Alacrimia | √

Chapter Twenty+Five

It was well past eight when Olumide pulled up in front of the motel described to them by a passerby. By then he'd finished telling his wife the whole story and in that timeframe, she'd cried and calmed down.

He booked them a room overlooking the parking lot and ordered for dinner to be served at nine. Then he started to dial the number on the piece of paper.

Eartha splashed cold water on her face in the bathroom and stared at her reflection in the mirror above the washbasin. God, did she look a pathetic mess!

She sighed and scrubbed at her face again then dried with a towel. Yes, she had on a cool demeanour now, but it was all for show. Inside she was a panicked mess, she'd only forced herself to calm down for her husband. He did have do much on his shoulders already, and she didn't want to add her own problem to it.

So she knew she had to be strong for herself. For her husband. For Adekunbi. After all, her location was known and by this time tomorrow they'd have her with them.

With this renewed determination, she dropped the towel on the washbasin and went back into the adjoining room.

Mide was sitting at the writing desk at the other end of the room. He had turned the chair around and was straddling it. And he looked tensed up as he held the phone, waiting for the call to be picked up.

She smiled sadly and went up behind him, wrapping her arms around him in a hug.

He turned slightly at the body contact and touched her arm resting on his shoulder.

'Raspberry Ripple.' It was more like a sad sigh than acknowledgement.

'Heart,' she replied and rested her chin on his shoulder. 'What's wrong?' she asked.

'Nothing, I hope. Just waiting for the call to connect.'

Just as he finished speaking, the connect tone beeped and the line started to ring.

With their hearts in their mouths they waited for the call to be picked up. After what seemed like an hour (but was actually eleven seconds) the call got picked.

There was a slight din at the other end and a baritone voice spoke up. 'Nsukka Police Station. How can we help?' The man sounded as if he was munching on something crunchy.

'Good evening, officer. I'm Olumide Makanjuola. I'm with my wife, Eartha Makanjuola. There was a case of a missing girl — two missing children last month. The girl is our daughter, Eniiyi Makanjuola and the boy, Lastborn . . . her cousin. Your . . um, the village they came from was contacted exactly a week ago. We were on a business trip abroad, we only just got back and found out what happened.'

The policeman was speechless for a while and in that timeframe, he took multiple bites of his pepper chips.

Okay, he knew that case — every police officer at the station did — but he wasn't in charge of it. It was Menk, Ezigbo, the chief of police and one other officer that handled the case. Problem was that Menk had gone home since afternoon and the CoP was not around too. But he wasn't sure if Officer Egwu Ezigbo was on night shift or not.

He finally spoke up to the relief of the tensed up couple at the other end of the line. 'Where have you two been since all these days?'

It didn't seem like he had properly listened to their explanations.

Mide took a deep breath to calm himself before speaking.

'We were on a business trip abroad, we didn't hear anything of what happened, our line was out for some reasons. We'd like to know the location of the two children—' Suddenly the line started to crackle and all they heard was static.