When one of the annoying local roosters woke me the following morning at an obscenely early hour, I placed my few meager items into my carry-on bag and headed outside (after first poking my head through the doorway to scan for any sign of the brown and white goat.)

  I walked silently through the early dawn down the road toward the closest town, feeling highly alert since I was in unfamiliar territory and had no idea what wildlife lurked in the area.

  After progressing a quarter mile, I glanced back toward the houses, curious to see if anyone from Martin’s family had noticed my departure.

  That’s when I saw it.

  The brown and white goat was standing in the middle of the road at the edge of the family compound, watching me leave with an expression of smug self-satisfaction on its face.

  It bleated victoriously.

  I despised that goat.

  But no bother. I cast it out of my mind and picked up my pace, focusing on reaching the distant town before the day grew warm.

  ———

  Nathu stepped outside, stretched his arms high above his head, and let out a great yawn.

  As he blinked, taking in the new day, he gradually became aware of a humming sound, like the roar of a distant engine. It grew louder, and a rhythmic thumping became audible.

  In under a minute, a helicopter appeared over the village, circling the area twice, then—to Nathu’s complete astonishment—landing in a patch of fallow land nearby.

  Nothing like this had ever happened in Paranjapur. The entire village emerged into the crisp morning to take in the spectacle.

  The helicopter's side door opened, disgorging a man with a large video camera and an assistant holding a microphone. After the pair ran about forty feet, they stopped, turned around, and started filming the helicopter.

  The side door—which had closed in the interim—swung open again. A white-haired American gentleman emerged, holding his arms out and screaming frantically.

  “Aaaaaaaah! My child! Where is my precious child?”

  He ran toward the film crew, stopping just short.

  A second man wearing a white medical lab coat had also emerged from the helicopter. The first man called out to him.

  “Doctor, hurry!” he implored. “Did you bring the Chillaxin?”

  Catching up, the man in the white lab coat assured him, “Of course I brought Chillaxin with me. I wouldn’t dream of evaluating a missing person’s well-being without it.”

  He tilted his head slightly and squinted as if confiding a secret.

  “Did you know Chillaxin is the number one doctor-prescribed anti-anxiety medication in Finland?”

  “How impressive!” the older man marveled.

  “And…cut!” the cameraman shouted.

  Everyone seemed to relax.

  Of course, Nathu did not understand any of the conversation taking place in English. He was perplexed.

  The older man gave a command to the man in the lab coat, who wandered into the village and approached Nathu, who stepped forward to greet him.

  After establishing that verbal communication was impossible, the man in the lab coat held up his phone. On the screen was a photograph of the village’s young guest.

  Now, things made sense to Nathu. The visitors were here to see the village’s American guest.

  “Was this how Americans routinely visited one another?” he wondered. Their guests’ helicopter entrance had been dramatic, but it would be irritating if it happened constantly.

  Nathu beckoned the man in the lab coat to follow and led him to the village guest house. Smiling, he called out to let the young American know he had visitors. There was no response. He tried again—still nothing.

  Nathu then tentatively entered the house. He blinked in surprise. The house was empty. The young man was gone, as were his things.

  ———

  Superintendent Malhotra stared grimly at his surroundings.

  His team had reached Paranjapur twenty minutes earlier, but there was no sign of the missing American. The story the villagers unanimously told his investigators upon questioning left him confident of their innocence. The people of Paranjapur had done nothing wrong.

  But his suspicion of the Winkworth family, both father and son, was increasing.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  In response to Darren Winkworth’s incessant and illegal promotion of a prescription pharmaceutical on Indian airwaves, the superintendent had asked his investigators to look into the man’s relationship with the drug’s manufacturer.

  It would appear Darren had purchased a sizeable stake in Roje Labs seven months prior, only to see the company’s valuation plummet due to sluggish sales of a new anxiolytic compound, which fell considerably short of pre-launch estimates.

  With his son’s disappearance conveniently focusing media attention his way, the superintendent suspected Darren Winkworth of cravenly exploiting the public’s sympathy to reverse the fortunes of his failing investment.

  Superintendent Malhotra also suspected that father and son were working together to create the fraudulent crisis for monetary gain. In the superintendent’s eyes, Terrence was less of a missing person than a suspect in a crime. But could he convince his superiors of that?

  ———

  After a long drive, Jim and Reggie at last reached their destination: the village where Terrence had supposedly traveled.

  As soon as their vehicle came to a stop, an imperious gentleman marched over and rapped a knuckle on the front window, absolutely infuriating Jim and Reggie’s hired driver.

  As the driver lowered the window, the man outside shouted, “Who are you?”

  “Do not touch my car!” the driver bellowed, ignoring the question. “What gives you the right? Who are you?”

  The imperious man reached into his pocket and pulled out identification, which he displayed to the driver.

  “I’m Superintendent of Police Arvind Malhotra. Now, shall we try again? Who are you?”

  The driver, stricken by the realization of who he had just screamed at, became the epitome of contrition.

  “I’m very sorry, sahib. I didn’t know. My name is Ramesh Tiwari.”

  “State the nature of your business in Paranjapur.”

  “I am a driver, sahib. These two gentlemen paid me to drive them here.”

  Superintendent Malhotra leaned over and peered suspiciously into the car. He recognized the passengers from photos. They were employees of the missing American.

  “Kindly step out of the vehicle,” he demanded. “All three of you.”

  ———

  I had been on the road for a few hours. As the sun rose in the sky and the air became warmer, the walk grew more arduous.

  Anxious for a rest, I pushed forward to a patch of woodland within sight. When I arrived, I was dripping with perspiration.

  I found a shady spot by the side of the road and a rock to sit on. Hanging my bag on a branch to keep it off the ground, I sat and rested, trying to recover enough to take on the final leg of the journey.

  I closed my eyes and listened to the forest's sounds. A group of monkeys noticed my presence and lodged themselves in the trees above me to observe.

  I observed back for a moment, then grew bored and closed my eyes again to rest.

  The snapping sound of a branch breaking jolted me back to complete awareness. I turned around just in time to see the largest monkey of the troop climbing up a tree, clutching my carry-on bag.

  I howled in rage and threw a rock at the beast, but my volley missed. In response, the monkeys started to move deeper into the forest. I briefly gave chase, but the little jerks could move faster in the treetops than I could on the ground.

  When they were truly gone, save for the occasional sound of a distant howl, I collapsed. I was done. I wanted to go home.

  Honestly, it was a memorably low moment in my life, and there have been many competitors for that elite rank, like when my high school class voted me ‘most likely to be institutionalized.’ Having my passport stolen by monkeys was even worse than that.

  I had no money, identification, or phone. I didn’t know where I was and couldn’t communicate with anybody.

  There were only two possible courses of action available to me.

  I could continue my journey to the town, hoping against hope that someone spoke English there, and would let me make a free phone call.

  Or I could start trudging back to the family compound, where at least I suspected I would be fed.

  After a good wallow, I decided to try the town. Even if I couldn’t place a phone call there, maybe I could find out where I was.

  ———

  Sitting in a plush armchair, wearing a plusher bathrobe, residing in the plushest suite in Indore, India, Darren Winkworth led a strategy meeting.

  Standing before him were his media analysts—men and women who looked soulless and smart. Behind them was a whiteboard on which they were recording their brainstormed ideas. It read:

  op-ed in Times: anxiety epidemic in pets

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  In the background, taking advantage of every seat, sofa, and horizontal surface in the room, Darren’s security team was hard at work.

  From the corner of his eye, Darren saw one of the security professionals stand bolt-upright and quickly approach his Chief Security Officer. The Chief Security Officer immediately approached Darren, summoning the remainder of the security team to join him.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt your meeting, Mr. Winkworth, but Terrence has been located. Our operative in a town called Rampur Kalyan has eyes on your son. The operative is on the phone right now, awaiting our instructions.”

  Given the time sensitivity, a rapid but vigorous debate ensued. It was decided to assign the operative the task of making Terrence even further lost, someplace tricky for the police to track down.

  The instructions were relayed to the operative on location, and the call ended.

  ———

  Reggie sat on a chair in a police interrogation room, smiling pleasantly.

  He and Jim had been escorted to a police station in the town closest to Paranjapur (which Terrence would have learned—had he walked in the opposite direction that morning—was located a mere two miles from the village.)

  Reggie’s cheerful demeanor annoyed Superintendent Malhotra immensely, as the seasoned investigator once again found himself listening to the young man’s irrelevant blather.

  “I thought the flowers outside the station looked very nice. Are they wild? In the U.S., most of our wildflowers don’t…”

  “Bas! Enough!” Superintendent Malhotra bellowed, losing his cool. “We are not here to discuss bloody flowers. Now I will ask you one more time. Where is your employer?”

  “I’ve told you, superintendent. I don’t know.”

  “You expect me to believe that your boss is such a fool that he would take a five-day tuk-tuk ride without suspecting anything was wrong? And that he wouldn’t find a way to contact anyone?”

  Reggie pondered his response, trying to find the perfect illustration of Terrence's capabilities.

  “Terrence once spent fifteen minutes accidentally standing in line behind a mannequin when trying to purchase something at a department store. I found him waiting behind it, bored and impatient, eyes glued to his phone. Who knows how long he would have stayed there if I hadn’t shown up?”

  The superintendent blinked. This matched his initial feeble impression of Terrence’s intellect. So, where did the truth lie? Was the young American a moron or a mastermind?

  He decided to change tactics.

  “What contact have you had with Darren Winkworth?”

  “Terrence’s father?” Reggie responded, sounding shocked. “None at all. The court issued a restraining order against him. He is not to have contact with Terrence or any of Terrence’s employees like me and Jim. I haven’t spoken to him for months.”

  The superintendent stared at the irritatingly cheerful personal assistant, trying to determine his trustworthiness. The assistant’s statements contradicted the inspector’s theory that father and son were engaged in a conspiracy together. It couldn’t be denied.

  But was this ‘Reggie’ character only telling lies to throw him off Terrence’s trail?

  Superintendent Malhotra frowned.

  Reggie smiled pleasantly.