The fan hummed lazily in the corner, scattering thin streaks of dust in the PI office that Anchal Rathod now called her war-room. The blinds were half-drawn, stripes of Delhi sun cutting across a cluttered desk stacked with files, camera lenses, and two mugs with lipstick stains no one had bothered to wash.
It wasn't glamorous, but it was functional. A corkboard lined one wall, speckled with photos and maps from their last few cases. Most were small-time jobs, spouses suspected of cheating, missing jewelry, office frauds. Still, the room carried a strange mix: the grit of an old-school PI firm and the polish of new money, courtesy of Sumit's family. Sleek laptops, noise-cancelling headsets, a drone packed in its box, all out of place in a dusty Lajpat Nagar lane.
Anchal stood behind the desk, arms crossed, black shirt sleeves rolled to her elbows. She had her father's sharp jawline, her mother's quick eyes, and a presence that filled the room without effort. The Rathod name carried history, her father is a respected investigator currently out of country for some investigation.
"Caught red-handed," she muttered, flipping through the latest case file. The grainy CCTV still showed a man kissing someone who wasn't his wife in the backseat of a car parked near Nehru Place.
Sumit snorted from his chair, broad shoulders filling his old college hoodie, expensive sneakers kicked up on the desk. "I told you he'd crack in a week. Gym rat, zero discipline. You can always spot the guilty ones; they sweat before anyone asks a question."
"Spoken like the ex-jock who failed half his viva tests," Mansi shot back without looking up. Her thin fingers flew across the keyboard, light from the monitor painting her sharp cheekbones blue. The youngest of the group, Mansi still carried the pale traces of her childhood illness, but her mind was lethal now, faster than any machine she worked with. "I hacked his WhatsApp backup. He's been saving pet names for three women. Not even creative ones."
Pawan shifted uncomfortably on the couch, hands fiddling with his ring. His hair fell into his eyes, and he pushed it back with a sigh. "This stuff… I don't know, Anchal. Sometimes it feels invasive. Do we really have to dig that deep just to prove what everyone already suspects?"
Anchal softened, just slightly, when she looked at him. Pawan had been quiet since school, gentle, bookish, his anxieties written across his hunched shoulders. But he never left her side, not once. "We find the truth, Pawan. What people do with it, that's their burden."
In the corner, Suchitra sat with her notebook, her round glasses slipping down her nose as she scribbled the day's expenses. A soft dupatta draped over her Kurti, she looked less like a PI and more like a librarian, but she was the steady rhythm in the chaos. Her voice was soft when she spoke. "The client's coming at six to pick the report. Should I get chai ready?"
Before Anchal could reply, the door creaked open.
A man stepped in, middle-aged, face worn from sleepless nights. His shirt collar was wrinkled, tie loose as if he'd given up on appearances somewhere on the metro ride. In his trembling hands he clutched a photograph, of a girl in her teens, smiling in a pastel Kurti, hair pulled back in a simple braid.
"I… I need your help," he said, voice cracking. "My daughter. Ritika. She's gone."
The room fell quiet. Sumit swung his feet down from the desk. Mansi's fingers froze mid-keystroke. Pawan shifted upright, hands still fidgeting but eyes alert. Suchitra closed her notebook gently, watching him with quiet concern.
Anchal stepped around the desk, her expression unreadable but her tone steady. "Start from the beginning, Mr.…?"
"Gupta," he said. "Ramesh Gupta." His eyes darted around the room, desperate, pleading. "Please. The police won't listen. They said maybe she ran away. But I know my daughter. She went with her college group trip to some NGO near the Ridge last week. After that… nothing. Her phone's dead. No calls, no messages. Just gone."
He placed the photo on the desk with shaking fingers. "Please. Find her."
The hum of the fan was the only sound for a long moment. The petty cheating-spouse case, the banter, the jokes, all of it shrank under the weight of those words.
Anchal looked at the photograph, then at her team. The easy humor was gone from their faces. She straightened, sliding the picture closer.
"You came to the right place, Mr. Gupta," she said. "We'll take the case."
And just like that, the tone of the office shifted, from playful detectives to something far heavier. Something closer to the shadows they had once promised to stay away from.
Mr. Gupta's hands trembled as he passed the photograph across the table. The young girl's face smiled up at them, wide-eyed and earnest, caught mid-laughter.
Anchal leaned forward. "Tell me everything."
He swallowed; voice unsteady. "Ritika is nineteen. First year in college. She signed up for some NGO field trip near the Ridge, it was supposed to be environmental work, collecting samples, planting trees, whatever they do for credits. Her group left five days ago. On the second day, she called home, said she was fine but tired. After that… silence. Her phone is switched off. The college just says she fainted from heat and was 'sent home early,' but we never saw her. Police told me she probably ran away, that girls her age do this all the time. But she wouldn't. Not Ritika."
Sumit's jaw tightened. "Typical. They stamp 'runaway' on every missing file and go back to chai."
Mr. Gupta's eyes brimmed. "Please. She's my only child. If they won't look for her, someone has to."
The room stilled again. Then Mansi spoke, her tone brisk, almost clinical, but not unkind. "We'll need her details, phone number, email, socials. If she used Google maps or posted anything before going dark, I can find traces."
Mr. Gupta nodded quickly, fumbling for his wallet where he had numbers written down on a crumpled slip.
Suchitra took it gently, her voice soft. "Don't worry, uncle. We'll do everything we can." She slid him a glass of water before he even realized his throat was dry.
Pawan shifted on the couch, rubbing his palms against his jeans. "Anchal… this sounds bigger than our usual jobs. If the Ridge is involved,"
"Then we don't back off," Anchal cut in, her tone sharp but steady. She held Ritika's photo like a weight. "If a girl vanished during a college NGO trip, and the police won't act, then it's on us. We've all known what Delhi can hide. I'm not letting her become another missing face on a noticeboard."
Sumit leaned back, folding his arms. "I'm in. Ridge or not. If she's out there, we find her. But we'll need to move fast, Delhi eats up stories like this before they even hit the papers."
Mansi was already typing, pulling up tabs on her dual screens. "I'll start with her digital footprint. Last GPS ping, chats, maybe her college attendance sheets. If her phone data's been wiped, I'll know. Nobody scrubs without leaving residue."
Anchal glanced at Pawan. "You?"
He exhaled, shaky but firm. "You know I won't let you walk into this alone."
She gave the smallest nod, then turned back to Mr. Gupta. "We'll start at her college. Friends, classmates, professors, someone must have noticed a change before she vanished. If the Ridge trip is the last point she was seen, that's our lead."
Mr. Gupta pressed his palms together. "Thank you. Thank you. I'll pay whatever,"
"Money's not the issue," Anchal said, cutting him gently. "What matters is time."
When he left, clutching the hope she'd given him, silence filled the office again. The team sat with Ritika's photograph at the center of the desk, the fan's hum the only sound.
Finally, Sumit broke it. "You realize what this means, right? NGO trips, Ridge forests, college kids collapsing… it's all the same air Shivam and his friends are breathing."
Anchal's jaw clenched. "Exactly. Which means if we don't look now, we may lose more than one girl."
Mansi spun her chair toward them, eyes bright behind the glow of her screen. "First sweep done. Ritika's last GPS ping was two kilometers inside Ridge territory. And get this, her chat backups? Wiped. Not by her. By something cleaner. Like corporate-level clean."
The word settled heavy in the air.
SynerTech. None of them said it yet, but all of them thought it.
Anchal tapped the photo once, decisive. "Pack your things. We head to her college tomorrow morning."
Suchitra closed her notebook with quiet finality. "Then it begins."