LOST IN AGONY
Written By
Kim
PROLOGUE
Tracy Mulder sat in the back seat of the Emirates Taxi cab. “Jumeirah Lake Town.” She said.
“Okay, Miss” he replied.
The driver headed down in the direction of Jumeirah Lake Town on SZRoad. She looked outside through the window, so many of the new buildings were receding backwards.
On the way, she looked at the sprawling villas. Minarets rose above them. She wondered what Andre Mulder was up to when he insisted that they shouldn’t have taken up that apartment in JLT. Was he planning on anything? was it one of his plans to spark their reunion?
Her thoughts then turned to their daughter, Chloe. She had called Tracy before leaving Andre’s place.
She recalled Chloe’s excited voice crackling through the earpiece as she broke the news to her. “Granny Kris is here“ Chloe had said on the phone, and her mind was already wandering what it would be like when she reached home. Chloe was going to have fun with her granny tonight.
Tracy swallowed, and continued to chew her gum.
As the taxi drove on; she looked at the lined multi-story building on both sides of SZRoad, the billboard showing Scarlett Johansson wearing Giorgio Armani Prive. The real desert and sand was invisible; completely overshadowed by endless irrigated grass. No one would believe that 25years back, this place was nothing but barren desert.
She sighed, looking out through the window. “Um...No. Not this one, there’s another one ahead.” She said. The cabby accelerated again, speeding directly back into the left lane. Tracy’s voice was a little calm. She resisted the urge to open the window, throwing her gum outside. It’s always cool in Dubailand during this time of the year, through the window. She realized the driver was looking at her, but she pretended not to have seen him.
Now her question was, why was the taxi driver looking at her that way? He looked unattractive to her, possibly in his mid sixty’s. Perhaps he had mistaken her for his familiar customer; she concluded.
“Get parking, please!” she asked him, and the driver nodded.
Tracy dug her hand into her purse to count the fare in dirhams as the taxi finally came to a halt.
She paid and walked to the building. Still hearing Andre’s voice ringing in her ears; trying to caution her about JLT
She smiled at the security guard while climbing the lobby stairs, heading towards the lift. She didn’t know his name, but she recognised him as a regular there. While in the lift, one part of her started feeling flattered about some of the things Andre had said to her. Being a single mother with a teenage daughter, she didn’t expect herself to so easily fall into Andre’s tricks to win her back. It would look ridiculous. Not only to her mother Kris, but also their teenage daughter Chloe. Though she knew that her daughter would be more on her mother’s side than her dad’s.
She pressed the door bell twice, and then decided to look for the key in her handbag. In a mild state of confusion, she turned the lock before sliding in the single key she held. The door just swung open as she touched the lock. This was unusual and suprising.
“How come?” she asked herself, in utter shock, before she had a chance to move forward and step inside. “Had she left the door open?”
“Chloe?” she called.
Nobody responded. “You left the door open,” she said, as if Chloe was listening.
“Chloe, Mom is………” Tracy stopped, her eyes glancing at their terribly shattered glass dinning table. She glanced around and what she saw made her stomach churn, and her heart beat faster. “Something must have gone wrong here.” She said to herself in utter disbelief of the disarrayed sight she was facing.
Tracy groaned and dropped her handbag without realizing that there were glass shards on the floor. Her mind was focused on seeing Chloe first and her mother Kris. Suddenly, She was tense and jumpy.
She forced herself to walk in calmly; staring around the apartment. She didn’t know what had happened here on such a fine morning, and that too in broad daylight.
Obviously she was having difficulty in believing her vision. She sighed and slowed down, taking her time following broken glasses on the floor.
“Chloe?” She called with apprehension, feeling her body trembling.
This was an automatic indication that something terrible had happened. Her eyes caught two mugs of coffee which indicated that Chloe had been having coffee with Kris. The air conditioner was set below 21 degrees, but Tracy was sweating.
Tracy stopped at the window of Chloe’s bedroom, shocked by the scene. The whole window was smashed in without any remaining glass and its frame was bent. She could hear crunching glass whenever she took a step. She stood awkwardly and tunneled her eyes away from the French window following a trail of blood-drops towards the carpet.
For a moment, Tracy was too stunned to act, she felt weak, and the images in her mind were horrible. Had Chloe been abducted? She was only thinking of Chloe now. Later, the images faded because now reality seemed more important than the absurd pictures in her mind. She remembered for a moment, she had just spoken to Chloe over the phone and she seemed safe with her granny. Tracy fell on her knees. The tiles were very much colder than she had known them to be, but she could not feel them at that moment.
“Chloe?” Tracy screamed, feeling like her lungs were going to burst.
Sinking to her knees down on the floor, thinking, she could scarcely absorb the fact that Chloe was not anywhere around. Her heart ached.
Suddenly, she thought of Andre, before their divorce. They were a happy small family. He was a perfect husband, before he turned to cheating on her with several mistresses. She had tolerated him anyway, for the sake of their daughter, until she couldn’t take it anymore.
Now they were here on vacation for just one month, although Andre had warned them to take caution with their neighborhood, and yet she had decided to stay at JLT.
Chloe was nowhere to be seen. Probably abducted. A Few blood spills in the house and all the ruined furniture told her that there was some resistance and struggle in whatever happened. Poor Chloe! Where was she now? What was she going through?
Tracy felt a sudden piercing on her leg. She had kneeled onto the broken glass. She stared at the window...and really saw...Someone had broken in to take her daughter.
Tracy wiped tears from her face, sat back on her heels, and stared out through the window.
Chloe had gone missing…..
