“Impossible!” Edward exclaimed, “I can vouch for at least seventy percent in this room.”
None of them could meet his eyes and Mrs. Olayomi began to stammer. “Well…what happened…that is…”
“What?!” Edward barked, suddenly on his feet. Sweat beaded his forehead and his heart was racing as he imagined the worst.
Benibo was the one that spoke up, “The Registrar‘s office records as of today show that the twenty percent stock in Gladys‘s name has been transferred to another brokerage firm, sold.”
For the next several heartbeats, one could hear a pin drop.
“No… that cannot be possible. We were outside the country.”
“The transaction has been verified,” Benibo added.
Edward looked at the faces around him and recognized the reserve that had not been there before. He sank back into his chair in silence. He heard the secretary picking away at her keyboard, the uneasy shuffling of papers and every other little sound.
“I was with her all the time we were travelling. There was no opportunity, she couldn‘t have done it! She wouldn‘t have sold those shares without my knowledge, dammit!”
Silence greeted his words.
**********
“This trip must have cost you guys a lot of money.”
“You can say that again.” After speaking with her mother, she was being grilled by Udoka her middle brother, the only one whom she hadn‘t spoken with in the intervening month. He was a travel junkie and wanted to know every detail of their trip abroad. “Especially in America; the hotel in New York was so high priced and we only stayed at the Holiday Inn.”
“Is that supposed to be expensive?”
“Not really, they‘re on the more affordable scale. Edward has his standards, otherwise I would‘ve booked even cheaper motels; you know me now.”
They both laughed, “We rented a car to get around better in New York but we should have stuck to walking and public transport. It was expensive and we kept getting lost.” Udoka laughed, “So how come you guys didn‘t visit any place in Africa? I hear Tanzania or Kenya is also a great destination. You know, to take in a safari in the savannah.”
“Well we have a whole lifetime to have more holidays. Our honeymoon is even coming up shortly.”
“So which were the best sights, at least one for each city?”