Chapter Twenty-Five

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Getting the opportunity to be alone in the secret room was one thing; finding some sort of evidence to get justice for her father was another thing entirely, and she was beginning to think that it was a much more harder task than luring Tade into leaving the room to her alone.

Bukunmi had started her search from the drawers, knowing fully well that she could find nothing there. Who would be stupid enough to keep solid evidence worthy of implicating him in a very obvious place? Even a fool would have more sense. Still, Bukunmi was hell bent on not taking any chances.

She didn't just stop at checking his drawers. She went on to search the pillows on his chairs, bent low and searched underneath, and to her annoyance, still found nothing. Well, who said finding evidence would be easy? She thought to herself, as she carried on with her search.

She combed through his clothes in the wardrobe, and went ahead to climb on a chair in order to check the top of the wardrobe, but she could find nothing there. Next, she removed the mattress and searched the bed frame to see if she could find anything, but there was nothing in sight.

She then drew in a deep breath, and used all the energy she possessed to pull the bed frame away, and looked at the position where it had been, but found nothing but dust lying there.

Frustrated, Bukunmi slumped on the floor. How in the world was she going to pull the bed frame back to its original position, and put back the mattress with her tiny hands? The pains that filled her abdomen and thighs intensified, and she felt like throwing her hands in the air, and just giving up.

However, she was also aware that if she gave up now, she was going to be stuck with regrets forever. She'd always ask herself how things would have been if only she had been more strong-willed and had overcame the pains and frustration.

Flexing her muscles, she took back her confidence, stood up, and ignoring the pains she was in, with the remainder that it would all be over soon, pushed the bed frame back to its original position, tossed the heavy mattress back into it like it was a piece of cake, and arranged the bedsheets neatly back on it, smoothening the rough parts out when she was done.

A smile lit up her face, as she was wholly impressed at what she had done. No, she hadn't gotten a hold on what she was looking for yet, but, at least, she had been able to get back her determination.

Convinced that she was done with the search in the room itself, she proceeded to the kitchen, which to her, was a more reasonable place for someone to hide what he didn't want the world to see, but alas, after searching through the cabinets and cupboards, she realised that she was wrong.

She ran a finger through her hair, her confidence, dwindling again. Now, there was only one place left to check: The bathroom. It was going to be the first time she was entering into it, and when her brain told her it was plain foolishness to have any thoughts that she could find evidence there, she knew it was right, but we never knew till we tried, right?

For somewhere in which you could only poop, pee or have a bath, Tade's bathroom was a whole lot of luxury and was really large, almost as wide as the room which she didn't know whether to call a parlour or bedroom yet since it was both, and smelled really nice and clean. There was actually nowhere to check, and she just walked around for a while, looked through the sides of the bathtub, raised the toilet's tank, ran her eyes over his toiletries cabinet, then sighed, and walked out.

"Back to square one," She said to herself, and sat heavily on the bed, clutching her stomach tightly. Her stomach was hurting more than before, and she was feeling more dizzy. She rubbed her head gently, struggled to get back on her feet, and staggered to the fridge to soothe her body with cold water.

She got a cold bottle of water from the fridge, and without bothering to get a cup from the kitchen to pour the water into, just drank directly from the bottle, enjoying the feel of it against her sore throat. Cold water had the tendency to make pains worse and drinking warm water was more recommendable, but it was the other way round for Bukunmi.

As she drank to her heart's content, something struck her eyes. At first, she had thought her vision was deceiving her, but on a closer inspection, she saw that she was actually not seeing things. At the far end of the room, close to the entrance of the bathroom, there was an awkward spacing in the tiles on the floor. It was as though that part had broken, but instead of cement floor lying underneath, there was a hole there from what she could see.

Clearing her throat, she kept the bottle back in the fridge, and closed it gently. She then walked over to where there was a space in the tiles, and discovered that she had been right after all. There was a hole underneath it. How come she then hadn't noticed it since? Of course, it couldn't have been visible.

She examined the tile which seemed broken, and as she touched it, it seemed to have a sliding nature. Was it... It certainly was detachable, she said to herself, convinced.

Falling to her knees, she pulled the tile and it came undone, then she placed it on the other tiles which seemed unmoveable. If they were all solidly attached, why then was one detachable? It looked like there was another secret in the secret room. The hole was dark, meaning that she couldn't see anything there. Running over back to the office, she grabbed her phone and switched on the flashlight, then went back to the secret room.

She then crouched to her knees once more, and pointed the flashlight at the hole. There was something there. It was silver in colour and very shiny, and looked somewhat like a box. If there was something like this which no one could have guessed, didn't it mean that it was crucial?

Letting out breaths which spoke of how agitated she had suddenly become, she looked around the room, searching for any hidden cameras which she ought to have searched for a long time ago, then listened carefully to detect if anyone was approaching. When she was sure that everywhere was clear, she placed her phone down, and muttered a short prayer, hoping it wasn't a trap she had been led into, and brought out the box from the hole.

It turned out that the so-called box was actually a safe. She heaved a sigh of relief at first, but was soon sent into a state of panic, upon finding out that she needed to input some kind of code in order to be able to unlock it.

"Code, code, code," She murmured, rubbing her palms against each other frantically, thinking hard on what the code could possibly be.

Of course, it couldn't be his birthday, neither could it be the date the company was founded. Those seemed too easy, and she knew that Tade was smart enough to not just leave a safe with a code which was easy to guess. Hadn't he been the same person who had a secret room, and still hadn't left any information lying around? Who would have thought that a safe would be lying underneath a detachable tile? That sort of person certainly could not use something as simple as his date of birth for a code.

"Think, Bukunmi, think," She urged herself, chewing on a fingernail, in a bid to calm herself down as she was in a state of frenzy.

Suddenly, like a hurricane, the memory of him giving her the pin to his credit card flashed through her mind. Like most adults, perhaps Tade used the same password for everything. All she needed to do then was try to remember the pin which he had given her.

She ran her fingers back and forth in her hair, as she raked her hair desperately to get her brain to remember the pin to his credit card. For some reason, it seemed familiar, but she could not just place her hands on what exactly it was.

"Was it...um...0906?" She asked herself.

She shook her head, sure that it couldn't be that one... "Wasn't it 0617?" No! No! No! Definitely not, but it was similar. It seemed to be...

"Um... Wasn't it 0716?"

She shook her head. No, that was the day her father died. Her eyes twitched, as it came to her suddenly. Yes! His pin had been the date her father had died. Back then, she hadn't remembered it, but now, she was sure. If it was truly her father's death date, it could only mean that Tade still thought of it, and maybe felt guilty. Either way, there had to be a reason for him using that date as his pin, and hopefully the code to open up the safe.

She then punched in the digits and wasn't surprised when it clicked and got opened. A triumphant smile lit up her face, and she scrambled through the documents in the safe, hoping it contained the evidence she needed.

"This is a contract...," She started, examining a file which contained some documents. "...which states that if one fails to pay back his loan, he would be made to give out one of his kidneys," She said.

She let out a gasp, surprised at the wordings contained in the document. What did it mean? Loan in exchange for a kidney? Was that legal? Did people actually sign and agree to a contract like that? At the bottom of the contract stated that if the person failed to give up one of his kidneys, he'd be coerced into doing so. What the...?

Her phone chimed, and she took it to check the message that had just come in. It was from Kate: "Hey, sleeping in the bathroom? It's been over forty minutes. Sure you're okay? Should I come get you?"

She didn't know the reply to give to the message, and just abandoned it. What if Kate actually came to look for her? She needed to get out of the place as soon as possible. Sure, she had found some incriminating stuff, but she hadn't gotten anything that could give a clue as to what had made her father die in the manner he did. Had he gotten a loan from them, and in a bid to get one of his kidneys, hunted him down and killed him?

She shook her head in negativity. That seemed plausible, but she was sure that it wasn't the case. Her father had told her he had done something bad and was going to prison for it. Owing money was certainly not a criminal offence that one could go to prison for. Hence; there was more to the documents she had just seen.

After removing the stacks of documents one after another from the safe, her eyes caught hold of something. It was a small plastic bag that had been hidden under the documents which she had seen. She left the documents on the floor, then untied the plastic bag, where she saw numerous flash drives, with three bold letters of the alphabet inscribed on it, and separated by a full-stop in between each letter. It seemed to be the initials of people's names, and she was wondering about the information they might contain as she lifted them up one by one. There were about sixty flash drives, and the 27th one she came across had the initials: T.J.K, inscribed on it.

Could it be the evidence she so desperately needed? Common sense told her that T.J.K should be the initials for her father's name, Thomas Jibawo Ketu, and the flash drive should probably contain information on him. She selected that particular one, then kept the others back, tying up the plastic bag the way it was before, then she kept them back in the safe.

There was no time to go through the documents, and she had gotten so far that she dreaded being caught at that point in time. She took all the documents she could to the photocopying machine in the office, and started printing out photocopies, so she could go through them at home...if she made it back home alive.

When she was done, she went back to the secret room, arranged the documents in the way they had been before, then locked back the safe, lowering it into its hole, before sliding back in the detachable tile, hoping no one noticed that someone had touched something there. Obviously, the last person who had been there had forgotten to place the detachable tile correctly, and she was grateful to the person for making that mistake.

The flash drive she thought contained information on her father was lying on the floor and she picked it up, praying that its absence wasn't detected.

On getting back to the office, she remembered that she had brought only a small purse to the office that day. How was she going to sneak out with the photocopied documents when there were guards all over the place, who probably knew what the documents were?

Her eyes searched around for some sort of bag to dump the documents in. There was a pizza box in the trashcan, and seeing that she didn't have a choice, she kept the documents in it, then threw the flash drive into her purse.

After smoothening her hair and straightening out her dress with her hands, she made a resolve to go straight home. It'd be stupidity to go back into the hall with crucial documents that could get her fired. She couldn't leave the pizza box in the office in case Tade came in, and she would arouse questions from Kate and Itohan if she took it back to the hall.

Grabbing her purse, phone and pizza box, she left the office, locking the door behind her. There was no one in sight, and she went to the elevator in order to go to the first floor, so she could exit the building. Hopefully, it went smoothly like it had been going for the last few minutes.

When the elevator doors opened, there was no one there, and she heaved a deep sigh of relief. On the third floor, however, an expressionless man in black suit joined her, and her heartbeat increased, remembering that he had been one of the thugs who had harassed her father eleven years ago.

"Who are you?" He asked.

"Um..."

"You surely can't be delivering pizza in that outfit," He said, throwing a suspicious look at her.

She swallowed hard. "Yeah... I actually am a staff here," She said.

"What do you do?" He asked.

She didn't want to give it away that she was Tade's personal assistant, because then, if they were searching for the flash drive which she had stolen, they would easily find her.

They had gotten to the ground floor and as the elevator doors were opening, she decided to cry wolf.

"OMG! What's that huge black thing? Have snakes started invading elevators as well?" She screamed, pretending to be afraid, pointing at his back.

"What are you talking about? Where?" He yelled, turning around.

She ran out of the elevator, but not before pressing number 6, so, by the time he could discover that he had been tricked, the elevator doors had closed, sending him to the sixth floor, while she ran out of the company not minding the blisters her tight heels inflicted on her, and ignoring the security guards who gave her funny glances, not to mention the pains she felt in between her thighs.

Without waiting to catch her breath, she flagged down a taxi, and got into it, telling the driver to take her to the bus stop, where she could board a bus and be on her way home.

Taking out her phone, she sent a message to Kate, telling her she had an upset stomach, and that she needed to go back home, so, there was no way that she could go back to the hall, and thanked her for showing sincere concern.

She wanted to text Tade to inform him that she had rested enough, and that she was on her way home, as she was too tired and couldn't go back to the hall. However, she changed her mind. There was no way in the world that she was going to talk to him, till she had gone through the flash drive and documents, and was convinced that he had no hand in what had befallen her father.

What if he did? Would she let go of him? Would she hand him over to the police? If someone was really good, was one bad flaw enough reason to write him off? The decision she was going to make, she didn't know yet, but time will tell, and the time she needed wasn't far off anymore. Soon, she'd know if she could be with Tade or if theirs had been a no-go area from the onset.

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