Nii was horrified at the sight of Emma lying motionless on the ground. Was she breathing? He tried to go to her, but Clement shoved him away.
“But why did you hit her so hard?” Nii cried.
The other men ignored him. “Get the car,” Ponsu told Clement. “Clifford, start tying her up.”
Ponsu’s SUV was parked in the back of the house. Clement drove it around to the front and opened the trunk.
“Where are you taking her?” Nii demanded.
“None of your business,” Ponsu said. “It’s better you don’t know, anyway.”
By the outside verandah light, Clifford had finished binding Emma at her wrists and ankles. Ponsu found a rag in the trunk and handed it to Clement, who opened Emma’s mouth and stuffed the rag in as far as it would go.
Nii shrank away, watching with dismay as the twins picked Emma up and swung her into the trunk as if she were a dead goat.
Ponsu turned to Nii scowling. “If you say anything about this to anyone, I swear, we will come back and get you and you’ll regret you ever opened your mouth.”
Clifford opened the rear door of the vehicle for Ponsu to get in, and then he took the driver’s seat. Clement joined him on the front passenger side and they pulled away, tires kicking up dust.
Nii stared after them until the rear lights had disappeared. Then he turned away and went back in the house feeling sick. One of his housemates, who was quite high on weed, asked Nii what was going on.
“Nothing,” he muttered. “Go back to your room.”
The housemate shrugged. He had been planning on doing that anyway.
Nii paced the living room, then sat down rubbing his head in despair. He didn’t know what to do. Yes, it’s true that he didn’t like the idea of Emma investigating Mr. Ponsu, but this was no way to treat her. On the other hand, Nii couldn’t go to the police for help, and that included Auntie Doris. She didn’t like Emma and wouldn’t lift a finger to help her.
Nii took out his phone. The battery was in the red zone so he cast around for a charger. He had so many of them, why could he not find one when he needed it most? When he had located a charger stuck between the sofa cushions, he plugged it in and called Bruno, praying that he would pick up. He did.
“Nii, what’s up?” Bruno said. “You know I dey hospital, right?”
“Sorry oo. Look, I didn’t know they were going to do this to you, I swear.”
“You mean Ponsu’s guys?”
“Yeah. Chaley, they’ve taken Emma too.”
“What? When?”
“Just now. They forced me to call her to come here so I can talk to her and they hid themselves and listened to what she was saying. When they heard how much she knows, they knocked her out and tied her up.”
“And where are they going with her?”
“I don’t know,” Nii said, his voice shaking with emotion, “but I think they’re taking her to the Adome Bridge.”
“Shit,” Bruno said. “Let me call you back.”
Emma came to in pitch darkness. She was in motion but wasn’t sure if she was moving forward or spinning. Her head ached. Her wrists were tied behind her back, the bindings cutting into her flesh. Her ankles were fastened together as well and her mouth was stuffed with a rag that tasted of fuel.
She drifted in and out of consciousness with no concept of time or place. Her skull seemed to be humming and then she realized it was the noise of the vehicle in which she was confined. She was lying on her right side and found she could barely shift position. Faint voices came from some direction as well as percussive white noise she recognized as heavy rainfall. The ride felt like that of a large car or SUV. Every slightest bump jarred Emma’s pounding head. She felt nauseous and dizzy.
Emma struggled to remember what had happened, but her recollection was only faint. She had been at Nii Kwei’s house, but what after that? She began to feel like she was suffocating, and panic grew. Stay calm. Stay calm.
The vehicle slowed to a halt and two men began to talk. From where Emma was, their tones were muffled and obscured by the downpour and she could hear only snatches of what they were saying. The vehicle doors slammed. The trunk clicked ajar. The moment the men put their hands on her, Emma began to fight. They grunted and cursed as they pulled her out. She twisted and writhed, and they had trouble holding onto her. She realized that she had a bag of rocks tied to her ankles to weigh her down, which made sense because now she knew where she was—on the Adome Bridge, and the twins were about to throw her over.
The sidewalk lamps illuminated the rain so that it looked like a thousand silver daggers coming down at a slant. Emma also saw who the men were—the twins. They carried her to the side of the bridge and Emma collided with the railing. She heard the bubble of river below and the noise of rain upon it. This was where Gordon Tilson had met his end, and now it was Emma’s turn to die. In seconds, she would strike the water with force enough to tear her insides apart and shatter her spine. Suddenly, her resistance was spent and she resigned herself. Clifford and Clement hitched her onto the top of the railing.