Against her will (Part 4)- another short story

Please read the earlier part here

Part Four

Two things were starting to irritate Alex.

The first was the phone call he had received from Maria as he drove through heavy traffic on the way to Salewa’s office.

“Hello dearie” Maria’s sonorous voice echoed through the multi-media of his SUV.

“How are you, Maria?”

“I am not feeling very well, Alex. I took the blood test yesterday and the result shows that I am two months gone.”

“What!” Alex stepped on the brake of his SUV as the taillights of the car ahead of him flashed suddenly.

“Pregnant? How are you sure its mine?” He replied emotionless.

“Common darling, why would you say such a thing. I haven’t been with anyone else”

“Look Maria, I will call you back soon. I need to handle some urgent business”

Maria started to protest when Alex ended the call. The last he heard was, “Alex what do we………”

He barely gave it any thought as he maneuvered the SUV into the parking area of the Accounting firm Salewa worked.

Maria must take him for a fool. Did she think he didn’t know she shared her body with as many men as colors of the rainbow?

“Stupid girl” he muttered under his breath fetching his mobile phone.

He fiddled with it as the screen came alive flashing his dialed list in his face. He called Salewa’s mobile number one last time, and it returned the familiar voice of the operator.

“The number you have called is switched off, please try again later”

He grunted as he alighted from the vehicle.

His phone rang noisily, but it was Bayo, his friend, that called.

Perhaps Maria had called him already, he thought. He ignored the call at first.

The receptionist at Salewa’s office was not much help. She had no clue where his wife was and barely looked up from her computer screen as she responded to him rudely.

That was the second thing that irritated him. Salewa was nowhere to be found. The futility of his search exasperated him so much that he was visibly upset.

“Crap!” He muttered as his phone rang again.

It was Bayo again, this time he answered.

Contrary to his earlier thoughts, Bayo wasn’t calling about Maria. He had called about a business of grave concern that could potentially bring everything about their business dealings out in the open and land them both in jail. They had fraudulently won a bid for a huge supply contract, which they failed to execute, in connivance with some crooked government officials. They had used a phony company with no trail to either of them in the event there was a comeback.

They had also presented fake delivery documents as evidence of the contract execution months earlier and gotten paid in full. Now, there was a full-scale audit going on at the ministry for some months, but the government officials they had bribed had thrown the duo under the bus, before they eloped the country, leaving them to the mercies of the auditors.

They must cover their tracks quickly, first, by disposing all documents concerning the contract in their custody within the hour. Alex had to go home quickly to rid himself of all evidence before government agents got to his home first.

His phone rang again. It was Maria. He flung the phone annoyingly into the passenger seat, watching ss it tumbled into the side door, as he climbed into the SUV.

He quickly wheeled his car out of the parking lot leaving behind screeching tire trails in a thick fog of his smoking exhaust. Pedestrians stopped a watch the crazy driver rev the SUV into the adjoining streets.

********

Salewa and Angela were at the house rummaging through her husband’s study table. The desk drawers were yanked out from the rails as they searched for documentary evidence of the shady dealings her husband had been engaging in. She had overhead many of his telephone conversation from the other side of the wall into the room while he thought she had slept.

Sometimes, he called out her name, just to be sure she was well and truly sleeping before making the call to his associates. She was absolutely certain that he kept all the documents at the study and her plan was all set.

Her plan, you’d ask. To get her pound of flesh.

Armed with the document, she would petition the fraud unit of the Economic and Financial crimes commission EFCC to rat out her husband. That was a sure and quicker way to have him locked for a really long time. He had committed a crime against the state, he deserved nothing less.

They had been searching for almost an hour without much luck. Letters and contracts were strewn all over the study, some on the tiled floor, others on the desk and a good many of the files dumped haphazardly in the open drawers.

Noticing the hidden safe close to the floor, Salewa was on her knees pronto punching several combinations of codes to crack the lock.

Her birthday; No luck.

Their wedding anniversary date; no luck either.

His year of birth and birthdate; Zilch.

Her birthday; No clicks.

Frustrated, she tried the date she lost her pregnancy. She turned her head upwards as though to conjure the numbers, before she punched it in.

It clicked open, to her amazement. She was shocked for a moment but shook it off as pulled out the papers in the safe.

“Why would he use that date for the safe combination?” she thought

Everything was there.

Just then, she heard her husband’s car wheel to a halt in frightening speed and violently on the driveway into their bungalow.

Fear crept into her face as she looked at Angela. They had left the front door opened.

Find out what happens next in the final episode.