chapter 5

Chapter 5

…STEELA…

The officer assures me he would do everything to find Zoey, I leave his office and find Benji waiting for me,

“we should go back home” he says,

“I will get a cab and go to the hotel, I need something there” I say, I don’t want to go back to his house and pretend everything is okay when I felt the urge to hold him at knife point just to get him to tell me where my baby is.

“I already asked one of the guards to move all your things to the penthouse” he says making me furious, how dare he do that without asking me first,

Benji really did manage to get on my last nerves, “lets go” he says grabbing my hand and leading me to his car

“why didn’t you ask before hand about moving my things to your house?” I ask as we enter his car, Benji doesn’t respond as he calls his daughter’s name

“Daisy!” he yells, I open the backseat door and find it empty inside

“where the hell did Daisy go?” Benji asks as he pulls out his phone, I look around the surrounding area but don’t find her,

A phone at the back of the car begins to ring, Benji looks at it his expression worried

“its Daisy’s phone, Daisy never leaves her phone” Benji voices out, he looks inside the car as if he thinks she might be hiding in there somewhere and then picks up a piece of paper he finds,

“what is it?’ I ask standing beside him

“it’s a note, someone kidnapped my baby Stella” Benji and I head back inside, he explains everything that had happened and shows the officers the piece of paper he had found, we are immediately taken to view the CCtv footage, the video shows Daisy inside the car, a person dressed in a hoodie and cap tapped on the window of the car, we could not see the person’s face as he avoided facing the camera. Daisy gets out of the car and holds the person’s hand and walks away with him.

“whoever that person is, Daisy knows him, she would never walk away with a stranger and leave her phone, she knows better” Benji says restlessly

“do you have any idea whom the person she went this is?” one of the officers asks, Benji shakes his head but brings out his phone

“let me call home and ask if anyone was here” Benji leaves the room and only comes back a few mintues later

“she is not with my family” he pauses and at looks at each of the officers

“you know who I am right?, you need to find my daughter, if you don’t find her in less than 24 hours, you can kiss your jobs goodbye, I will make sure of that”, we are all surprised with his threat especially me since he was the one telling me to calm down a while ago but yet he reacts like this when it was his daughter missing, the audacity of this man. He paced around the room restlessly, it was clear he was losing his mind, even more than me.

“what are you still doing there, look at the other CCtv footage and find out where she went!” he yells, the officers get to work probably  scared for their jobs

“hey’ I say holding his hand, he stands still and looks at me

“you need to calm down and let them do their jobs” I say using the exact words he had told me

“you think its that easy, this is my daughter we are talking about!” he snaps

“I know, imagine how am feeling, unlike yours, my daughter has been missing for more than 12 hours now, you need to calm down and handle the situation  better” I tell him. The footage begins to play at another angle and we see Daisy and the stranger enter into a black SUV and drive off, Benji was right about one thing though, whoever kidnapped Daisy was familiar to her as she could be seen smiling and entering the passage seat.

“run the plates of the car and find out who it belongs to!” Benji yells,

Just then, the chief police officer walks in and introduces himself

“I understand how stressful this is for you Mr Edwards but please, go home and let us handle the situation” the chief officer says, Benji lets out a chuckle

“you must be insane if you think I will go home without my daughter, do you know exactly who I am?” he angrily  asks, Benji is definitely handling this poorly compared to me

“of course we know who you are Mr Edwards and I can assure you, you will be the first to know” I hold Benji’s hand making him face me

“don’t make a scene Benji, the more you do, the more it will be difficult for them to do their jobs, come on, lets go home” I say. Despite my deep dislike of Benji, I try to calm him as I understand exactly how he is feeling,

He lets out a deep sign

“am scared Stella” he admits

“I know, am scared too, for both of them but there is little we can do except wait and hope for their safe return”, Benji unexpectedly hugs me as he let out another deep sign, I pat his back for comfort

“lets go home” I say, he nods and leads the way out holding my hand,

We get to his car and he drives off. Upon reaching his house, am surprised to find five cars with more than twenty armed men lined up

“what is this?” I ask as we get out of the car

“these are my men, I don’t trust the police to do anything so I have decided to take matters into my own hands” he explains, he then turns to his men and briefs them about the situation,

“half of you should find who was driving that car while the  rest of you should visit everyone close to my family, the person that took Daisy must a family friend” he then gives the plate number of the suv and dismisses them

“all this for Daisy and yet you wont do anything for my daughter who has been missing for long?” I ask

“this is serious and urgent Stella” like Zoey missing wasn’t serious, this made me more convinced that he knew exactly where she was

“so my daughter isn’t important ?, Daisy goes missing in less than an hour and you are already ready to turn the world upside down just to find her, but what about my Zoey?”

“you want me to get serious about finding your daughter? How about you start by telling me who her father is?” he asks with raised eyebrows, I look away from him. Was this why he kidnapped her? because I couldn’t tell him who Zoey’s father was?...