The Truth About Mariam

Chapter 8

Chapter 8†

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Ever since the funeral and Hillary's words to me and also the letter.

I started putting twos and twos together.

° Mariam had a boyfriend, a fiancé and her parents were in support of the under age relationship between a minor and an adult with sexual intercourse and assaults involved.

° Daniella hated Mariam, she hated the fame attached to her name and she also hated the fact that her dad talks about Mariam all the time.

° Hillary, he was the one that found the letter, if he knew i wasn't going to hand it over to the police why then did he give me?

I need to find an answer to this.

I unlocked my phone and checked my texts with Mariam on WhatsApp.

I went to older messages, there was one when she mentioned she had a boyfriend and i asked her who it was.

She told me he was rich and he was someone that I knew.

I teased her asking if he was Hillary.

And she said he wasn't, that Hillary and she were only classmates, she could never be attracted to him.

I asked her for a pic and she sent me the same one she showed me earlier when she reappeared back to school after her sudden disappearance .

I don't know the man, he was tall and dark like my dad, I would have even mistaken him for my dad.

But the man in the pic was wearing ripped jeans and chains on his neck. He looked like a gangster. He covered his face though with a nose mask and a cap.

She sent me two pics of the man. They were at the beach this time and he was holding her hands and smiling as someone snapped  them. Something caught my eye, he was holding a brown wallet and that looked exactly like my dad's. My dad also had a brown wallet and they drew a dragon at the front. I  zoomed  at the pic, there was a dragon drawn just like the one on my dad's.

Or was it just another wallet but with the same design and structure like my dad's?

I was pondering on that when I heard a light knock on my door.

I kept my phone aside " Who's there?"

"It's me, Rotimi."

I opened the door as he walked into my room. I eyed him "Yes, what do you want?"

He handed me a jotter, "One boy said i should give you." He ran out of my room and I shut my door.

I opened the Jotter, the first page was blank, same as the second, third, fourth, fifth.

I opened the sixth page and there were words written on the page.

I noticed the handwriting immediately. It was Mariam's.

I read.

* If I could go back in time, I would fix all my errors, my mistakes.

But I can't, I know my days are numbered, someone wants to kill me.*

I threw the jotter on my bed as I rushed downstairs to ask Romtimi who gave him the jotter.

He was in the sitting room, playing with his toys. I rushed to his side and in the process stepped on one of his toys.

"Owww" I sat down on the chair as I held my foot.

"What happened?, Ahh I'm sorry" He pressed my leg.

"Who gave you the jotter?" I asked him when the pain subsided.

" A boy"

"Did he tell you his name?, describe how he looked like."

"He didn't tell me his name, but he was tall and dark, he had full hair."

Sounds like Hillary.

" You know Mummy said you shouldn't collect things from strangers likewise talk to them. The world is dangerous, don't you know they kidnap children and use them for money ritual and kill them at the end of the day?"

He started crying, "Don't tell Mummy, she would beat me, he said he knows you and you know him, that's why I collected it from him. He didnt even enter our house."

"What... You were outside?, I thought I have told you countless times not to go outside without any of us knowing."

He cried harder, "I'm sorry, I won't do it again, don't tell mummy."

I rolled my eyes " Stop crying, I won't, but next time, don't go outside without any of us with you and don't collect things from strangers... Even if they claim to know me."