Summary

Jai is frustrated. The more children vanish, the murkier his investigation becomes. “Sadly,” he confesses, “my brain isn’t intelligent enough to tell me where Aanchal is” (180). When he meets Bahadur’s grieving mother, he can barely make eye contact. Then Faiz’s brother offers some hope. Aanchal had a cell phone. Her father, desperate to find her, has been calling the number every hour until finally someone, a man, answers. Cell phones have an IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) number, Faiz’s brother tells Jai. Aanchal’s phone can be tracked.

Then the basti is rocked by news of another child gone missing, this time a five-year-old girl, Chandni, snatched in the bazaar alone where she was shopping for a sweet cake for her mother’s birthday. The police do nothing save approach the girl’s parents for a bribe. Jai’s...