The Unbreakables (BWHM)

Chapter 9

Back in the suite, my mom sat on the couch and talked with Elizabeth. My father stood at the glass wall and gazed out at the island. When I walked in my parents gave their attentions to me.

"Nikayla,-" Mom said.

"Mom, not now, please just give me a little time." I said. The phone rung, Elizabeth being closest answered it.

"Yes, that is fine, send him up." She then hung up the phone and turned to us. "The constable is here and he is on his way up." We all were silent until we heard a light tap on the room door. Elizabeth immediately went to the door and let the constable in who was followed by another member of the royal police.

"Good, evening constable, you said that you had word of our daughter?" Dad asked.

"I do have news of your daughter but I fear it is not the news you were expecting," He said. The constable took his hat off and held it in front of him.

"About two weeks ago a local that rents private boats to tourists said that two girls fitting the description of your daughter and her friend rented a boat from him, he said that they never brought the boat back and when he sent a worker out to look for them, only the boat was recovered."

"And the girls?" Mom asked.

The constable gave a slight shake of the head. I stared at him in disbelief and tried to find the right words to say to dispute the claim he had made.

"How do you know it was her? There are plenty of girls that probably rented a boat that day who may have even looked like them. Why has this man not come forward before now? With all the fliers up of Miah and Zyonna what rock was he under to not have seen them," I said.

"We have his log from the boats rented that day." He looked to his partner who was carrying a bag I hadn't noticed until now. His partner silently gave him the bag and stepped back. The constable proceeded to open the bag and pulled out a tattered old notebook that was stuffed with sheets of paper and opened it. He flipped through it until he found the page that he was looking for.

"Is this your daughter's signature?" He asked as he looked up from the log. My father looked from me to my mother and then down at the log book. It took him a moment to recognize that the signature was Miah's. Without looking at mom and I, dad nodded.

"Well now we can search the surrounding islands, she's probably hurt and scared. Let's not waste any more time here discussing this." I said. Dad stared down at the signature as if it was something that he had not considered. Mom huddled in close to my father and looked down at the signature too.

"Yes constable, that is my daughter's signature, what are you trying to say to us? That she has drowned? Well that is impossible Jamiah is an excellent swimmer, Nikayla is right, we should be checking all of the surrounding islands. She may have swam to an island that is deserted." Urgency and desperation colored mom's tone.

Dad slid his arm around her waist and pulled her to him so that he could try and give her what comfort he had left to give.

"On the day your daughter went missing there had been shark sightings and an attack. Your daughter not coming back was not the only reason the people at the boat rental company went looking for them. When they had gotten word about the shark attack they went out to round up all of the boats and when they located the boat your daughter and Ms. Allen had rented, they were not on it. We have reason to believe that your daughter and Ms. Allen might have perished in the water." The constable said. He gazed at my parents with sympathy in his eyes.

I heard mom suck in her breath and dad murmured something soothing into her ear. Elizabeth covered her mouth with a hand.

"Constable, what reason is it that you have to think my daughter is..." Dad couldn't bring himself to ask the question and I couldn't bring myself to think it. The constable reached into the same bag that he had pulled the boat rental log from and fished out what looked to be torn fabric in a zip lock bag. It only took me two seconds to recognize the fabric as being the sun dress Miah had taken from my closet two weeks before. It looked to be ripped to shreds and covered in a rust brown color I knew to be old blood.