Chapter 37

“This doesn’t make sense!” Dare said angrily. “My girlfriend was kidnapped and you’re telling me to wait for twenty-four hours before filing an official complaint? It’s not as if she simply went missing, she was kidnapped. Her friend here witnessed it.”

They were in a police station not too far away from Dare’s residence. Chichi was with him and she had also informed Tiara’s parents who were already on their way to the police station despite the late hour. It was nearly 9 p.m. and both Chichi and Dare were beginning to feel hopeless with the way the police were acting uninterested in their case.

“I understand your concern sir,” the police officer said in a bored tone. “But you see, the lady here said the vehicle didn’t have a plate number attached to it. She couldn’t even describe the kind of vehicle it was properly, and she was also unable to identify any of the kidnappers. Where does that leave us? We don’t have any leads.”

“That is why you’re the police!” Dare yelled in frustration. “You know where the kidnap happened, so start from there.”

“It doesn’t work that way, sir,” the officer said stubbornly. “Things would have been easier if the lady in question had her phone on her when she was supposedly kidnapped. That could have helped us track her using GPS tagging.”

“What do you mean by supposedly?” Chichi asked angrily. “Are you implying that I am making all this up?”

“I didn’t say that madam,” the officer said. “But from the looks of it, your friend could have as well disappeared into thin air. We don’t have a vehicle to trace, no criminal to search for, and no way to track her to her last location. There are no clues whatsoever. Where do we begin then?”

“Damn it to hell!” Dare swore, his frustration with the police mounting with every passing second. “If this sort of thing happened in the U.S., the police would have figured out a way to begin the search whether there’s a lead or not.”

“Well, this is not the U.S.,” the officer said with relish. “This is Nigeria, and we have limited resources to work with here. And we’re not magicians either. There’s very little information available to us on this case, making it almost impossible to solve. Like I said before, wait for 24 hours and if she doesn’t turn up still, then come back and file a missing person’s report.”

“And then what?” Dare demanded.

The policeman shrugged. “We see what happens. Who knows, someone might come forward with some useful information that could point us in the right direction. You never know.”

Dare scoffed and walked out of the office. If he spent another minute listening to that buffoon, he might get locked up tonight and be charged with assaulting a police officer. It was obvious that the police would be of no help to him on this case. If he was going to find Tiara, he would have to do it himself.

Chichi joined him outside, her eyes were swollen from crying for hours. After her phone call to him, he’d told her to go to the nearest police station to report the kidnap, but there was none in the vicinity where the crime had taken place. He had then directed her to this one that had turned out to be an utter waste of time.

“What do we do now?” Chichi asked fearfully.

Dare was silent for a while. He was trying to replay the scene in his head as Chichi had told him, but it didn’t make sense. It was such a perfect crime with no loopholes whatsoever. But how was that even possible?

“I know I’ve asked you before, but could you please tell me again how the kidnap happened?” He asked pensively.

“Sure,” Chichi said. She didn’t mind retelling how the sordid scene played out if it would help in finding her best friend and getting her back home safely. “We were outside the restaurant, heading towards the parking lot where my car was. We stopped to talk briefly and deliberate whether to return to the mainland or head over to your place to spend the evening and return home tomorrow morning. I told her to call you first to ask if it was ok for me to join her at your place and she said she would make the call when we got into the car. That was when a black van literally drove up from nowhere and stopped beside us. It was like in the movies when someone is kidnapped—the back door swung open, and two hefty guys jumped out and grabbed Tiara. Her purse fell, and they dragged her into the van. I was startled when I realized what was going on. I ran after them, but they pushed me away and zoomed off. It all happened so fast.”

“That must have been very terrifying,” Dare commented, still staring off into space.

“Yes, it was,” Chichi agreed. “I can’t even begin to imagine how scared Tiara must have been, how scared she must be now. I hope she’s still alive.”

Dare whipped his head around to look at her. “Why wouldn’t she be alive?” He asked sharply, and immediately felt sorry when he saw how Chichi flinched at his tone. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to speak so harshly to you,” he apologized.

“I understand,” she said quietly.

Dare said nothing more, but his mind was racing. He hated to admit it to himself, but a part of him secretly suspected that Chichi might be involved in the kidnap because why wasn’t she taken as well? How come she couldn’t supply any useful information about Tiara’s captors or the vehicle that they had used in whisking her away? Wasn’t it oddly convenient for her that Tiara’s purse fell when she was being grabbed by the kidnappers? Plus, there were no CCTV cameras outside the building where everything happened. How was it possible that there wasn’t even a shred of evidence to help anyone find Tiara?

Just as the annoying policeman had said, it was a perfect crime, and Dare didn’t entirely trust the details. Was Chichi deliberately giving them false information to throw them off a non-existent trail? Was she working with the kidnappers? And why was she suddenly insinuating that Tiara might be dead?

The whole story didn’t make sense, and Dare wasn’t buying it. He decided it was best to keep any further information to himself going forward; he didn’t trust Chichi, and he couldn’t rely on the police. He would have to go home, settle down and think this whole mess through, and try to come up with an actionable plan. The case may seem bleak, but he refused to give up. He wasn’t just going to throw in the towel without even putting up a fight first. The woman he loved was in danger and he owed it to her to rescue her and bring her back home, safe and sound.

I will find you, Tiara, he vowed in his heart. I will find you, even if it is the last thing I do.