At the Sign of Trouble

Chapter Seven

CHAPTER SEVEN: The Knight on a Shinny Bike

The next day, it started raining at around seven o’clock in the morning, just as Kyla was on her way out. That day, she was scheduled to report at the Department of Foreign affairs for the renewal of her passport at nine-thirty. She figured out by now that the traffic in Metro Manila was no joke that she’d have to leave early if she wanted to make it on time and so, she opened her three-fold automatic umbrella, grabbed her shoulder bag with her documents and headed out. Apparently, the renewal only takes several hours and her boss, Henry, asked her to be back after lunch.

Her ankle high four-inch heel boots made crunching noises against the pebbles in the pathway on the side of the coffee house as she made her way out from the lodge. There were a lot of people inside the coffee house and the team was busy, she knew she had to get back soon to help. They were still short-staffed and Eric, the manager, has been handing assignments on rotation to make sure everybody was doing something to assist whenever they were available.

Wearing her simple white shirt topped with a tan-colored blazer and dark skinny jeans while carrying her beige shoulder bag, she stepped out the street and hailed a cab to take her to the train station.

* * *

“Henry, what time is it?” Frank asked for the nth time that day while looking out the window.

Henry obligingly checked his wrist watch and answered: “One fort-five.” They were in his office talking about the huge order due at 3PM that day for a company meeting that was called in earlier.

 “You’re pastry chef is late.” Henry stated. He clearly instructed her to be back an hour ago.

Frank turned to his grandson looking worried and said: “It’s been raining like this since 7am and it hasn’t let up. Do you think there’s a storm coming?”

Henry let out a loud sigh before putting down the financial report he was reading. “If there was, we should have heard about it by now. Don’t worry too much; I’m sure she’s just stuck in traffic somewhere.” He replied nonchalantly.

Henry stood up and walked to the window and looked out. He didn’t really notice how hard it was raining but seeing the torrential rainfall outside, he started feeling a little uneasy. But Kyla is full-grown woman, she’d know better than to risk staying out for so long in this weather when she should have been back hours ago, he rationalized.

Still, could something have happened to her? He wondered.

“Have you tried calling her?” He asked Frank while trying not to sound worried.

His grandfather took out his mobile phone and checked it for messages but found none. “I texted her several times and I tried calling her two hours ago but I could barely hear her. I think she said she’s outside the train station trying to get a ride. I saw the news just now and they said all the trains in that area were not operational, something about lightning hitting the power lines, I’m not sure.”

“What do you mean she’s trying to get a ride? Does she even know where she’s supposed to go?” Henry asked. He didn’t mean to raise his voice, but he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. She was what—twenty four? She should have at least thought of staying inside anywhere and waiting out the rain.

“She’s only been back from abroad for a couple of months. As far as I know, she’s been in Batangas all her life. I don’t think she knows the city that well.” Frank replied, sounding a little anxious. He instructed Kyla on how to get to where she needed to go by train but didn’t really think that it would rain this hard—or even at all. “I tried telling her to stay put but I don’t think she heard me. She muttered about knowing she needed to get back and was trying her best and kept apologizing then I lost her.”