Just as she picked up her purse, an unknown number from an international area code she certainly didn’t recognize lit up Dani’s phone screen. Frowning, Dani swiped her thumb across the screen and pressed it to her ear. “Hello?”

Her father’s rich baritone filled Zed’s kitchen. “I don’t know what you’re up to Danica, but you can’t send people here to the ashram looking for me, disrupting our peace. You really upset the guru. I’m on kitchen duty for a month. Do you know badly you’ve upset my community?”

Dani blinked rapidly, trying to process what the hell her father was talking about. She hadn’t sent anyone to India. She didn’t really know that many people from India, much less in India—

Wait.

She suddenly remembered Zed calling Rajesh Agarwal from his office and shutting the door behind him before the conversation got interesting. Had Zed sent some friend of Rajesh’s to the Unnamed Ashram to look for her dad?

Yeah, sorry feminism, Zed deserved this crumble.

“You know, Journey, I really could not care less,” Dani said, slapping her apron against the counter.

“I don’t care what negativity you’ve spread in that backward country you call home,” Journey seethed. “I’m not leaving India. I haven’t reached my enlightenment yet. I need more time.”

“More time? How much more time? A few weeks, a year? Just enough time for the statute of limitations to run out?” Dani scoffed.

“Statute—what are you talking about?”

“I know, Journey. I know all about the loans and the mortgages you took out on the farm. I can’t believe you would do that—strike that, actually, I can completely believe you’ve done this, because as far as I can tell you have the moral compass of a brick.”

“I didn’t take anything my own mother didn’t offer me freely, out of love,” Journey insisted, his tone becoming reedier and shrill. “Because that’s what family does for each other. That money was my birthright and I’m putting it to much better use than any good it might do in Elkhorn.”

He spat the word “Elkhorn” like it was a mortal insult. Asshole.

“It’s funny that you were so strong in your convictions that you couldn’t tell Grandad what you were doing,” Dani shot back.

“Because it wasn’t any of his business. I can’t believe you’re so focused on something as fleeting as money. You’re focused on the past. I’m focused on the eternal.”

“The past? As in primordial 2016?” she snorted.

“Why can’t you just forgive? Why do you have to be so negative?” he whined. “Why can’t you remember all of the things I’ve done for you instead of all the things you think I did wrong?”