jesus," Sunny breathed. "Why did they come to your work?"

Birinder looked around to make sure no one was close enough to hear, then leaned in and said, "They found the guy dead."

"What?!" Sunny squawked, feigning disbelief.

"I know, right? This is a fucking nightmare." Poor Birinder looked like he was at the end of his rope. "They still think I have motive because he's the boyfriend of the woman who used to be married to me, so the man, Tracey, asks me all the same questions again to try to break my alibi. Then I find out my wife's in her office being interviewed by the woman, Goncalves, going over timelines, and now I know they're going to see inconsistencies in our stories."

Sunny blinked at him for a few seconds and then asked, "What are you trying to tell me, Birinder?"

He looked around again and whispered, "I lied to you on Monday. Worse, I lied to the police the first time around, when we were all interviewed together at my house, because I didn't want my wife to know the truth."

Sunny felt his stomach drop as he asked, "And what truth is that? Or should I even know?"

Birinder shrugged lugubriously. "I'll have to come clean to Naira eventually, so what does it matter if one more person knows? Anyway, you're a relative stranger, and unlikely to tell anyone I know." He paused to steel himself for what he had to say. "The thing is, the truth sets me free, because I couldn't have been the one to kill this guy, because I was with Naira at the time."

"If you were with your wife, then what's the big deal?"

Birinder shook his head. "You misunderstand me, Mr. Parhar. I mean Naira, my first wife."

Sunny almost jumped backwards. "What the fuck?" He looked around to make sure no one was listening, then said, "You've been cheating on your current wife with your first wife?"

Birinder closed his eyes and sighed. "I know, it's fucked up. It's just... Naira, my first wife, she's a devil in the sack. I mentioned how she scared me with her intensity, right?" When Sunny nodded dumbly, he went on, "Well, she kind of thrilled me with it, too. We could never stay married; I think eventually her fire would have burned our house down, metaphorically. We could never have made the day to day life work. But, man, the sex was phenomenal. We have this weird post-marriage relationship where we meet from time to time, fuck like rabbits, and go home. It seems to work for us."

Sunny was trying to reconcile the fact of Naira supposedly being in hiding with this blatant risk she was taking seeing her ex-husband in this way. "Except, it seems she was seeing someone else at the same time she was having her post-marriage relationship with you, and that someone else is now dead."

"Yeah."

Sunny thought furiously about what to say next, remembering the conversation he'd had with Naira on Wednesday. She'd seemed oddly tender about her ex-husband, even using a shortened form of his name. This explained things. Maybe they'd even been together later that night, after she'd pulled a gun on Sunny and kicked him out of her car. "Are the police in contact with your first wife? She can corroborate your story."

"They're having trouble tracking her down. She hasn't volunteered to come in."

"How are you two communicating to arrange these trysts?" Sunny asked.

"I have another phone. She initiates because she uses different phones in her line of work."

"And I imagine she always initiates where sex is concerned, if she's as aggressive as you say she is."

"Oh, yeah," Birinder said, smiling wistfully.

Sunny shook his head. This situation was almost as unconventional as the threesome/ maybe foursome his friends were engaged in. It did partly explain why Naira could credibly claim to Jordan that she was still married to Birinder; they were certainly acting like husband and wife in one significant way. Pointing out the house to him and getting Jordan to fly the drone there every night still needed explaining, but Sunny had a feeling it wasn't because of Birinder, now; the man was obviously still smitten with her, at least sexually, and, from the way he talked, he was the submissive partner in this relationship, and liked it that way.

"Did your first wife ever come to your house after you divorced?" he asked before he could think about what asking the question would mean. He didn't want to show his hand by expressing too much interest in the logistics of his arrangement.

Birinder, though, didn't appear suspicious of his line of inquiry. He actually looked sheepish. "Yeah," he said. "Once or twice. Mostly I went to hers, but sometimes she came by."

"After you married your second wife?"

He nodded. "We were divorced for a while, me and Naira, and I thought we were done; we met for our alimony arrangements, and everything was civil. Then I met and married Naira, my second wife, and almost immediately after that, Naira, my first wife, starts calling around, saying she misses me, wants me in her bed again. She doesn't want our life back, because her career was the reason we split up in the first place, and she doesn't want to give that up, but she suggests getting together every now and then."

Sunny didn't bother asking if Birinder had ever considered his second wife's feelings when he'd made this arrangement. In his experience, when people wanted something, they rationalized the hell out of it. Lauren, Rachel and Al were pros, and it seemed even Joe was coming around to their way of thinking, if what Rachel had told him was true.

"How did you get your first wife into your house after you were already remarried?" he asked instead.

Birinder shrugged. "Sometimes Naira was away for a seminar."

"A real estate seminar?"

"Yeah."

"And when you didn't go yourself, that wasn't suspicious?"

"Naira was training up to my level, since she got into real estate after I did. I didn't need to go to those."

"She was away overnight?"

"Sometimes."

"And your parents?"

"I'd sneak her in after their bedtime. They don't emerge from their suite after bedtime."

"So, how do you know Naira, your second wife, was where she said she was?"

Birinder blinked in surprise. "What do you mean?"

"If she was away overnight, how do you know she wasn't sneaking around on you?" Or doing something even more nefarious, he wondered. When Naira had told him, on Wednesday, the scenario of Naira (nee Bains) returning the device to whatever shadowy organization was chasing Naira, he'd begun to wonder if Naira (nee Bains) wasn't in fact a contractor working for that very organization. Proving it would be much harder, but what he could understand, now, was how Naira could bring the device to Birinder's house after they were supposedly divorced, and how Naira (nee Bains) could snatch the device and be on that footage for Jordan to see and be worried about. If that was the case, though, then Naira (nee Bains) was much more than she claimed to be, she was probably more aware of Birinder's shenanigans than he thought, and Birinder himself might be in danger because he was closer to his first wife than he'd claimed, and thus closer to the device that was causing so much injury and death.

"You think she might be cheating on me, too?" Birinder actually considered it, rubbing his clean shaven chin in thought. "I guess it's a possibility."

"It doesn't worry you?"

Birinder shrugged. "Do I have a right to be worried?"

"Only if you're concerned about a second marriage falling apart."

"Well, that's kind of the other reason I wanted to talk to you today: in the event of my marriage falling apart, I'd like you to represent me in divorce proceedings."

Now it was Sunny's turn to be surprised. "Me? I thought you had a guy already."

Birinder shrugged. "I can change lawyers if I want to. And I like you. You've already helped me a lot, and you don't judge me. I consider you a friend even though we hardly know each other."

Sunny was inordinately touched. "Thank you, Sandhuji, that means a lot to me. I feel the same way." He did, sort of, but mostly he said it to keep him sweet. "But now I can't help thinking, if you meant to ask me this today, then you must have been thinking about it for a while."

"Well, look, I don't want my marriage to fall apart. I love Naira, this one, I mean." He pointed behind him to the gurdwara in which she was sitting and eating, oblivious to their conversation. "We're not only good together as husband and wife, but we work well together in our field. We run a successful practice. We're more compatible by far than the first Naira and I were." He sighed and shook his head. "But she can't hold a candle to the first Naira in the sex department, and I've been benefiting from both their best attributes for a while now. I know that makes me an asshole, and I won't be surprised if, when Naira finds out about Naira, she demands a divorce, because I'll admit I've been unfaithful."

Sunny nodded and said, "Well, I can't predict how your marriage will fare after this comes to light. Your more immediate concern is not getting charged with murder. Have you told the police the truth, now, that you were with her at the time of the murder?"

"I have."

"Does your first wife care enough about you to not want you to go to jail?"

"Yes, I think she does."

"Then you have to convince her to go to the police. I don't understand her unwillingness to do so. She's a cop herself, right?"

"Yeah, but..." Birinder shrugged. "I think it's because she's police that she doesn't want to go in, at least not alone. She'll want to lawyer up before she talks to them, because she knows their tactics all too well. She thinks they'll try to pin it on her."

That sounded plausible, but Sunny had a feeling Naira had another reason for not going to them, because she was on the run, and whoever she was running from had ties to a police force, though Naira had never specified which one. "If she was with you, she can't be responsible for his death either. Can't Mr. Randhawa get her representation and get this over with?"

"Yeah. You're right. I'll talk to her."

"You said she's the one who contacts you? When do you think she'll do it again?"

"I don't know. She's been incommunicado lately."

"You said you went to her place for your trysts. So, you know where she lives?"

"Yeah," he said sheepishly. "I feel bad for lying to you about all that."

"Don't. It wasn't my business anyway. Can you go to her place? Maybe you'll find her there?"

Birinder nodded shrewdly. "Maybe. Yes, maybe. I think she has a camera on her door, it will alert her by phone when I ring the doorbell even if she's not home."

Was she using that phone, though? Or could she easily program her door camera to alert any phone she chose? Maybe she could log in to an account on the web and input the changes from wherever she was. The thing was, if she was using a different phone almost every day, how confident was she that her account for the door camera wasn't hacked?

"Are you able to go today?" he asked. "Could you go without making your current wife suspicious?"

"I don't know. She's home today. I'd have to make up an excuse for going out without her."

"What if you took Mandeep with you? You could tell Naira you're going to the police again, but instead go together to convince your first wife to give a statement."

"Okay. That sounds good. I can tell her I'm seeing my lawyer today, and even if I can't get Mandeep to come with me today, I'll still have that as cover for when I go to her place."

"And if she's there, the two of you can be alone together without anyone the wiser."

Birinder smiled sheepishly. "Am I that transparent?"

Sunny nodded, but he didn't think his second wife had anything to worry about today. He was pretty sure Naira wouldn't be at home, not when she was on the run.

Later, after returning from Gurdwara, Tej expressed the desire to visit the friends at the hospital, and this time Sunny took her, leaving the kids with Mom and Dad.

It was evening by this time, and Sunny discovered Joe had already been by to visit Lauren and Tosh again, and taken Rachel home for a much-needed rest. "Is Rachel coming back tonight, do you think?" he asked Lauren.

"I'm not sure. If I know Rachel, probably. I hope she's informed work that neither of us are going in tomorrow. Somers is going to have to step back into administrating in my absence."

"When do you expect to go home?" Tej asked.

"Probably tomorrow. They're just monitoring me tonight, to make sure there's no internal bleeding."

"How long do you expect your recovery to be?"

"Weeks, at least, for the broken tibia to heal. The dislocated shoulder and whiplash could take much longer, but that will have to be a management of symptoms situation." Lauren sighed in resignation. "At the very least, I'll be behind a desk for the foreseeable future; no more field work for a while."

"Well, considering what happened, I'm relieved it wasn't worse," Tej said, touching Lauren tenderly on the cheek.

"Not for me, anyway."

Tej nodded soberly. "Has there been any news about Al?"

"No change, as of the last time Rachel updated me. His mom was here earlier visiting him, and it was predictably awful. The poor woman."

"Has Regan been by?" Sunny asked. "I let her know you were here."

Lauren smiled. "Yes, and thanks for telling her. It was an unexpected treat getting a visit from her. I introduced her to my parents."

"Fantastic!" He turned his attention to Tosh. "And how are you doing, sport?"

Tosh shrugged. "Okay. I'll go home tomorrow too. Want to sign my cast?"

"Gladly."

After he and Tej both signed it, Tosh asked, "Can Ajit come by to sign it some time?"

"Absolutely," Tej said. "We left the prime spot for him, right in the top centre."

"Regan gave me an iTunes card," Tosh said.

"It's not polite to tell other people what someone got you, buddy," Lauren said.

"Sorry."

"Well, isn't that a coincidence?" Tej said, reaching into her purse. "We just happened to also get you..." She pulled it out. "An iTunes card!" They'd picked one up at the store before coming here.

Tosh brightened. "Wow, thanks, Aunt Tej and Uncle Sunny! How did you know what phone I had?"

"Are you kidding?" Sunny said. "Ajit badgered me relentlessly for months when he knew you had one, and he told me exactly what kind you had because he wanted the same one."

Tosh shrugged sheepishly. "Sorry if you felt pressured."

"Ah, well, all the kids have phones these days, don't they? When we were growing up they didn't exist, we had to use a phone attached to the wall."

"I know, Mom told me. She said she had to run all the way back home to use the phone to call the police when Auntie Rachel was taken by the bad man."

"That's exactly right! Can you imagine how quickly he'd have been caught now? Everyone with their phones out, cameras rolling? He wouldn't have even tried anything like that now."

"Weren't there any neighbours around to call the police if Mom knocked on their door?"

"Yeah, there were," Lauren said, chuckling. "I'd delivered papers to them for months, but for some reason it never occurred to me to do that. I think I was in shock, because home was all I could think about."

Tosh said, "I wonder how long it'll take for the police to get the bad men who chased us last night."

"That's a very good question," Lauren said. "Uncle Al was on the phone with them right when it was happening; it was a good thing he was in the right frame of mind to do that. Still, who knows?"

They were all silent a moment. Then Tej said, "Do you think we should go see Al?"

"Yes, just for a little while," Sunny said. "We'll come back to say goodbye."

They went over to the ICU. They saw Al through the window, saw his chest rise and fall with the help of the machines. They prayed quietly together, holding hands.

"Poor Al," Tej said. "Poor Rachel."

When they returned to the emergency room, they were surprised to see Detective Maria Goncalves chatting with Lauren and Tosh. She turned to see them and said, "Oh, hey, Mr. Parhar!"

"Detective Goncalves, hello. Where's your partner?"

"Having a much-needed evening off. I'm glad I ran into you again. Naira called me, and she said you asked her to, so thank you."

"Oh!" Sunny said, surprised. "She called?"

"She did. She wouldn't tell me what was going on, but at least I know she's okay, now."

"Was this after you first interviewed me after finding Jordan's body?" When Goncalves nodded, he asked, "Did she say anything about him?"

"Unfortunately, no. She was very tight-lipped."

Sunny remembered what Naira had said about her friend being indiscreet, and decided not to tell her about her being on the run. They had the schematics for the device. Hopefully they would put the pieces together themselves. "Well, just today I also found out that Naira was sleeping with her ex-husband Birinder at the same time she was seeing Jordan."

"What?!" Lauren squawked. Sunny had told Tej while they'd driven here, and she'd reacted the same way. "How did you find that out?"

"Birinder told me at Gurdwara today."

"We got that story from him too," Goncalves said. "It's funny how she never even mentioned to me she was married, and here she is having booty calls with her ex. Naira doesn't want to come in and corroborate, though."

"I've asked Birinder to go to her house and try to convince her."

"Good. I'm here to follow up on a call we got from Detectives Pak and Marsden of the Burnaby RCMP, regarding the accident you were in last night."

"Did they tell you what happened?" Lauren asked.

"I'd like to hear it from you, if you don't mind."

"It will have to be from me and Tosh. Al's in a coma down the hall."

Goncalves nodded sadly and pulled out her notebook and pen from her inside jacket pocket. Lauren told her much the same story she'd told Pak and Marsden early this morning.

When she finished, Goncalves pursed her lips and tapped her notebook with her pen. "You're saying that yesterday you went to Glenbrook Ravine, found the place where Jordan's body was found because there was some police tape still remaining, and then, while you were there, you discovered what you thought was a device like the one in the schematic you sent us."

"It was one," Sunny said.

"And you found it when we apparently didn't."

"It wasn't there when you were examining the crime scene," Lauren said. "It was brought there after you were finished."

"That's a very small window of time. Why are you sure it was one?"

"The drones," Sunny said. "They were tracking the GPS signal from the device to Centennial Lodge, where we hid it while we attended the event."

"You were there as part of your campaign, right? I heard about what happened at the debate on Wednesday."

Sunny nodded and rolled his eyes. "Not my finest moment."

"I still don't get it, though," Goncalves said. "Why? Why any of it? Why does this man die, and why does someone bring this device to the scene after the body was taken away, and why send drones after you when you find it, and why chase one of you down after you leave the event?"

None of them had an answer for her.

Goncalves sighed. "I don't know what to do with this. We'll stay in contact with Pak and Marsden, let them complete their investigation of your accident and try to track down the other car; meanwhile, we'll continue to investigate Jordan's death in conjunction with IHIT. If the evidence happens to join the two instances together, we'll deal with it then. Until then, we can't just go making connections that might not be there."

Sunny understood. Why listen to a group of armchair detectives, after all, when you had real procedure to follow? "I don't envy you your job," he said.

Goncalves said her goodbyes to them and left. Sunny and Tej spent a few more minutes with Lauren and Tosh before they left, Tej promising to hold on to the iTunes card for Tosh until they found his phone or got him a replacement.

After they returned home, they had a surprise.

"We have a guest, Sunil," his father said.

It was Naira. The first one.

She said, "They have Birinder now. Happy?"

Thanks for reading this far! If you liked what you just read, hit "Vote" to send this title up the ranks. If anything doesn't ring true about Sikh customs or police interview procedure, leave a comment; I strive for authenticity.

Before we return to Lauren in the present day, and an uninvited guest at Al's bedside, let's go back to when Sunny first introduced Tej to Al and Rachel by clicking "Continue reading."