Chapter Eleven

Damian paraded the whole perimeter of his room and would occasionally look into the heavy downpour of fresh rains, one of its earliest that year. The kinds that farmers patiently waited for that would make them leap for joy the second its gentle showers poured. Little children danced to the rhythm of the many showers on the rooftops and washed their dirty bodies under it much to the dismay of their parents. It was a wonderful gift of nature that had come to stay for the rest of the year.

Damian would peep outside again, looking through the blinders at each honk a car gave but none of it was Laura. He called her line severally, but no one picked up so he grew worried. Extremely worried that he cursed the fact he had allowed her get the job in the first place not when the little seed of joy had started growing within her. He wanted her to rest even though it was still the first week, parenting was very much important to him.

He glanced into his watch and the minute hand was few seconds away the 6:00 pm mark. He rushed down the stairs and met Duncan and Daniel chattering loudly to a show on television. Damian was never the kind to sit and waste precious business hours before a screen. Not even a game of football made him grace the television for hours.

"Have you two seen Laura? She hasn't been picking my calls," He had asked and they turned in unison shaking their heads.

"It's still..." Duncan lazily peered into his phone, "six in the evening na! Wait until it's eight before we can raise an alarm."

"Perhaps her phone died. You know we have not been having light for some days now. Thank God for this gen self let person watch TV small," Daniel replied and the duo burst into a round of laughter. They broke the chain of laughter and Duncan stared at Daniel. If anyone was going to have been the illegitimate son, it would be Damian he had thought to himself. He just didn't fit. Daniel and Duncan shared a lot in common than either of them ever shared with Damian.

Damian wasn't sure what amused them but Duncan had a point. It was not so late to have raised an alarm, but even at that, he was still determined to finding her. He walked back into his room to drape something warmer and more modest over his broad and masculine torso and so opened the wardrobe to find a shirt or something less formal.

He slowly brought out his bag filled with some T-shirts some were souvenirs others he had gotten himself. He seemed to have been looking for a woolen sweater when he delved into Laura's bag. His hand rummaged the cloth filled bag and touched something metallic. He struggled to bring what he held in his hand and drew it out despite the resistance the clothes entangled with it caused. It was the medium sized statue of liberty he had been looking for. He looked into thin air confused as to why Laura hid the knowledge of the whereabouts of the statue from him, but that was not all that pricked his attention. He saw something on the torch of the statue, it was brown almost like rust, dried rust if you may, but he knew better. It was dried blood.

Approaching steps pricked his thoughts back to reality and he quickly dropped the statue back where he had found it, covering all traces of it with the clothes that were scattered around the bag in the wardrobe. He stood by the mirror and watched as whoever was behind the door fiddled the knob to get in. It was Laura.

"Hey," Damian said, turning towards her. She took off the outer jacket she had on that was soaked with water. "Where have you been?" He added.

"Work," she replied disinterested in the series of questions that she knew would follow.

"It's way past your closing hour. I was worried about you," he said. "Are you sure everything was fine?"

"Yeah sure! Why not?" She asked and excused herself into the bathroom locking shut the door behind her. Her back pressed hard on the wooden door for few seconds and she retreated to the shower before her. She unscrewed the shower knob and fresh downpour of hot steamy liquids soothed her skin and relaxed her nerves. Her eyes locked into a light slumber and her thoughts ran through the events of that evening.

"Don't tell me you believe her," Tessy chipped in cutting Celine into her thoughts.

"It's a lot to take in. I had always thought I am the one but seems there's is a possibility that I might not be." Her voice cracked and eyes seemed to trail off Laura's drenched body and unto the floor. "Yea? If you're not the one, what then would you say about Tessy's abduction? She heard your name in their warehouse. Why were you there?"

"Oh my God! You were at the abandoned warehouse that day? I think there's someone else you need to ask about your abduction, Duncan. I didn't know it at that time, but he called me over to get something from home for him. A letter of some sort."

"Wait hold on! If you had this piece of information, why didn't you tell the police when they came for your husband?" Celine asked.

"I didn't know what any of it meant." Laura's doe eyes darted at Celine and Tessy. " I didn't know the gravity of its content and I still don't know. When Damian started obsessing about finding it, I knew it was quite important and I was scared of his wrath."

"You should be. If Damian finds out you had the one thing that could end everything he has going on for him and you handed it over to any other person, he would kill you just like he killed his father," Tessy replied.

"Should I come in there and get you out?" Damian's voice seeped through the spaces between the doors and sank into her eardrums. She had turned off the showers due to fright and beads of water was all that settled on her skin. Her husband was a murderer and she started to see him differently. She stepped out of the bathroom holding tightly to her towel and made for the dressing mirror.

"You took longer than usual in there..."

"It was just ten minutes," Laura replied.

"Actually it was thirty. You've been acting weird since you came back. What's wrong with you?" Damian shot.

"I'm just tired, OK?" Laura replied balming her skin.

"I asked if you had seen my statue."

"That was this morning and I've still not seen it," she replied.

"Then what was it doing in your bag?" He asked, raising it up.

"Oh my God, you searched my bag?" She asked, reaching to her bag. Her cheeks turned a slight pink with guilt when she saw him holding the statue.

"Listen Laura, it's not that important to me. But I'm just wondering why you had to lie to me about it," he added.

"I don't know how it got in there... I'm serious." her next words got buried between the chimes of her phone.

Damian peered into her phone and saw a text from Daniel pop up on the front screen. "Our Daniel? Why is he texting you when we are all in the same house?" Damian asked.

A loud knock shook the door to the room and Duncan poked his head through even before he could have been invited in.

"Hey Damian! Please can I borrow your comb?" Duncan asked.

"Why would you want to borrow my comb at the dead of night?" Damian asked.

"You think these curls maintain themselves?"

"Well go use your own comb, because I don't share."

"Damian please... As my brother," Duncan replied with the emphasis on the word 'brother.'

"Fine! Go take it in my drawer and do not return it."

*****

Tessy and Celine still stuck around the old room in the garage, and Celine took the opportunity to look around the room. There were old wires and some rusty car parts with extra grease and diesel all over the flooring which was made of concrete. It looked more like a store than a room and cobwebs netted the circumference of the light bulb, trapping some light to itself and they had to make do with the few beams that seeped out of the cobweb.

"Wow! That was a wrap," Tessy said in a failed attempt to provoke a response from Celine, but the latter remained unflinching. "You seem worried," Tessy observed. "You walk around aimlessly when you're nervous."

"Because I am! Thanks to you again, the plans backfired. Your silly assumptions got the best of me and now Damian will know who I really am!" Celine yelled.

"I'm sorry for trying to help! I saw a lead and I took it. You would have had a better reaction if my leads were right and now suddenly it's my fault everything went sour?"

"Yes! Because it is! I should have trusted my guts. You know what? I'm done with all of this."

"You don't want to find out what happened to your mum?" Tessy asked a little disturbed.

"Oh I do! But I would like to do it alone," Celine replied. Her phone lit up followed by the buzz the notification sound gave off and she swiped the message to open it up. Tessy nodded and made for the door when Celine mouthed the message she had received. "He wants to go on a lunch date and have a fat meal of jollof rice and carrot toppings?" Tapping her keyboard, she said under her breath, "I really need to tell these guys who I am. They are starting to read something different."

"That's oddly specific," Tessy turned sharply, moving closer to Celine.

"I thought you were leaving?" Celine asked. Her painted nails glowed under the influence of the light's night and shaky bulb. A large downpour was coming and she could feel it.

The clouds gathered and formed a thick dark mist with a silvery line gracing the sky and sharp sparks of thunder ruminating the earth. The gentle breeze intensified into the louder whistling sound the winds gave, pushing everything along its path. The trees bent both sides in exaltation, shaking the branches vigorously and the leaves submitted to the vigour.

"I was leaving but... Jollof rice and carrot toppings?" Tessy queried.

"Yeah, so?" Celine cut in.

"I know that precise order anywhere! The same I ate repeatedly while in the old house and in the hospital. Listen Celine, you might not want to trust me, but please believe this hunch one last time. I think Daniel is the abductor. I think he knows about your mum."

The power supply was cut and the light from the shaky bulb died, cloaking the whole room black followed by an energetic and subduing clap of thunder.