This is a ro-mantic suspense novelette written by prolific r0m@nç£novelist, Kayode Odusanya.
A young investigative journalist is s£nt on an as-signment out of town a day before Christmas. She reluctantly took the job, which turned out to be more than what she bargained for. In order for her to secure her interview with the big wig, she had to help him find his son. She got more than what she bargained for in a 48 hour time-span.
The story will keep at the edge of your seat from the very first page to the last. Don’t miss it.
Episode 1
She held her breath before opening the door and rehearsed the lie she planned to tell in her head. Even though she had entered this office many times, the painting of the goat-head on the wall behind where her boss sat still freaked her out. There were rumors around the office that the man had recently joined the Illuminati. “Yes!” An old man with square shaped glas-ses barked-out from where he sat. “Oh! It’s you.” He added as he smiled up at Ngozi. His smile made the long horizontal tribal marks on his face more visible.
“Sir…” Ngozi said and moved a few steps closer to the old looking desk her boss was behind. She coughed before saying, “I usually get really sick when I travel long distance.”
“Come on! Ibadan is less than two hours from Lagos.” He said and he re-moved his glas-ses. “Ngozi, you should be glad you are getting this. Do you know who he is?”
“Yes sir, but…”
“Look, this really means a lot for us. Magazines don’t sell like they use to, but this will guarantee we stay in business for at least another year. “The phone on his table started to ring and he quic-kly picked it up.
Petite looking Ngozi stood there, thinking of her next lie as she fiddled with the wrists bu-ttons of the blue denim t©p she had on. She shifted from one foot to the other and almost lost her balance. She placed her hands in the back-pockets of the blue jeans she had on and wiggled her toes here and there in the high heels she had on.
It was two days to Christmas and her boss was asking her to go out of town for an interview. Her mind went back to six months ago when she was jobless and frustrated with life for having to depend on her parents for everything till she met Mr. Ojo at a friend’s house and found out he was looking for an investigative journalist.
Ngozi straightened up when he noticed her boss had ended the phone call. He slowly put the phone back on the table before looking up at her as he ru-bbe-d his brow.
“Okay sir. I will go tomorrow morning.” She finally said.
“Great!” He said; sounding really excited. “I am s£nding you because people warm up to you well and the man…” He was saying and st©pped himself. “It’s a 2 hour journey; if you leave pretty early tomorrow, you can be back in Lagos by evening.”
“Yes sir.”
“Ngozi.” He said with a low tone. “We are counting on you.
“I’ll do my best sir.”
As she walked back to her cubicle, she kept wondering what her boss was going to say about the man before he had quic-kly changed the t©pic.
__
December 24th, 2016
Ngozi was excited when she got a bank alert on her phone early the next day. She had never gone out of town to conduct an interview before, but she didn’t expect she would be getting twenty-five thousand Naira for the job that was going to take just one day. That was actually a quarter of her monthly salary. It made her feel a lot better about working on Christmas Eve.
She was in a blue Space Wagon at Oshodi bus terminus, waiting for the vehicle to get filled up. The driver kept looking at her and trying to spark up a conversation. She was used to the effect her beauty had on men. ‘You are like Kim Kardashian without the curves.’ Her friend Susan used to always tell her. Today, she was wearing a red go-wn, and it really complemented her light skin complexion.
Ngozi kept checking her phone screen clock every minute and doing mental calculations of how long it would take to get to Ibadan, do the interview and travel back to Lagos. Her friend Susan who had attended the University of Ibadan had told her it would take her about an hour and forty-five minutes to get to Ibadan if there was no traffic on the road, and she couldn’t just wait till her trip started.
At exactly 8:08 am, the last pas-s£nger got into the space wagon, and after a few modalities, the journey began.
……….
Ngozi was seated at the front pas-s£nger seat with another lady and she enjoyed how the fresh breeze hit her face as they sped along the express way. She was carrying out more research on Mr. Ade. He was a very famous billionaire philanthropist till he disappeared from the business scene two years ago. All his businesses had almost gone un-der in that short while and people wondered what happened to the Lion of Ibadan has he was fondly called. Ngozi’s job was to get that out of him.
This was the first interview he was granting in years and people at the office still wondered why he had chos£n to be interviewed by them instead of a bigger media house. She thought of what her boss was going to tell her about the man yesterday and many thoughts ran throu-gh her mind. Could it be that the man liked younger ladies…or maybe he had a daughter that died and he had a soft sp©t for females her age? Ngozi sighed, put her phone in her bag and leaned back in her seat.
To be continued