16 Let Nosa Know
Nosa was still fixed on finding either Shayla or the middleman, Segun. He decided it was high time he met with his computer analysts. They too were eager to meet him. They updated him on everything, but after all, they ended up telling him that they were stagnant. Therefore, the only option was to return to Shayla's boat.
He returned to Shayla's boat to ransack it. If he did his search well, he would probably see things there that would enhance his investigation. He drove in a haste, with the hope that he would meet Shayla at home. If he met her by chance, she would answer for her crime. He would make her see the back of her neck whether she was carrying his baby or not. Just as he got to the river bank, Shayla called him. Just what he needed. He hurriedly picked the call.
'If you're bold enough, let…'
'Help us, Nosa'.
Gunshots rang in the background.
'Help. You're my last resort', Shayla screamed.
'Calm down! Where are you?'
'Shoot', someone screamed. The voice looked like that of Moriah's.
'I'm at Moriah's…'
'Get down', Moriah screamed. 'Drop the phone. Oh, God! The door. Get behind the crate. Get going. More guns'.
Nosa turned and almost fell as he raced for the car. 'Hang on'.
Even if he had no reason to fight for her life, his child was still in her. Within a few minutes, he was stepping on the accelerator of the car and was speeding off.
'I'm coming. Don't switch off your phone ', he yelled and made sure the phone remained in the loudspeaker. Then, he was faced by an obedient road user. 'Get your haggard car out of my way'.
'No. Nosa… Find Segun. I'll send you his file and his number'.
Nosa's speed was soon aggravating curses and abuses from other road users who tried to avoid him by all means, and that was his own desire. 'I'll get you soon'.
'No... Nosa…They are here. Oh God, my baby'.
'Leave my house', Moriah shrieked, and gunshots rang again.
'Moriah get your head down. The… God. Get your head down'.
'No...' Nosa yelled as he had to screech to a halt to avoid being crushed by a trailer.
There was an increase in the gunshots, and soon things were falling. Moriah was shrieking, while Shayla kept shouting ‘her baby’.
'You should be the police here', Moriah shrieked and was soon railing curses on the people shooting at them.
'That's before I got this burden'.
'Shut your crazy mouth. You're calling our baby a burden'.
'You too, shut up and shoot'.
Gunshots rang again. 'That side. No. The trajectory points for my… Get off. Take that'.
'I'm out…'Shayla screamed.
'Help. No. No', Moriah screamed.
'Run', Nosa suggested. But Moriah's scream soon overshadowed every noise in the house. Within minutes, some people were screaming instructions, and Moriah's voice, as well as Shayla's, wasn't heard any more. He tried to tell himself that nothing had happened to them, but the silence was too overbearing. He sped off. However, when he saw that nothing was happening again, he had to shout their names.
'Talk to me. What's happening?'
The silence was seriously unnerving. He shouldn't lose his cool at this time, but it seemed he had just lost some of the people closest to his heart. If his baby or Moriah died, he would ensure that they heard the last of it. He would hunt every one of them down, and made sure they died a very slow death. Some minutes later, he heard a throaty voice, 'Find Queen's estate. You'll meet them there'.
Nosa remembered that estate. Chloe had plans to buy it sometimes ago. He shouldn't change direction just yet. As much as he wanted to kill them immediately, he had to ensure his back-up was sound. He would have to rely on his own hackers. He called them and gave them instructions on what to do. However, they told him that if he went there, he would have to go blind because there was nothing much that would help them direct him.
Then, he proceeded to call Chloe. She would have the best description of the place from where he was. He dialed her number but it kept ringing and sending him to the voicemail. His heart skipped beat. He didn't want voicemail. What did he need the voicemail for?
They've gotten to Chloe too', he muttered.
He shook his head. If truly they had Moriah and Shayla, he would find a way of getting to them. But he had to be sure that they truly had Chloe before he proceeded to find the others. With that, he spun the car around and headed for their own estate as he kept redialing Chloe's number.
When he got home, he met the gate intact and found no form of a struggle anywhere. Yet, he removed his gun from his holster as he gently progressed into the unusually silent compound. The house wasn't locked and Chloe's phone was laying on the table. He raced to his father's room to ask him about her whereabouts but met only the housekeeper making the bed.
'Where's my wife?'
'She went out'.
'With my father?'
'Yes, and Mummy Church'
He dialed Pastor's wife's number. 'Mummy, please help me give the phone to Chloe?'
'Sister Chloe, your husband'.
'Okay… I wanted to be sure you were there'.
'I am'.
'Good. Thank God! What would have happened if I lost you?'
'What are you saying? Where are you? Should I come to meet you?'
'No. Don't bother', he said and heaved. 'Did you finally buy that Queen estate’?
'No... One of those General Overseers beat me to it'.
'Damn'.
'Nosa'
'Sorry'.
'What is the best route to take into the estate’?
'Just the entrance now. And that place was a mess the last time I went there'.
She had always insisted that he refrained from using foul languages. He should have known. The problem now remained was why someone would take Moriah and Shayla as hostages.
Then, he remembered Dr. Immaculate John's secretary saying a lady beat them to buy the land. Chloe has been the only one buying lands crazily in recent times. Could it be the man lied or she was lying? But Chloe had never had a reason to lie on such matter; in fact, she always wanted people to know she bought those lands and not her father. In other words, the General Overseer was lying all along. He was the one kidnapping people, but why? And if he wasn't the one, was another woman involved in this case?
***
When Chloe got the strangest call in her life, she felt like screaming her head off. She had switched off her phone because of the way Mummy Church kept calling. However, when Chloe finally switched it on, and Mummy Church's call found its way into her phone, she started her rants. By this time, she had finally stretched Chloe to a point that she would soon snap. Immediately she asked for the latest update and Chloe didn't give her something good, she disconnected the call and came to her place.
So, when Mummy Church came knocking at her door, she knew she had no other option than to leave the phone switched on. She was on Chloe's neck till her father-in-law came into the sitting room to settle the matter. They had just finished explaining the situation to her father-in-law when she received the call.
'Oh God!' Mummy Church shouted as soon as she told her that they found the bodies of the two police officers as well as that of Agnes.
'You killed her', Mummy Church yelled as she rose from her seat. 'I told you. Don't involve the police. Don't poke your nose'.
Her father-in-law looked disappointed as he always did whenever he saw her and her daughter, and she felt like crying in front of the man, whom she always adored after her father.
'Let's be sure, she is the one', her father-in-law said with Yoruba language. Despite being from Edo state, he always loved speaking Yoruba especially when he saw someone that understood it.
'Daddy, can police be blind?' Mummy Church shouted in English and wailed. She slumped to the ground, and wailed, placing her good hand on her head. Chloe hated that she was seating on the ground with the beautiful gown she got from Hadassah's shop. Chloe wished things hadn't gone against her plan. Her plan had been annulled.
'I'll go and check the body', she said weakly after she stopped staring into the empty space.
Someone had just punctured her hope of ever talking to the woman. She rose weakly, grabbed her car key, and trudged towards the door. Like her Aunt said, she was ticking, and would soon explode.
'You're not going alone', Mummy church said and rose.
Chloe shook her head. 'No. Let me see the bad news alone'.
'No. I'm coming with you'.
'That's ideal. She knows the woman better', her father-in-law. And Chloe felt like telling him to keep quiet. He was already meddling in their business and was infuriating her.
'No. I need to face the music myself'.
'I'm coming with you'.
She stared at the woman and hoped she would be able to cope with the horror of what she was about to see.
'The way the two of you are acting is too weird. Mrs. Fowosere, I can't leave you alone with my daughter. She has made a mistake, but shouldn't be overbeaten for it. Whatever God has planned would have happened eventually'.
'Don't tell me rubbish, old man', Mummy Church said and sniffed as she grabbed her bag. She pushed past Chloe and walked towards the parking lot. 'Tell your cursed daughter-in-law to take me to Agnes' corpse'.
'You can see my point', her father-in-law reiterated. This time Joel, her cat strutted out and meowed away from her father-in-law, who also sneered at it.
'It's true. You don't need to follow us'.
'We both know you can't talk me out of this. I'm still the head of this house'.
'No, Papa. Nosa is the head of this house', Chloe said and almost bit her tongue. She shouldn't have said that, but she needed him to back off. He stared at her for a while and smiled.
'I told you girls, you need a man with you', he said grabbed his Bible and headed for the car. She rammed her fist into the wall. These people would force her hands to do things she would forever hate herself for. She hurriedly sent a message to the person assigned to her case, dropped the phone, rushed into the house to get her handbag and rushed out.
She gritted, grabbed her bag, walked off to the car, opened it and clambered into it. Soon, she was opening the doors for a fuming Mummy Church, and her smiling father-in-law. They drove off in silence and she wished they would back off. There was no way she would let them in on what would happen soon. If they were chanced to see the corpse, they might be one soon. She searched for her phone and groaned as she remembered dropping it on the table. That was very stupid of her. If she was near Moriah, she might have finally found a reason for Moriah to call her reckless. When they were all together, she always believed that everyone was careless. So being able to avoid that for the many years they were together had made her have an edge over Moriah.
Soon, Nosa called, and she knew she had to do all she wanted to do before he finally came to term with the knowledge of the things she had done. She gritted after she handed the phone back to Mummy Church.
'You don't need to do this', Chloe muttered as she stopped the car outside the house they were supposed to see the corpses.
'Wait! Are we not supposed to meet them at either a morgue or a hospital or the police station?' Her father-in-law said.
'That's why I was against you people smelling this place. It is the place the ordeal took place. It's a bottle of stale urine'.
'No', Mummy Church cried as she rushed out of the car, leaving her car behind.
Chloe gritted and felt like grabbing her, tying her down in a seat until she had seen the horror that awaited her. However, her father-in-law was soon getting down from the car, and she knew she was done for. Luckily, they were met by the person assigned to them, who introduced himself as Chris. He opened the door and led them into the house.
'Where are the other people?' Her father-in-law asked as he entered after her.
'Which other people?' Chris asked as he walked carefully. Chloe suspected what had happened in the house was truly something horrific, but she couldn't stop at that moment.
'Are you sure you people want to do this?' She asked.
'Let's go', Mummy Church whispered.
'So, the police sent only one man to investigate death', her father-in-law said.
Chris didn't answer but led the way to the sitting room. The door was the first evidence of an encounter. It was thoroughly disfigured with holes from rapid gunfire. The assailants must have shot sporadically because the guys in the sitting room seemed to have been caught unawares. Agnes was lying on her face with a thick black rope still tied around her. A hole was punctured into her back by a bullet. Blood oozed from the shot part of her body. Mummy Church wailed.
'You killed her', Mummy Church shouted, and ran to the rollover Agnes' corpse. 'We asked you not to tell the police but because you just like illegal things, she is dead. You like to meddle in people's business'.
Chloe saw an iron chair at a corner and held it for comfort. She was angry at herself and at the world for making everything go against her. She groaned in pain. She felt herself ticking terribly and heartbeat doing the same. Her miserable life had extended its arm to the people around her. The words of her mother rushed back. The way she used to talk to her as if it was her fault that her parents had premarital sex that led to her birth.
As if reading her mind, Mummy Church yelled, 'that's why your life would always see death. I was avoiding you like a plague immediately we saw you around her. Your life smells of death'.
'Madam', her father-in-law said and tried to hold her, but she brushed his hand off.
'Leave me. For what you did, you yourself know that you will never make heaven'.
Chloe's grip on the chair tightened. She knew. She had just killed Agnes that had a vision of heaven. The only one that had seen a vision of heaven among those in Fortunecity. Now, she was in deep trouble. She could feel tears welling in her heart. The tears for everyone she had been a cause for their death. Her mother, whose words still rang in her ears, whose life she took with a knife because she always taunted her about being born by mistake, whose death reprimanded her to the office of a psychiatrist. She could still feel the sandy feeling on the corpse of her daughter, whom she herself gave birth to out of wedlock.
Unlike the way she blamed Mr. Kings, her dad, for making her own mother give birth to her out of wedlock, she couldn't blame Nosa. She was the one at fault. Although she might want to push the blame on Moriah, she still was at fault. Moriah only did something bad, but she made Nosa have sex that night and that made her give birth to a child out of wedlock too.
'It's God that is punishing you. I knew. But I wanted to be sure that you've been forgiven. I didn't know that God had not forgiven you'.
'Madam, please', her father-in-law said and pulled Mummy Church away. But she wriggled out of his grasp and turned to Chloe. She waved at her face while raising the amputated hand to support the good one.
'God has not forgiven you for having fornication with your husband', Mummy Church said, 'that's why you would always encounter such pain in your life and people would keep dying around you'.
Chloe's mind flooded to her teenage time, and how her own mother had always told her how she was a child birthed out of her and her father's fornication. She remembered the feeling of guilt she used to have because of her parents' fornication. The pain. She remembered once again how she stabbed her mother to death, and how her father employed every lawyer in the world to exonerate her, and how he paid a psychiatrist to treat her. She always wanted to forget that event. And it took her a while to get healed from the trauma because she met Nosa, Moriah, and Raphael. However, the wound had just been peeled. Mummy Church had used her words to open it afresh.
She yelled in frustration and gripped the chair harder. She could feel herself terribly ticking, and about to burst.
'Mummy Church, stop'.
'Don't you tell me to stop. You this fornicator. You've pulled death along with you everywhere you go'.
'Stop… Stop'.
'You're evil. You're cursed. You're…'
Chloe yelled again and lifted the chair.
'Don't', she shouted and slammed it on Mummy Church's head. Mummy Church yelled and crumbled to the ground. Hot blood splashed on her face, but she wasn't done.
'You', she yelled and crushed it again. This time Mummy Church gave a prolong cry and stopped. Blood oozed out of her head. Her father-in-law was too stunned to move near her. His face too had been splattered with blood.
'Ever' she screamed and hit Mummy Church, who was wincing now. Mummy Church screamed. Then, Chloe paused, for a while as she panted. Crunched, Mummy Church struggled to crawl out, but Chloe wasn't done with her. She yelled incoherently and began to hit Mummy Church repeatedly with the chair as she mumbled. 'Don't you ever remind me I carry death'.
Bone cracked and skulls crunched. The murkiness of the blood began to invade the room. Her Father-in-law stood in a corner, whimpering as if he had just seen a ghost. She marched to Chris.
'Give me your gun', she grumbled.
He hurriedly removed it and handed it over to her. She returned to Mummy Church's corpse and finished a whole magazine in her head.
'Give me another magazine'.
Her father-in-law screamed and ran away, but with a look from her. Chris chased him, and in a few minutes, he was dragging him into the house.
'Stay put. Chris, hold him', she mumbled and gestured with the gun that he should move to the place the corpses were. Her father-in-law wriggled out of Chris' hands and ran off, but was soon stopped again.
'What's wrong with you Gragus team? I should have gone with F.A.L.T. They won't allow an old man overpower them'.
Chris frowned and pushed her father-in-law, who was shaking like a wet leave, to the place she gestured. He glanced at the corpse repeatedly as if they would jump at him and continually praying in tongues.
'I told you not to follow me. I told you it was a very stinking deadly stale urine. I told you not to open it, but you were adamant you wanted to be a part of those that would ensure we open it very well, right? Now, it has burst all over your face, and it would choke you till you die'.
'I can still go back'.
'No. You were Mr. Know-it-all. The stench of arrogance on you is like dirty socks. All of you, God-forsaken idiots, who have dedicated your lives to torment people that do wrong. Was it my fault that I was born illegally?'
'Your mother did it'.
'Don't tell me rubbish as if I'm mad. I know my mother did it, and I know she is dead. But I still see the look on your face every time you see me and my daughter'.
'Ah! That's a big lie. I love her like my own daughter'.
'I told you not to come with us. The bottle was weak, but no. You wanted to be a mediator'.
'I'm sure it was her own poke nosing that made those F.A.L.T know where these men were hiding the woman. I needed her. God. I needed her to know where my daughter is. I will kill F.A.L.T. Now, we have to go the hard way like Segun suggested'.
'Your daughter is dead'.
'Shut up! Shut up! I'm not mad. I know she is dead. I want to know if she went to heaven, but they killed Agnes. I will kill everyone. I will kill you all', she yelled and shot her father-in-law in the head first. She would have loved to give him a slow death, but it was wise to kill him on the head and chest, to help him die at once just like Nosa had always wanted. She had just fulfilled the wish of the only man she would ever love.
She tapped Chris. 'You know where to be'.
He frowned.
'C'mon, see yourself as my designated survivor like they said in one of the TV series my husband is watching. You would be useful when the time is upon us'.
'I just hope. I don't want to miss out on the action'.
She tapped his cheek.' Whatever we are doing now is the preamble. Let's me go and wait for my husband'.