A Valentine Day Fiasco Chapter 11 – Kidnapped! Again!

It was during the December period about two weeks before Christmas. She had gone out to see a new movie she had been wanting to watch with Rachel one Friday evening. She was supposed to have gone with John but he had work related stuff to tidy up before he finally went on his well-deserved paid leave. He had called her to apologize and asked if she could go with Rachel instead with all expenses on him.

Fortunately, Rachel had no plans that Friday evening. So they went. They had gone to the cinemas using a taxi because Cynthia didn’t want to go through the stress of driving and Rachel didn’t want to do that either. After the movie, they had had dinner and finally decided to go home as it was getting a bit late. They had flagged down a taxi and got in so as to go back home. By some stroke of fate they had both fallen asleep and didn’t notice when the driver started driving them through a bushy path. It was when the car ran into a deep porthole that they were jolted awake and they noticed they were in an unfamiliar area even with the darkness around them.

“Ahn Ahn driver where are you driving us to? This is not a familiar road na.” Rachel said.

The driver ignored her and kept moving increasing the speed at which he was driving.

“Oga didn’t you hear her? This road you are passing doesn’t seem to lead anywhere known. Turn back now and find the way to the main road.” Cynthia commanded.

However the man continued to ignore them. Instead of obeying their instructions, he locked the car doors and increased his speed even further. Cynthia then knew that they were in trouble. She sized the man up to see if they would be able to manhandle him. Rachel on the other hand, was already beginning to panic. 

Cynthia checked around to see if there was a rope with which she could choke the man like John did that other day. She couldn’t find any. Their bags were clutch purses and had no use at this moment. There was no way two women like she and Rachel could overpower this burly taxi driver. Then she had an idea in her head. 

She brought out her phone and quickly sent a message to John. Rachel saw her bringing out her phone and decided she was going to call her parents. The driver found out what was happening and ordered them to give him their phones threatening them with a gun he had pulled out from the bonnet. Cynthia had been really quick about it so the message had been sent before the driver collected the phones. She could only hope he saw the message. It was either him or her parents. 

Her parents were old fashioned and barely checked their messages so she had chosen John instead. Besides, the both of them were hypertensive and she couldn’t put them under such stress, at least not this night. They could only wait and hope that they would be rescued. The night was going to be a long night.

“Finally!” John said to himself. He checked his wristwatch. It was about ten minutes after nine pm. He had just had to go through a dozen sketches the design department had redone and approve of them this Friday before he could start his leave the next week. He would have been done with it since if they had been done with it as at when due but they had been delaying it since. They had brought it earlier on in the afternoon but there were some adjustments that were to be made. He had shown them and asked that they redid it before the end of the day so that he could approve them before going on his leave. He didn’t want to carry over any job till Monday again. As a result he had missed his outing with Cynthia. There was this new movie they were supposed to see together but he couldn’t join her. 

Speaking of Cynthia, she ought to have called him to tell him that she and her friend Rachel had gotten home safely. He picked up his Note 4 from the table and that was when he saw her message.

Rachel and I have just been kidnapped. I can’t explain right now because the taxi driver would soon realize I’m sending for help. Send for the police!!

He checked the time at which the message was sent. 8:55 pm.

Shit. It was not so long ago. He wondered what he was going to do. He sat down at his desk planning a solution. Calling the police at this moment might be a futile effort. For all he knows they might be sleeping at their duty posts and might not respond to his phone call. He had to try though. There was nothing he could do especially with very little information from Cynthia. He couldn’t go about looking for her especially at this time of the day.

He made up his mind. He pick up his bag from his desk. Tidied the papers containing the sketches hurriedly and left his office locking the door on his way out. He dialed the police number while at the same heading to the car park to get his car. The number wasn’t going through. Stupid police. He said to himself. He decided to drive to the station since their number wasn’t going through at all. 

While driving there, his started thinking. This was the second time she was getting kidnapped. The first time was when they were both in the same taxi. What could this possibly mean? What was he missing? Who could Cynthia have possibly offended? Was it her parents who did the offending? He had a lot of questions but couldn’t get answers. The last time they were kidnapped, the guy had been locked up but because they didn’t press charges, he was granted bail. Now he was regretting not going back to press charges. At the moment he just didn’t feel like it. Cynthia too didn’t feel like it. She felt it was one of the things that occurred during the ‘ember months and said she was too busy to start going for court hearings and what not.

Now he really wished he had convinced her to allow him go on with it. There was no point crying over spilt milk now though. He had to act now and act fast so that whoever was behind this would be caught and brought to justice. Cynthia had been a really good and reliable friend to him to be going through all these. He liked his friendship with her. This time he wasn’t going to take any chances. He was going to catch that person and he was going to make the person pay.

Click to read Chapter 12