Agnes

 

Chapter 1 – The Perfect Bride

The air in Banana Island shimmered with opulence. Bougainvillea petals drifted from gold-trimmed archways, caught on the silk lapels and gele folds of Lagos' most elite. From the crystal chandeliers hung beneath the wedding canopy to the custom-embroidered napkins stamped with “#ChuKaKa2025,” no detail had been spared.

Amaka Emecheta stood at the edge of the reception marquee, a vision in white satin and calm elegance. Her neckline, modest but sharp, was crowned by a string of South Sea pearls—a gift from the bride’s mother, billionaire philanthropist Agnes Emecheta. Every camera sought Amaka's smile, and she gave it freely, gracefully, like she’d been rehearsing it for years. Her hands, adorned with French-tipped nails, trembled just slightly as she adjusted her veil.

"You're glowing," someone whispered.

She turned. “It’s the heat,” Amaka replied with a soft laugh. But her eyes were watching the crowd.

Chuka, her groom, was already seated at the high table, chatting with the Commissioner for Works and a former Miss Nigeria. His agbada shimmered in white and silver. He looked up and caught Amaka’s gaze, giving her a wink. She smiled tightly and turned away.

A waiter approached with a flute of champagne. Amaka declined. “Bring it to my mother,” she said. “She likes the brut.”

The waiter nodded and walked off.

Amaka took a deep breath. She didn’t know what part of the ceremony made her stomach churn more—the vow exchange, the kiss, or watching her mother hold court like a crowned queen. Agnes had received a standing ovation after her toast earlier in the day, a speech filled with love, pride, and performative humility. The guests lapped it up. They always did.

“You’ve been blessed with a mother people would die for,” someone had gushed to her earlier that afternoon.

Amaka had smiled. “Yes. I know.”

The band transitioned into a lively highlife number, and the crowd surged forward, eager to spray naira notes and praise the couple. As she moved through a maze of glittering guests, Amaka felt the weight of eyes on her, of expectations stitched into every thread of her gown. But she moved with grace, touching shoulders, exchanging hugs, laughing in perfect rhythm.

Then she saw her.

Agnes.

Seated at her custom-made throne-like chair, flanked by political associates and society friends, Agnes clapped rhythmically, her movements mechanical, rehearsed. She was wearing a champagne gold iro and buba with a head tie that rose like a coronet. Her smile—broad, warm, deceptive—never touched her eyes.

Amaka moved to her side, bent slightly, and kissed her cheek. “You’re okay?” she asked.

Agnes nodded. “I’m watching you. You’re doing well. No mistakes. Not yet.”

The words were whispered, sweet as venom.

Amaka smiled, lips tight. “Good.”

Across the hall, Uju, her childhood friend, waved. She looked radiant in emerald green, eyes bright. But Amaka looked away quickly.

“Don’t let her distract you,” Agnes said.

Amaka blinked. “She’s my friend.”

“She’s a liability,” Agnes replied. “You know it. I warned you.”

“Yes,” Amaka said. “You warned me.”

The waiter returned with another champagne flute.

“For the mother of the bride,” he said, offering it with a practiced bow.

Agnes accepted it with a pleased smile. “Finally, someone trained properly,” she said, lifting it slightly.

“To you,” Amaka said, meeting her mother’s eyes.

Agnes raised the glass. “To us.”

She took a long sip.

Five minutes later, during the second couple’s dance, Agnes began to sway in her chair. Her fingers clutched the carved wooden armrests. Her smile faltered. Someone called out her name, but the music drowned it. Her lips moved, but no sound emerged. Then—gracefully, slowly—she slumped to the side, the champagne flute slipping from her hand and rolling under the table.

A gasp pierced the music. Then screams.

Amaka was the first to reach her. “Mummy?” she cried, dropping to her knees. “Mummy, what’s wrong?”

Her perfectly manicured hands trembled as she shook the older woman’s shoulders.

Agnes’s eyes fluttered. Her mouth twisted into something unreadable. Then nothing.

More screams. Chairs clattered. Phones were raised. Some people tried CPR. Others called emergency services. The band had stopped playing. A ripple of chaos surged through the marquee.

Amaka sobbed uncontrollably, face buried in her mother’s shoulder, her dress stained with foundation and sweat and panic. She clutched Agnes like a drowning girl clinging to driftwood.

When the ambulance arrived twenty minutes later, she refused to let go.

“I was just talking to her,” Amaka kept repeating. “She was fine. She was fine.”

By evening, the estate was sealed off. Police cars lined the gates. Detective Musa arrived just before midnight.

Amaka, still in her wedding dress, sat beside her husband in the main sitting room. Her eyes were swollen. Her bouquet had long been discarded.

“I want answers,” she said to the officer. “My mother was everything to me. Please—find who did this.”

And when she said it, even Musa believed her.

Chapter 2 – The Day After

By morning, the Emecheta estate was quiet, as if the chaos of the previous night had been nothing but a bad dream. The chandeliers still sparkled. The petals still lay scattered on polished marble. But the air had changed—heavier, colder. The celebration had ended, and with it, something else. Something permanent.

Amaka stood by the large bay window in the main lounge, wrapped in a white robe, untouched breakfast before her. Her gown was gone, folded neatly in a box somewhere. Her hair was out of its bridal style, cascading in soft curls down her back. She stared out at the stillness of the water behind the property, unmoving, unspeaking.

Chuka watched her from a distance. “You haven’t said a word all morning.”

She nodded slowly. “I’m trying to hear her voice. But it’s gone.”

He took a step toward her, hesitant. “You need to eat.”

“She wouldn’t want us to cry,” Amaka whispered. “She hated weakness.”

Chuka said nothing.

There was a knock at the door.

Chuka opened it to reveal a tall man in a navy blue blazer, low haircut, and a serious expression. “Detective Musa Dauda,” he said. “State CID. I’m here to speak with Miss Emecheta.”

“Mrs. Okonkwo,” Amaka corrected gently, turning to face him. “As of yesterday.”

Musa nodded once. “My condolences.”

She gestured for him to come in. “Do you want tea?”

“No, thank you. Just your time.”

He sat across from her, notepad in hand. “Can you walk me through what happened yesterday—from your perspective?”

Amaka took a breath. “The morning was beautiful. She came into my room while I was getting dressed and told me I looked like my grandmother. She gave me the pearls herself. Said they were a symbol of strength. She… she even teased me about crying during the vows.”

“And at the event?”

“She was smiling. Laughing. Taking photos. She gave a beautiful toast. I was standing right next to her.”

“Did she eat anything special?”

“She didn’t eat much. But she had a glass of champagne delivered—she said she preferred brut, not sweet.”

“Do you remember who brought it?”

Amaka shook her head. “A waiter. Young. Medium build. Neatly dressed. I didn’t catch his name.”

“We’ll track the catering team. What happened after she drank?”

“Nothing immediately. She danced a bit. Sat back down. Then she just… collapsed.”

“And before the wedding, was your mother in any kind of conflict? Arguments? Threats?”

Amaka hesitated. “People admired her, but my mother was… firm. She didn’t tolerate nonsense. She had enemies, I’m sure, but no one brave enough to try something like this. Not in public.”

Musa’s pen paused. “Enemies?”

“Professional, not personal.”

He looked at her. “That’s not the same thing.”

Amaka smiled sadly. “With someone like her, it is.”

Musa studied her a moment. Calm. Collected. Her voice trembled at just the right times. But there was something distant about her sadness—more polished than raw.

He flipped the page in his notepad. “I’ll need a list of all close associates. Business partners. Staff. Anyone who might have had access to her food or drink.”

Amaka nodded. “I’ll have someone send it to your office.”

“Thank you.”

“And, Detective…” she said, leaning forward. “I want you to know—I will cooperate fully. My mother was everything to me. I need to know who did this.”

Musa closed his notebook. “We’ll find out. You have my word.”

Later that afternoon, a makeshift press tent was set up outside the estate gates. Journalists had already begun spinning theories. Some whispered heart attack. Others pointed fingers at the groom’s family. One popular blog claimed Agnes had been cursed at her village shrine last year and the effects had finally caught up. None of it mattered to Amaka. She stayed inside, serene, unavailable.

By evening, the autopsy report came in.

Toxicology confirmed it was poison—cyanide, likely introduced in a drink, fast-acting, undetectable without chemical testing. It had been a small dose, expertly timed. Whoever administered it knew exactly what they were doing.

Musa read the report in silence in his car, parked just outside the Emecheta estate. He rolled the window down, letting in the salt-heavy breeze from the lagoon. He’d seen a lot in his 15 years with the force—ritual killings, jealous lovers, inheritance wars—but this felt different.

This wasn’t spontaneous.

It was surgical.

He looked up at the mansion again. The estate was too quiet for a place that had seen nearly four hundred people the day before. Too still. As if something inside was watching and waiting.

He made a call. “Get me the guest list, the catering contracts, and the CCTV files from the estate security. I want to know who went in and out of that drinks area in the thirty minutes before Agnes Emecheta dropped dead.”

“And the daughter?” the voice on the other end asked.

Musa looked toward the upper balcony.

“Leave her,” he said. “That woman’s heart is broken. She’s not part of this.”

Chapter 3 – The Widow’s Smile

The gates of the Emecheta estate creaked open to admit the first group of mourners. Not family—journalists, stylists, two clergymen, and a senior representative from the Lagos State Governor’s office. They came not to mourn but to be seen mourning.

Agnes Emecheta was trending.

Chuka stood at the top of the marble staircase, sleeves rolled up, tie loosened. He looked like a man who had signed up for a honeymoon and received a funeral instead. Behind him, servants moved like whispers—carrying trays of tea, setting down condolence books, ushering guests toward the memorial portrait set up in the center of the lounge.

It was a black-and-white photo of Agnes taken last year: soft lighting, her chin slightly raised, smile warm and proud.

“She looks kind,” someone said softly.

“She wasn’t,” Amaka replied without turning.

She emerged from the hallway in a high-neck black gown, hair wrapped in a silk scarf, eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses. Her gait was composed. Even graceful. Not too heavy. Not too light. Just enough to remind everyone this was her mother, and she was still in control.

Uju, who hadn’t spoken to her directly since the wedding, stepped forward.

“You’re holding up,” she said gently.

Amaka nodded. “I don’t have the luxury of falling apart. Not yet.”

“I’m here if you need anything.”

“Thank you.”

They embraced briefly. Too briefly.

Chuka watched the moment from across the room. He saw something shift in Amaka’s jaw—something tight—and wondered again about the night before. When they’d gotten home from the hospital and she refused to speak. Just showered. Changed. Slept like nothing happened.

Now, she was taking visitors like a dignitary, exchanging measured words and handshakes. It unnerved him.

Detective Musa, meanwhile, wasn’t at the estate. He was downtown, hunched over a monitor in the State CID’s digital unit. The Emecheta estate’s CCTV had over 50 hours of footage for the past three days. All encrypted.

“Anything from the reception area?” he asked the tech specialist.

“Still processing. But we found something from the staff corridor. Two hours before the collapse.”

On the screen, a man in chef whites stood alone, talking into a phone. Another entered—short, slightly stooped, in waiter’s uniform. They argued. Then parted.

Musa leaned in. “Get me the names.”

“We’re cross-referencing staff photos now.”

“Also find out which one served champagne to the bride’s mother.”

“Yes, sir.”

As Musa waited, his phone buzzed. Private caller.

He answered. “Detective Dauda.”

A woman’s voice. Low. Nervous.

“You don’t know me, but I used to work for Madam Emecheta.”

“Go on.”

“She ruined my life. And I know others she hurt too. If your investigation is real… there are things you need to know. About what that woman did behind closed doors.”

Back at the estate, Amaka stood before her mother’s portrait, silent, until the room thinned out.

She removed her glasses and stared at the photograph.

“You would’ve loved this,” she whispered. “The press. The performance. You always knew how to die well.”

Her hand reached for the frame. She tilted it slightly, aligning it with the flowers beneath.

From behind, Chuka approached.

“They said you’re giving a speech at the memorial.”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure you’re ready?”

“I’ve been preparing for this my whole life,” she said without blinking. “She just died a little earlier than planned.”

Chuka flinched. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Amaka turned to him. “It means everything is moving quickly, and I need you focused. Not scared.”

“I’m not scared.”

“You’re sweating.”

He rubbed his palms down his trousers. “People are starting to talk.”

“Let them.”

“You were the last person to speak with her.”

Amaka smiled. It was barely there. “She was the last person to speak to a lot of people. That’s how good she was.”

“Is this grief or—?”

“Grief,” she cut in, “is for the innocent. I’m just… relieved.”

“Relieved?”

“That she didn’t take me down with her.”

And then she walked away.

Musa returned to the estate later that evening, just as the sky turned from gold to bruised grey.

He was greeted by a long line of black SUVs. Politicians had begun arriving for the official condolence visit. Musa ignored them all and went around the back, where security footage had finally been traced to a name: Tunde Akanji, a freelance server hired from a hospitality app. Fake credentials. Disappeared after the wedding.

He found Amaka alone in the garden.

“The champagne server,” he said. “We’ve identified him. But he’s gone.”

Amaka turned slowly. “Gone where?”

“No one knows. He vanished two hours after your mother collapsed. Left his uniform in the changing room. No forwarding contact.”

“Sounds deliberate.”

“It was.”

She crossed her arms. “Then he’s your killer.”

“Maybe. Or he’s a distraction.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You don’t believe that.”

“I don’t believe anything yet. Except that your mother wasn’t nearly as loved as she seemed.”

Amaka gave a dry laugh. “She was very good at pretending.”

“Was she the kind of person who made enemies?”

“More like enemies grew around her. Like weeds. She was the sunlight.”

“Or the poison,” Musa said.

Amaka didn’t flinch. “Either way, I want the truth. I’m not afraid of it.”

“Good,” Musa replied. “Because the truth has sharp edges.”

As he walked away, Amaka’s face softened. Just for a second.

Then, as she turned back toward the house, her eyes sharpened again.

The game had begun.

Chapter 4 – The Other Side of the Mirror

Two days after the funeral was announced, the internet crowned Amaka Emecheta “the face of dignified grief.” Her poised media interviews were clipped into TikToks. Her tear-streaked photo, taken just minutes after Agnes’s death, trended with hashtags like #DaughterOfSteel and #JusticeForAgnes. Newspapers called her the “solemnest bride Nigeria ever saw.”

Inside the Emecheta estate, however, things weren’t quite as picturesque.

The housekeeper, Mama Tutu, walked briskly down the corridor toward the late Agnes’s study, a brown envelope clutched tightly in her hand. “I don’t want trouble,” she muttered, “but these Lagos people play too many games.”

She knocked once, twice. No answer.

She opened the door.

The room was dim. Curtains half-drawn. Amaka stood before her mother’s antique desk, flipping through an old photo album. She didn’t look up.

“You have something?”

“Yes, madam.” Tutu stepped forward, offered the envelope. “Someone sent it this morning. No name. No note. Just this.”

Amaka took it without flinching, peeled it open. Inside was a memory card and a single Polaroid photograph of Agnes… with Pastor Gabriel. They were in the back of a car. She was holding a large brown envelope. He was looking away. The timestamp in the corner read 12 March 2024.

Amaka’s lips pressed into a line.

“You’ve seen this?”

“No, madam.”

“Good.”

She slid the photo back into the envelope and tucked the memory card into her pocket. “Thank you.”

Mama Tutu lingered. “There’s more, you know.”

Amaka finally looked up. “More what?”

“Your mother’s secrets. You were protected. Others weren’t.”

“She protected me the way lions protect meat. With teeth.”

Mama Tutu said nothing.

Amaka gave her a small nod. “Lock the door behind you.”

---

Across town, Pastor Gabriel stood at the pulpit of his Ajah church, preaching a sermon on humility to a sea of well-dressed congregants. His words rang with conviction, but his eyes were on the last row—where two plainclothes officers stood, arms folded, listening too closely.

After the service, one of them approached the pastor quietly.

“You’ve been summoned to the station tomorrow morning, sir.”

Gabriel tried to remain calm. “About?”

“Your financial dealings with the late Agnes Emecheta.”

A smile twitched at his lips. “As I’ve said before, Madam was a generous donor. Nothing more.”

“Then it’ll be a short visit.”

Detective Musa sat in his office with the audio tech, headphones plugged in, eyes fixed on a waveform recording from the Emecheta estate’s backup drive—recovered from the central security server. It was audio only, but it captured what the corrupted camera footage could not: a conversation between two women in the bridal suite the morning of the wedding.

Agnes: “Fix your face, Amaka. You’re getting married, not attending a funeral.”
Amaka: “Hard to smile when you’re threatening my future.”
Agnes: “Threats are for people who have choices. You don’t.”
Amaka: “Chuka isn’t your business anymore.”
Agnes: “Everything you are is my business.”
[silence]
Agnes: “Don’t let me regret raising you.”
Amaka: “You didn’t raise me. You built me. Like one of your charities.”

Musa leaned back. The tone wasn’t warm. But it wasn’t murderous either.

Still, it was something.

He reached for his phone.

That evening, Amaka met with the family lawyer, Mr. Akinwale, in her father’s old library.

“The estate needs an executor,” he said. “She didn’t sign the amended will. Which means…”

“I get everything,” Amaka finished.

He nodded. “Unless someone contests.”

“No one will.”

“There’s the matter of her offshore accounts. Seychelles, Malta, Dubai—”

“Shut them down. Anything tied to Pastor Gabriel should be scrubbed. Quietly.”

He looked at her carefully. “Are you sure you want this handled so… aggressively?”

Amaka smiled. “My mother played chess. I play poker. I know when to fold her hand.”

Detective Musa arrived at the station the next morning and found a letter waiting on his desk.

Typed. Anonymous. No signature.

“Ask Gabriel who deposited N42 million in his building fund three days before the wedding. Ask him where the cook is. Ask why his name appears on an account opened in Uyo under a fake Emecheta Foundation. The truth is not in the pulpit.”

Attached was a copy of a transaction slip.

Musa narrowed his eyes. Too neat. Too fast.

It was a plant. Someone wanted the case solved—wrong.

---

At the Emecheta estate, Chuka found Amaka in the garden again, pacing.

“I’m being watched,” he said.

She looked up. “By who?”

“Detectives. Reporters. Your family. My family. I don’t know.”

“You should be careful, then.”

He stepped closer. “Are we okay?”

“We’re fine,” she said, voice flat.

“I mean… you’re scaring me, Amaka. You don’t grieve. You calculate.”

She turned fully toward him. “My mother’s body isn’t even buried, and you’re worried about how I’m grieving?”

“I’m worried about what you’re hiding.”

She stepped in close, looked him dead in the eyes.

“You married a woman who survived Agnes Emecheta. Don’t expect roses and rainbows.”

He stepped back.

“You’re not the same,” he said quietly.

“No,” she replied. “I’m better.”

That night, Amaka sat alone in Agnes’s study. The room still smelled of her perfume—oud, lavender, and something acidic underneath. She lit a candle, opened the safe, and pulled out a small black journal.

Inside were names.

Transactions.

Secrets.

And beneath the last page, a note, handwritten in her mother’s delicate cursive:

“They’ll never see you coming. Just like I didn’t.”

Amaka read it twice. Then smiled.

She whispered into the dark:

“Good.”

Chapter 5 – Red Lace and Old Sins

The funeral committee insisted on a white-and-gold colour code, but Amaka wore red.

Deep crimson lace with subtle black embroidery. Not loud, but pointed. When she stepped out of the mansion and into the marquee set for the final farewell, the air shifted. Murmurs flitted across the crowd.

“She wore red?”
“Tradition forbids it.”
“Is it defiance or grief?”

Amaka walked past them all like royalty. The sun gleamed on the pearls she still wore, now matched with bloodstone earrings. Her steps were measured, calm. Not sorrowful. Just... resolved.

Chuka trailed behind her, dressed in regulation white agbada, sunglasses hiding the lines of confusion on his face. Uju arrived separately, and stood at the back, observing.

On the altar sat the casket—polished mahogany, framed with yellow roses. A blown-up photo of Agnes towered behind it: the carefully curated public image. The soft smile. The eyes that held a nation spellbound.

Pastor Gabriel took the pulpit.

"Today, we bury a woman of virtue," he began, hands raised like a prophet. "A mother to the motherless, a warrior of faith, a generous spirit..."

Amaka tuned him out.

She stared at his hands—those same hands that signed off fake building fund accounts, collected hush money from Agnes, laundered funds through 'missions’ in Uyo and Accra. He was still trying to survive her death, pretending they hadn't both used each other.

Her fingers curled around the program in her lap. One more performance.

Detective Musa watched from the side of the marquee, not as an invited guest, but as a quiet observer. His suit was plain. No badge. No notebook.

His eyes scanned the room.

Chief Bamidele—stone-faced, leaning on a cane.
Nneka—tight-lipped, seated in the front row, barely concealing disdain.
Pastor Gabriel—sweating more than usual.
Ngozi—the ex-maid, sitting at the back in cheap white lace, watching everyone with a smirk.
Uju—motionless, clutching a plain white clutch bag like a weapon.

Too many motives. Too many layers.

And one daughter in red.

After the service, mourners lined up to offer condolences.

Amaka received them with grace: a hand on the shoulder, a bowed head, a soft “Thank you.” She didn’t flinch at the strangers who wept or at the politicians who used her mother's name for clout.

It wasn’t until Pastor Gabriel approached that something flickered in her eyes.

"My dear child," he began, voice thick with performance. "She was proud of you. She told me so. Many times."

Amaka held his gaze. “She told many people many things. You should be careful who believes them.”

His smile froze for half a second. Then he nodded and moved on.

Uju came next.

“I almost didn’t come,” she said quietly.

“But you did.”

“I needed to see it. The show.”

“Did it live up to your expectations?”

Uju studied her. “I don’t know what to expect from you anymore.”

“Then we’re even,” Amaka said, and turned away.

That evening, Musa returned to his office to find a brown parcel on his desk. No name. No return address.

Inside was a USB drive and a single page typed in Courier font.

“Agnes wasn’t poisoned by a stranger. Follow the girl in red.”

He plugged in the drive.

Security footage—unedited, date-stamped.

Kitchen corridor. Wedding day. 2:12 p.m.

A waiter in white approaches a woman in a veil. Not Amaka. But the build is close. Face obscured.

The waiter hands over a tray with a single flute of champagne. The woman dips a vial into the glass—quick, precise—and stirs with the base of a spoon. She wipes it clean and disappears through a service door.

Musa paused. Rewound. Watched again.

Not Amaka.

But someone dressed very, very deliberately.

He ran the footage through facial enhancement software. The face never shows. The veil does all the work. But there was one clear frame—when she opens the door and walks past a mirror.

A partial reflection.

Hair. Shoulder. Jawline.

It wasn’t Amaka.

But it also wasn’t not her.

At the estate, Amaka sat on the rooftop balcony overlooking the water. A half-empty glass of wine balanced on the edge of the railing. Chuka stood a few feet away, uncertain whether to step closer.

“You don’t sleep anymore,” he said finally.

“Sleep is for the at-peace.”

“And you’re not?”

“Not yet.”

He moved closer. “You were brilliant today.”

“Of course I was.”

“But you scared me. In red.”

“That was the point.”

Chuka swallowed hard. “Did you… love her?”

Amaka’s silence stretched.

“I loved what she could have been. I loved the version of her I kept inventing to survive her.”

Chuka didn’t reply.

She turned to him.

“If you ever ask me that again,” she said softly, “I’ll answer differently. And you won’t like it.”

Detective Musa sat at his desk past midnight.

He now had motive, means, and opportunity—but the wrong suspect. Or maybe, the perfect one.

Amaka had been cold. Controlled. Composed.

But never careless.

That footage had been sent to him on purpose.

And the girl in red?

Maybe she wanted to be followed.

Or maybe she was setting the next trap.

Chapter 6 – The Whisper Network

Detective Musa wasn’t a man of superstition. But something about the letter on his desk felt like a curse—carefully written, plain, folded once. It was there when he returned from a budget meeting he hadn’t wanted to attend.

No signature. Just one line:

“Ask Ngozi what she saw in the dressing room before the first toast.”

He read it twice, then reached for his coat.

Ngozi didn’t live far. Her address—an aging block of flats in Surulere—had been logged in the initial background checks. When Musa arrived, children were playing barefoot in the corridor, and the air smelled of kerosene, sweat, and frying fish.

She answered on the second knock, wrapper tied at the chest, hairnet still on.

“You again?” she said, not surprised.

“We never really talked properly,” Musa replied. “May I come in?”

She stepped aside.

Inside, her flat was neat, quiet. A standing fan hummed beside the couch. On the wall, a faded photo of a much younger Ngozi in a maid’s uniform, standing beside a stiff, regal Agnes.

Musa sat, notebook in hand.

“You were at the estate early on the wedding day,” he began.

“Five a.m. sharp,” she said. “Old habits.”

“You didn’t work there anymore.”

“No. But I had been summoned. Madam said I’d disgrace myself if I didn’t show face. So I came.”

“What time did you leave the main house?”

“I didn’t. I stayed close.”

“Did you go upstairs at any point?”

A pause.

“Once. To check if they needed extra hands with the bridal change. I was loyal, regardless of how she treated me.”

“Did you enter the dressing room?”

She hesitated again. Then: “Yes. Briefly.”

“Who was there?”

Another pause. A subtle one.

“Just her. Amaka. She was alone. Sitting in her gown. Looking at herself in the mirror.”

“Was she crying?”

Ngozi looked up, brow furrowed. “No. She was laughing.”

Musa’s pen stilled. “Laughing?”

“Low. To herself. Like someone who had just remembered a private joke.”

“Did she say anything to you?”

“She looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘I’m not my mother.’”

“And you believed her?”

Ngozi’s face twisted. “No. That’s why I left.”

---

Back at the estate, Amaka sat in the late Agnes’s study with the memory card she’d been mailed days ago. It had taken some time to decrypt. But she was patient.

The video wasn’t long.

Agnes. Alone. Speaking to camera. Like she’d recorded it for herself. Dated two months before the wedding.

“If anything ever happens to me, it will be someone close. People like me aren’t killed by strangers. We die from within. I built a world and filled it with actors, liars, dependents. The most dangerous ones are the ones who smile too often.”

She paused, then looked directly into the lens.

“Even my daughter. Especially her.”

Amaka stopped the video. Her face unreadable.

Then she hit ‘delete.’

---

Chuka’s phone rang while he was driving. He saw Amaka’s name and answered immediately.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“Shoprite. Picking up the wine order for your uncle’s visit.”

“You’re getting the Rosé?”

“You said they like it. I’m following instructions.”

A pause.

“You’re good at following instructions,” she said softly.

He tried to laugh. “That was meant to be a compliment, right?”

“No. Just an observation.”

The line went dead.

Detective Musa returned to the station with a clearer picture forming in his mind—but no firm edges. He had a hundred puzzle pieces, some real, some planted, some warped. He pinned names on the board: Amaka. Chuka. Ngozi. Gabriel. Bamidele. Uju. Ikenna.

He circled the name in red: Amaka.

Then crossed it out.

He was too close to suspect her. That much he knew. And that made her dangerous.

Later that evening, Musa met with Pastor Gabriel at the station—quiet room, two chairs, no press.

“I have a few questions,” he said.

Gabriel nodded. “Of course.”

“Who else knew about the offshore accounts?”

“Only Agnes. And her accountant. He disappeared a year ago.”

“What about the wedding?”

“What about it?”

“Did Agnes express concern in the days leading up to it?”

Gabriel shifted in his seat. “She was nervous. Paranoid. Said she felt watched.”

“By whom?”

“She didn’t say. But… she feared her own child.”

Musa raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“She said Amaka had grown teeth. Quiet ones. The kind you only notice when it’s too late.”

That night, Amaka stood before the bathroom mirror, brushing her hair. Her reflection stared back, calm and composed.

Behind her, Chuka leaned in the doorway.

“Can I ask you something?”

“You already did.”

“Did your mother ever try to… control your marriage? Or your choices?”

Amaka stopped brushing.

“She didn’t try. She succeeded. For a while.”

Chuka waited.

Amaka set the brush down.

“But then I remembered something she told me when I was twelve.”

“What was it?”

“She said: If someone is stronger than you, let them win today. And tomorrow, bury them in silence.”

She turned to him, eyes flat.

“That’s how she survived. And how I did too.”

Chuka didn’t sleep that night.

And for the first time, he locked the bedroom door from his side.

Chapter 7 – The Uninvited Guest

The knock came just after 7 a.m., before the house had fully stirred.

Amaka was already awake—she rarely slept through the night now. She was at the dining table, dressed in a soft ivory robe, sipping black coffee when the butler appeared, slightly breathless.

“Madam, there is someone at the gate. He says… he’s family.”

Amaka didn’t look up. “We don’t have unannounced family.”

“He says his name is Ikenna.”

That name.

She placed the cup down gently.

“Let him in.”

The last time she saw Ikenna, she had been 21. It was in the servants’ quarters—Agnes had locked him in for over three hours after he showed up claiming to be her son. The press never found out. Agnes had paid the guards double to swear the boy was a deluded stranger.

But Amaka remembered his eyes. They looked too much like hers not to mean something.

Now, fifteen years later, those eyes stood at her doorstep.

Older. Harder. But still burning.

“You’ve grown into her bone structure,” he said as she stepped outside.

“You’ve grown into her fury.”

“I need to speak with you.”

“Then speak.”

“Not out here. This is a performance space.”

She studied him, then stepped aside. “Ten minutes.”

They sat in the smaller lounge—Agnes’s old reading room. No cameras. No staff.

Ikenna leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “I didn’t come for money.”

“Good,” Amaka said. “Because there isn’t any for you.”

“I came for the truth.”

She tilted her head. “Which version?”

“The one where I was born of her. Hidden. Rejected. The version where you lived in gold, and I lived in gutter water.”

“She denied you existed.”

“She denied a lot of things. Including what she did to our father.”

Amaka’s lips parted. “You knew him?”

“She ruined him. Drove him into a bottle. Then a coffin.”

“I don’t know that story.”

He looked at her. “You don’t know a lot. But you know enough.”

Silence.

Then Ikenna dropped a USB drive on the coffee table.

“She paid a man to track me for over five years. Emails, transfers, voice notes. Your mother wasn’t just ruthless—she was terrified. Of me. Of what I might become.”

Amaka looked at the drive but didn’t touch it.

“What do you want?”

“Nothing.”

“Everyone wants something.”

“I want her legacy ruined.”

Amaka’s eyes flashed. “I’m doing a foundation in her name.”

“Then burn it from the inside.”

Musa received another anonymous message. This time, no envelope. Just an email from a burner account.

“Ikenna is the loose thread. Pull it.”

Attached was a photo of Ikenna in the estate courtyard that morning.

Musa zoomed in.

That face again.

He made a call.

“Get me Ikenna Okoye’s file—birth records, school, arrests, everything.”

“And Amaka?”

Musa hesitated.

“Keep her out of it… for now.”

Later that day, Amaka met Uju at a quiet bistro in Victoria Island. They hadn’t spoken privately in weeks. The air between them still held fractures.

“You look tired,” Uju said.

“You look like you’re about to ask something.”

“Why was I frozen out?”

Amaka sipped her wine. “You weren’t.”

“You’ve been different since the wedding. Since she died.”

Amaka stared at her. “She hurt you. You should be celebrating.”

Uju leaned forward. “That’s the problem. I’m trying to. But you scare me now.”

Amaka tilted her head. “Because I stopped apologizing?”

“No,” Uju said. “Because you look like her. You sound like her. And you’re better at it.”

Amaka didn’t deny it.

That night, Chuka found Amaka standing at the edge of the garden, barefoot, dress soaked from the sprinkler system.

“I’m thinking about drowning,” she said softly, not turning.

He panicked. “What?”

“Not dying. Just the feeling. The surrender. The moment before the fight stops.”

“Amaka—”

She turned. “Do you think I killed her?”

Chuka froze. “Why would you ask that?”

“Because I need to know how well I’m hiding.”

He stared at her.

She smiled.

Then walked past him, dripping.

Musa reviewed Ikenna’s file that night.

Born in Aba. Mother deceased. Father unknown. Expelled from UNN after a fight with a lecturer. Worked odd jobs. Arrested twice—assault, theft. Claimed to be Agnes Emecheta’s son once in 2010. Case buried.

But one document caught Musa’s attention: A bank statement.

There were monthly transfers—N150,000—labeled only “AE Legacy Fund.”

From an account registered under A. Okonkwo Foundation Trust.

He picked up his phone and whispered into it:

“I think I found her blood trail.”

---

Meanwhile, Amaka stood in front of her mother’s grave.

No flowers. No press. Just silence.

She whispered, “He came.”

She knelt, touched the soil.

“You left him to rot. But you kept a leash. You always did.”

She dug a small hole beside the headstone, placed the USB Ikenna had given her inside, then covered it with dirt.

“Even now, you’re still giving me things to bury.”

She stood.

No tears.

Just the wind.

Chapter 8 – Confessions and Calculations

Pastor Gabriel didn’t sleep much anymore.

He sat at the far edge of his massive sitting room, lights off, curtains drawn. The Bible on his lap was open but unread. His phone vibrated three times before he finally looked at the message:

From Unknown:
Check your mailbox. The sins of the shepherd have been recorded.

He froze. Then stood.

His compound was quiet—just the guard humming to himself at the gate. Gabriel crossed to the mailbox, heart racing, slippers scraping concrete.

Inside: a white envelope, unsealed. Inside it, a single flash drive.

Detective Musa was already waiting when Gabriel arrived at the station that morning.

“You got something?” Musa asked.

Gabriel nodded, but his hand trembled as he handed over the flash.

“Anonymous. Left in my mailbox.”

Musa inserted the drive into the laptop on his desk.

Three files.
All audio.
All dated.

He clicked the first.

Agnes (voice, sharp): “This church of yours is useful, Gabriel. But don’t forget who built it.”
Gabriel (tense): “You said the money was clean.”
Agnes: “I said it would never touch your hands. Be grateful.”

Second file:

Gabriel: “I want out.”
Agnes: “Then pray I die before you do.”

Third file: silence for a few seconds… then the unmistakable click of a vial being opened.

Agnes: “Even my daughter… she doesn’t know the half of it.”

Gabriel buried his head in his hands.

Musa leaned back. “You withheld all this.”

“I was afraid.”

“You should still be.”

At the Emecheta estate, the gates opened to a familiar figure.

Chief Bamidele. Slimmer than before, still leaning on his cane, still walking like someone owed him something.

Amaka met him in the living room, arms folded.

“You’re bold,” she said.

“I’m owed answers.”

“Or revenge?”

He smiled. “Your mother ruined me. Then she smiled about it.”

“And now you think I should pay for that?”

“I think you’re the last remaining Emecheta. That’s close enough.”

Amaka laughed. “You think I’m like her.”

“I think you’re worse. Because she had shame. You have masks.”

She stepped closer. “And you have nothing. Not even your business. My mother took that. Not me.”

He leaned in, voice low. “She didn’t kill herself. And you didn’t cry.”

Amaka didn’t blink. “Then maybe we’re even.”

He left without another word.

Meanwhile, Chuka met with Detective Musa for the first time.

It wasn’t official. Just a chance meeting at a Lekki cafe Musa liked—quiet, unassuming. Chuka had requested it through one of the security officers posted at the estate.

“I need to ask,” Chuka began, “are you still investigating?”

Musa looked at him. “You think I should stop?”

“She’s clean. You’ve seen it. She’s… broken, but she’s not a murderer.”

“Why do you believe that?”

Chuka swallowed. “Because I need to.”

Musa stared into his cup.

“I’ve worked enough cases to know something that looks perfect usually isn’t.”

Chuka tensed. “So what? You think it’s her?”

“I think everyone has something to hide. Especially when they’re the only one who isn’t afraid.”

That evening, Amaka found Uju waiting in the garden.

“You sent someone to follow me,” Uju said, arms crossed.

Amaka didn’t deny it.

“Why?”

“Because I needed to know who you’ve been talking to.”

“And if I was talking to the police?”

“You weren’t.”

Uju stared at her. “You used to be my best friend.”

“You used to be loyal.”

“Your mother destroyed everything about me.”

“She destroyed everyone. That’s why she had to go.”

Silence.

Then Uju asked: “Did you kill her?”

Amaka looked away. “You’ve always asked the wrong questions.”

She turned and walked back into the house.

Musa, back at his office, now had multiple pieces—but they still didn’t quite fit.

• Ikenna’s inheritance trail.
  
  

• Gabriel’s recordings.
  
  

• The silent cook who’d vanished.
  
  

• The veiled woman on the wedding footage.
  
  

• The woman in red who smiled at the funeral.
  
  

• And the perfectly grieving daughter who never made a mistake.
  
  

Then came another email.

“You missed the last toast. Check the glass again.”

Attached: a magnified photo from a wedding guest’s Instagram story.

Agnes’s champagne glass. Tiny fingerprint on the rim.

Not Agnes’s.

Too small.

Too fresh.

And the position was wrong—like someone had held it from the side while serving it, not sipping.

Musa picked up the phone.

“I need that glass retested. Focus on latent prints.”

At midnight, Amaka stood in front of the mirror again.

Hair down. Face bare. No mask.

She stared at her reflection and whispered, “They’re circling.”

But her smile said: Let them.

Behind her, on the desk, lay a handwritten note addressed to the Board of the Agnes Emecheta Foundation.

“Effective immediately, all external financial partnerships must be re-evaluated. New legal oversight will be appointed. No more shadows. My mother’s name will be cleaned—her way.”

Signed:
Amaka Okonkwo-Emecheta

The woman in the mirror looked pleased.

The girl in her memory would’ve been terrified.

Progress.

Chapter 9 – The Cook Who Disappeared

His name was Moses Edem.

The cook.

Hired three days before the wedding by an event staffing agency in Yaba. No prior record. No digital footprint. One of hundreds of casual hires shuffled through the Lagos elite's endless stream of functions.

Until the morning after the wedding, when he vanished.

No resignation. No call. No word. Just a locked phone and a cleaned-out locker at the staffing office.

Musa stared at his personnel file—scanned copy of a temporary ID, a Lagos address that led to a church shelter, and an emergency contact that turned out to be disconnected.

“How does someone go from cooking a billionaire’s last meal to disappearing like smoke?” he muttered.

His phone buzzed. A message from the lab.

Latent fingerprint match confirmed. Champagne glass. Belongs to Moses Edem.

Meanwhile, Amaka sat across from her family’s long-time private banker in a discreet Victoria Island office.

“The accounts in Malta and Seychelles have been closed,” he said, sliding a file across the desk. “Funds consolidated under the Emecheta Foundation. As per your instructions.”

“Any flags?”

“A few. But we handled them quietly.”

She nodded. “And the Uyo fund?”

He paused. “That one… was interesting. It was drained two days before your mother’s death.”

“By whom?”

“That's unclear. Someone used her private access codes. Could have been her. Could have been someone who knew them.”

“Could have been Ikenna.”

The banker frowned. “That name doesn’t appear anywhere on the paperwork.”

“Doesn’t need to,” Amaka said softly. “He was the ghost she created. I’m just trying to bury him.”

Uju received another message. Anonymous again.

“You’re her weakness. Stop acting like her shadow. Ask her what she promised you in 2015.”

Uju stared at the text for a long time.

2015. 
      

The year she dropped out of law school.

The year Amaka paid her rent for six months… in exchange for something they never spoke of again.

She stood up suddenly, heart racing, and grabbed her car keys.

This time, she wasn’t waiting for Amaka to come to her.

At the CID, Musa finally got a lead.

An elderly janitor at the catering compound remembered Moses.

“Quiet boy,” he said. “Didn’t talk much. But he was scared. Sweated a lot. Said he’d messed up.”

“Messed up how?” Musa asked.

“Didn’t say. Just kept saying, ‘I gave it to the wrong person. I gave it to the wrong person.’ Over and over.”

“When was this?”

“The night after the wedding. Before he disappeared.”

Uju arrived at the estate uninvited, again. This time, she didn’t care.

Amaka met her in the front foyer.

“You look flushed,” Amaka said. “Bad traffic?”

“You lied to me.”

“That could refer to many things.”

“In 2015, you promised you’d never become her.”

“I tried.”

“You’re worse.”

Amaka folded her arms. “Is this about the wedding? Or the poison? Or are you just angry I’ve changed without asking your permission?”

“You paid me to disappear.”

“No,” Amaka said. “I paid you to survive.”

Uju’s voice trembled. “What did you give him?”

Amaka paused.

“Who?”

“The cook. Moses. What did you hand him that morning? Before the toast.”

Amaka tilted her head.

“You’re fishing.”

“I’m remembering,” Uju snapped. “You sent me to get your shoes. When I came back, he was standing in the hallway, staring at your hands. You flinched when I asked who he was.”

Amaka took a step closer.

“You’re scared,” she said quietly.

“You should be.”

“No. I’m scared for you. Because you’re getting too close to something that doesn’t need your truth.”

Uju turned to leave. “You’re not untouchable, Amaka. No matter how many tears you fake.”

Amaka watched her go.

Then whispered to herself, “They were never fake. Just misplaced.”

Musa drove to Yaba that evening, visiting the shelter Moses had listed as his temporary residence. Most of the staff were volunteers who rotated weekly.

One woman remembered him.

“He didn’t talk much,” she said. “But he left behind a small bag when he ran. Said he’d come back. Never did.”

She handed it over—old, worn leather. Inside: two shirts, a toothbrush, and a small black notebook.

Musa opened it.

Most pages were blank. But toward the end, a scrawl of hurried notes:

“She said it’s just something to help her mum sleep better.”
“Glass must go only to her table. Only hers.”
“Don’t ask questions. Just deliver.”
“Her eyes didn’t match her words.”

Musa closed the notebook slowly.

This wasn’t a professional hit.

This was persuasion.

Control.

Performance.

And the conductor was someone who knew exactly when to cry and when to command.

Back at the estate, Amaka stood alone in her mother’s room.

It had been cleaned. The scent of oud still clung to the drapes, but everything else had been stripped away—clothes donated, cosmetics cleared, secrets buried.

She opened the bottom drawer of the vanity and pulled out a faded photograph.

Her, at ten. Agnes behind her. Arms on her shoulders like a queen posing with her protégé.

But Agnes’s fingers in the photo were clenched.

Even then, she’d held Amaka like something to be claimed—not loved.

She tore the photo in half.

That night, Musa laid out all the pieces on his board.

• Moses: manipulated, maybe accidentally involved. Still missing.
  
  

• Gabriel: compromised, guilty, but not the killer.
  
  

• Ikenna: angry, abandoned, not clean, but not clever enough.
  
  

• Uju: emotionally unstable, but powerless.
  
  

• Bamidele: motive, means, no opportunity.
  
  

• Amaka…
  
  

She had everything.

Motive. Opportunity. Silence.

But no proof.

And worse: she made him believe her.

He stared at her photo—taken at the funeral, in red.

Then reached for a red marker.

And drew a slow, careful circle around her face.

Chapter 10 – The Second Will

The family lawyer, Mr. Akinwale, arrived unannounced.

Amaka was in the conservatory, pruning orchids when the butler told her.

“Did he bring files?” she asked.

“Four,” the butler replied.

She dusted her hands, wiped the clippers with a linen cloth, and said, “Send him in.”

They met in the sunroom, where Agnes used to host her reading club and disarm political enemies with lemon cake and controlled gossip.

Mr. Akinwale looked flustered, sweating beneath his tie.

“I found something,” he said without ceremony.

Amaka crossed her legs, calm. “What sort of something?”

“A second will. Hidden in the archives box from 2021. Dated eight months ago. It wasn’t filed through official channels. Handwritten. No witnesses.”

“Illegal.”

“Technically, yes. But if proven authentic, it complicates everything.”

“Who was named?”

He hesitated. “Not you.”

Amaka didn’t flinch. “Ikenna?”

“No. A trust. The ‘Oluchi Fund’—for underprivileged girls from Eastern Nigeria. Entire estate.”

She exhaled slowly. “That doesn’t sound like her.”

“It might’ve been guilt.”

“No,” Amaka said coldly. “It was strategy. She wanted leverage, even in death.”

Akinwale placed the will on the table between them. “What do you want me to do?”

“Destroy it.”

He didn’t move.

“Or,” she said gently, “I find out how many of your offshore deals she never declared on your behalf.”

He cleared his throat, stood, and tucked the envelope back into his briefcase.

“Always a pleasure, Mrs. Okonkwo.”

That evening, Musa returned to his desk to find yet another note. This time, it wasn’t typed. It was handwritten—elegant cursive.

“She knew about the second will. She buried it before she buried the truth.”

No envelope. No fingerprint.

He sighed. Someone was playing games.

He tapped the side of his mug with his pen.

Then made a call.

“Pull every legal document filed under the Emecheta Foundation in the last 12 months. And get me handwriting samples for Amaka and Agnes. I want a match.”

At the estate, Chuka confronted Amaka in the upstairs hallway.

“Did you threaten the lawyer?”

She didn’t stop walking. “Define threaten.”

“I saw his face when he left. He looked like he’d seen a ghost.”

“He saw the consequences of disloyalty.”

Chuka stepped in front of her.

“This is getting out of hand.”

“You didn’t marry a saint, Chuka.”

“I didn’t marry a weapon either.”

She stared at him. “Then maybe you married the wrong Emecheta.”

He didn’t reply.

Just stepped aside.

And that was enough.

Uju returned to her apartment and found the envelope on her pillow.

It was sealed with wax.

Inside: a photograph.

A clear shot of Amaka and Moses Edem—outside a drugstore in Lekki, two days before the wedding. She was handing him a white paper bag.

On the back, in red ink: “Still her friend?”

Uju sat on the edge of the bed, gripping the photo.

There were only two people who could’ve taken this.

And only one who would send it.

Musa finally traced the Uyo transfer—the one that emptied the fake Foundation account.

The account it landed in was under a corporate name, but the registration address pointed to a boutique apartment in Ikoyi.

Owned, as it turned out, by a shell company under Amaka Okonkwo Enterprises.

Registered six weeks before Agnes’s death.

He stared at the address.

Then stood.

When he arrived, Amaka wasn’t surprised.

“Detective,” she said, opening the door herself. “Come to arrest me?”

“I came to talk.”

“Then talk.”

They sat opposite each other, coffee between them, windows open to let in the breeze.

Musa spoke first.

“I’ve traced the money.”

“I assumed you would.”

“I know about the cook. The will. The offshore moves. Even the footage.”

“Then you must know I didn’t kill her.”

Musa leaned forward. “No, Amaka. I think you made her kill herself.”

Silence.

He continued. “You didn’t pour the poison. But you fed her fear. You made her feel it coming. And then… you let her sip it herself.”

She smiled.

“Impressive theory.”

“But I can’t prove any of it,” Musa said. “Not without the glass. Not without the cook. Not without someone making a mistake.”

She tilted her head. “And I don’t make mistakes.”

Musa stood.

He walked to the door.

Paused.

“She trained you well.”

“She built me to survive her.”

“She didn’t expect you to win.”

“She didn’t think she’d lose.”

Musa opened the door.

One foot out, he turned.

“You’re free, Amaka. But not innocent.”

She raised her glass.

“To survival,” she said.

He left.

And behind the door, she finally exhaled.

Chapter 11 – The Ghost File

The file was labeled simply: “Inheritance – Contingency.”

Tucked in a locked cabinet in Agnes’s private home office—not the study everyone knew about, but the smaller one behind the guest bedroom, disguised as a linen closet. Only the housekeeper, Mama Tutu, had the original key. And she’d never dared open it.

Until now.

She brought the folder to Amaka at dawn, eyes cast down. “I didn’t want to find this,” she said. “But you should see it.”

Amaka opened the file slowly, calmly.

Inside: photocopies of adoption documents.

For her.

She blinked.

Twice.

She turned the papers over. They were dated two years before she turned five. Her name—Amaka Grace Emecheta—was written in a different ink from the signature below it.

“Not biological,” she whispered.

Tucked behind the documents was a letter—never sent, addressed to a woman named Oluchi Nwankwo.

“You gave me a broken child. I fixed her. She belongs to me now. You will not contact us again.”

Amaka’s fingers trembled slightly as she folded the papers back into the file.

She stood, quiet.

“Burn it,” she told Mama Tutu.

The woman hesitated.

“I said burn it.”

Tutu took the file and left.

Amaka went to her mother’s mirror—the grand one Agnes had imported from Paris, gilded edges, heavy as memory—and stared at herself.

The perfect daughter.

The heir.

The stranger.

Detective Musa hadn’t slept. His office was a mess of open files, coffee-stained notes, and surveillance photos.

He stared at the corkboard: faces, receipts, timelines, red yarn crisscrossing like veins.

Amaka’s photo—her wedding portrait—was at the center.

He tapped his pen against her face.

She hadn’t cracked.

She hadn’t blinked.

Even when he confronted her about the shell companies, about the money trail, about Moses.

She’d simply… stared.

There was only one thing left: Moses himself.

And that meant finding the body—or finding the silence.

Uju sat in her car outside the Emecheta Foundation office, gripping the photo she’d been sent.

She had a choice.

She could take it to the press.

Or she could take it to Amaka.

Her hands were shaking. Her heart beat like a drum in a distant forest.

She started the engine.

And turned toward the estate.

Amaka was waiting on the balcony when Uju arrived. She already had two glasses of wine poured.

“You got it,” Amaka said as Uju entered. “The photo.”

“You knew?”

“I sent it.”

Uju froze. “Why?”

“To see if you’d betray me.”

“You’re insane.”

“No,” Amaka said. “I’m free. Finally.”

Uju stepped forward. “Why him? Why Moses?”

Amaka didn’t blink. “Because I needed someone afraid enough to obey and dumb enough to vanish.”

“You used him.”

“I used everyone. I had to. It was the only language she taught me.”

Uju looked down at the wineglass in front of her. Didn’t touch it.

“She would’ve destroyed me in that will,” Amaka continued. “She was preparing to hand everything to a lie.”

“She raised you.”

“She kept me.”

Silence.

Then Uju asked, “What happens now?”

Amaka smiled. “Now? We pretend none of this ever happened.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“You can. Because you need me.”

“No,” Uju said. “I need to live with myself.”

She turned to go.

Amaka didn’t follow.

Didn’t beg.

Just whispered, “Then don’t look back.”

Uju didn’t.

That night, Musa got a call from an informant.

“I know where he is,” the voice said. “The cook.”

“Alive?”

“Yes. But he wants protection.”

Musa stood up. “Where is he?”

A pause.

Then:

“He’s at the harbor. He was trying to leave on a cargo boat. But he’s scared.”

Musa arrived just as the boat lights flickered in the distance. He spotted the young man crouched behind a stack of crates.

“Moses Edem?” he called.

The boy flinched. Turned.

“Yes.”

“I’m here to help you.”

Moses stepped out, slow, hands raised. “She’s going to kill me.”

“Who?”

“You know who.”

“I need your statement,” Musa said. “I need the truth.”

Moses looked around. Eyes darting.

Then nodded.

Meanwhile, Amaka stared out her window, sipping tea. Not wine tonight.

Calm.

Still.

When Mama Tutu entered and told her there had been a police sighting at the harbor, she only nodded.

Then picked up her phone.

And made a single call.

“Activate Plan B,” she said.

Then hung up.

Chapter 12 – Silence at Sea

Musa locked the car doors as the harbor fog thickened.

Moses Edem sat in the passenger seat, clutching a plastic bottle of water, his eyes scanning every shadow outside.

“I didn’t mean for her to die,” he said.

Musa kept his hands on the steering wheel. “Tell me everything.”

“I was hired by the agency on Tuesday. I didn’t know the client until I got the roster Friday morning. That was when I realized—Agnes Emecheta.”

“And?”

“She terrified me. Not directly. But the staff… the way they spoke about her. Like she saw everything. Controlled everything. And her daughter—” Moses hesitated. “She approached me the morning of the wedding.”

“Where?”

“Kitchen hallway. She gave me a small paper bag. Said it was a sleep supplement. Liquid form. For her mother. Told me to pour it into a specific glass of champagne. Only one.”

“She say why?”

“She said her mother had anxiety. That it would keep her calm during the ceremony. I… I believed her. She looked sad. Tired. Honest.”

Musa didn’t speak.

Moses continued, “After it happened… when Agnes collapsed… I panicked. I checked the bag again. I realized it wasn’t just melatonin. I saw the vial. The chemical code. I knew I’d been set up.”

“You tried to run.”

“I didn’t know what else to do. I knew no one would believe me. And now—if she finds out I’m talking to you, I’m dead.”

“She won’t,” Musa said.

But even he didn’t believe it.

At the estate, Amaka sat alone in the music room, playing slow keys on the grand piano her mother never let her touch as a child.

Three notes. Pause. Three again.

Behind her, the security chief entered.

“It’s done,” he said. “Boat’s gone. Clean. No trace.”

She nodded. “No witnesses?”

He hesitated.

“There was a cop,” he said. “But no one saw us.”

She played another note. “Then let it drown.”

But Musa wasn’t on the boat.

He’d lied.

He knew better than to dangle bait without building a trap.

The Moses sitting in that car wasn’t the real one—but a decoy. A brave volunteer who owed Musa a favor and had a passable resemblance under a hoodie.

The real Moses was two hours outside Lagos, hidden in a safe house.

Musa stared at the burnt husk of the cargo boat the next morning, lips pressed together.

A warning. A message.

But not a loss.

Not yet.

Chuka watched the news from their bedroom. Cargo boat fire. No casualties reported. No identified victims. Police “investigating.”

When Amaka walked in, he turned off the TV.

“Everything okay?” he asked carefully.

“Just tired.”

“You didn’t sleep.”

“No.”

“Can we talk?”

She glanced at him. “We live together. Talk.”

“About your mother.”

Amaka raised an eyebrow. “She’s dead. The subject is closed.”

“She’s not dead in here,” he said, tapping his chest. “She’s still between us.”

“Then you should exorcise her.”

“I can’t,” he whispered. “Because every day, you remind me of her.”

Amaka turned.

“I’m not Agnes.”

“Then prove it.”

She walked out.

He didn’t follow.

Uju packed her bags.

She couldn’t stay in Lagos anymore. Not with this silence hanging around her neck like rope.

Amaka hadn’t threatened her directly. She didn’t need to.

But the photo. The red ink. The look in her eyes.

Uju called Musa from an unregistered line.

“I need to leave.”

“I need you here,” Musa replied. “You're the only one who’s close enough to touch her shadow.”

“I'm not dying for your case.”

“You’re not dying. You’re protecting.”

“Protecting who?”

“Everyone she hasn’t decided to erase yet.”

Musa finally visited the hospital morgue. Not for Agnes. But for another body.

An unnamed man, recovered near Tarkwa Bay. Drowned. Face disfigured. No ID.

But the clothes were familiar.

The chef whites. Slight tear on the collar. A stain that looked like old champagne.

Musa stared down at the sheet.

Then turned to the mortician. “This isn’t Moses.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

He walked out of the morgue and into the morning heat, mind reeling.

She had planned it all. A fake Moses to kill. A false trail to close the loop.

Only she hadn’t accounted for the fact that he had done the same.

That night, Amaka sat with a fresh glass of wine and a burning pile of old photographs. Childhood memories. School portraits. Family trips she pretended were happy.

She didn’t cry.

Just watched the faces turn to ash.

Then she added one more item to the flames:

The last page of her mother’s secret journal.

The only one that mattered.

“She will rise. She will conquer. But she will never love. Because I never taught her how.”

The paper curled in the heat.

And Amaka whispered:

“Good.”

Chapter 13 – The Fracture Line

The city was waking up, but the Emecheta estate remained cloaked in silence.

Chuka hadn’t slept. He paced the living room like a man rehearsing a confession—or a confrontation. The walls felt tighter now. The photographs heavier. The woman upstairs increasingly unfamiliar.

He looked at the portrait of Agnes by the staircase. The one she’d had commissioned after being named “Businesswoman of the Year” in CityScope Magazine.

He’d once believed her smile was genuine.

Now he wasn’t so sure.

Upstairs, Amaka wrapped a silk scarf around her hair and studied herself in the mirror. Again.

Every day she checked for cracks. But none had appeared.

The call came just before 8 a.m.

A familiar voice.

Musa.

“Moses is alive. He’s safe. He’s talking.”

Amaka said nothing.

“You tried to end this quietly, but I’m still here. Still watching. Still listening.”

She stared at her reflection.

“You’re good, Amaka. But you’re not untouchable.”

Then a click. Line dead.

She placed the phone down slowly.

Her heart did not race.

Uju was at the airport.

Backpack. Sunglasses. No makeup. No forwarding address.

She stared out the terminal windows as planes sliced through the sky.

Her phone buzzed. One new message.

Amaka:

“No matter where you go, you’ll always know. And that’s enough.”

Uju deleted the message.

Boarded her flight.

And cried the moment the wheels left the ground.

At the station, Musa took Moses’s official statement.

It was clean. Consistent. Detailed.

It was also useless—on its own.

He had motive, opportunity, even a confession of being used.

But no hard evidence tying Amaka to the actual act of poisoning.

No vial. No video. No voice recording.

She hadn’t needed to do it with her own hands.

She had done something far more dangerous:

She had orchestrated belief.

Back at the estate, Amaka found Chuka waiting for her in the sunroom.

“I made tea,” he said. “Figured we might actually need it this time.”

She sat without responding.

He poured into two cups. Steady hands.

“You look like her more every day.”

Amaka blinked. “You say that like it’s a curse.”

“It is. For me.”

A silence settled.

He leaned forward.

“Did you kill her?”

Amaka tilted her head. “Why ask if you’ve already made up your mind?”

“Because I need to hear it. From you.”

“I didn’t pour the poison,” she said.

“But you made it happen?”

“I ended a war that started before I could speak.”

“She gave you everything.”

“No,” Amaka replied, voice low. “She gave me nothing but chains dressed as diamonds.”

Chuka stared at her for a long moment.

“I want out.”

She didn’t blink. “Then go.”

“You’re not going to fight?”

“I don’t fight people who’ve already surrendered.”

He stood, took the untouched tea, and poured both cups down the sink.

When he left, she didn’t follow.

She simply exhaled.

And whispered, “One less loose thread.”

Musa reviewed the entire case file that night.

All 198 pages.

He rewrote his summary three times.

At the center of it all was a woman with no blood on her hands, but fingerprints on every detail.

A daughter who mourned on schedule.

A killer who never needed to touch the knife.

He closed the file.

Wrote a single word on the last page:

“Untouchable.”

Then locked it in the cabinet.

And walked out of the office.

The next morning, Amaka was announced on Good Morning Nigeria as the official Ambassador for Women’s Legacy Funds—an initiative she had lobbied for herself.

She gave an interview.

Warm.

Sincere.

Tearful at all the right moments.

She spoke about Agnes with reverence. About family. About forgiveness.

The host cried. The audience applauded.

By noon, the clip had gone viral.

Meanwhile, Moses disappeared again.

Voluntarily this time.

Left a note for Musa:

“She wins. I want to live. Please don’t find me.”

Musa read it twice.

Folded it once.

Then burned it over his office sink.

At dusk, Amaka stood before her mother’s grave.

She wore black again, not for mourning, but for clarity.

“I thought you would haunt me,” she said.

“But you don’t.”

She reached into her bag and placed a final item on the headstone: the same vial she’d handed to Moses weeks ago. Emptied. Cleaned. Useless.

Beside it, she set the last page of her private journal:

“To be born of a monster and become a mirror is not destiny. It’s design.”

She stepped back.

Lit a match.

Watched both burn.

And as the fire hissed against the wind, she smiled.

The past was ash.

And the future belonged only to her.

Chapter 14 – The Puppetmaster

The gala hall at Landmark Towers gleamed under a constellation of crystal chandeliers. Gold-rimmed wine glasses. White orchids. High-profile donors. Laughter layered over jazz.

In the center of it all: Amaka Okonkwo-Emecheta.

Dressed in a structured black velvet gown with a slit just high enough to spark whispers, she floated through the room, all soft smiles and practiced humility. Tonight was the official launch of the Agnes Emecheta Legacy Foundation. The new face of compassion. Reform. Empowerment.

“Your mother would be proud,” someone said.

Amaka turned to face the speaker. A woman from the Ministry of Women Affairs.

“She’d be furious,” Amaka replied with a small smile. “She preferred things quiet. Controlled. Hidden.”

The woman laughed, not catching the edge beneath the words.

At the far end of the gala, Musa stood at the open bar, watching.

He hadn’t RSVP’d.

No one had expected him.

He wore a dark suit, no tie. No drink in hand. Just eyes.

He watched Amaka move through the crowd like a conductor. The way she made eye contact. The perfect rhythm of her smiles. The pauses. The pivots. The precision.

There were no mistakes in her performance.

Except one.

She approached him.

“Detective,” she said smoothly, “I didn’t think this was your scene.”

“I don’t usually attend funerals in disguise.”

“This isn’t a funeral.”

“It’s a wake,” Musa said. “For the truth.”

She sipped her champagne. “Then let it rest.”

He leaned in slightly. “You should’ve stopped at silence. But now you're too visible. Too perfect. Even mirrors crack under pressure.”

“And yet, you still haven’t arrested me.”

“I don’t arrest ghosts,” he said. “Especially when they’re still deciding who to haunt next.”

She laughed softly. “Is that your way of saying goodbye?”

“No,” Musa replied. “It’s a warning.”

Then he walked away.

And for the first time in weeks, Amaka watched someone leave—and didn’t know what they’d do next.

After the gala, Amaka returned to the estate alone. No security. No driver. She dismissed them all.

She walked barefoot through the corridors, her gown trailing behind her like a train of smoke. Past her mother’s room. Past the study. To the wine cellar beneath the house.

She unlocked the door.

Inside, on the far wall, behind the aged Bordeaux and locked drawer cabinets, was a safe.

She opened it.

Inside were several items: a burner phone, a sealed envelope, a memory card.

She removed the card and inserted it into the monitor nearby.

It was a recording.

Grainy. But clear enough.

Agnes. In her room. Speaking to someone off-camera.

“If anything happens to me, the blame will fall where I choose to place it. That’s the gift of being feared. They’ll believe whatever I want them to believe.”

Amaka watched in silence.

“Even if it’s my daughter.”

Pause.

“Especially if it’s her.”

The camera shook. Agnes laughed softly.

“She’s clever. But I made her. And I never taught her how to be merciful.”

Amaka paused the video.

Ejected the card.

Lit a match.

And set it on fire.

She whispered, “You didn’t teach me to be merciful. You taught me to survive.”

The next morning, CityScope Magazine released a cover story:
“The New Face of Power: Amaka Okonkwo-Emecheta’s Rise After Ruin”

It featured photographs from the gala, interviews with former staffers, and excerpts from Amaka’s keynote speech. It praised her poise, her vision, her resilience.

Musa read the article in silence.

Then tore it in half.

At the Ministry, a junior aide placed a sealed brown envelope on the Commissioner’s desk.

“There’s something you need to see,” she whispered.

Inside: a handwritten note and a flash drive.

The note read:

“Don’t believe the face. Believe the pattern.”

The drive contained financial transactions linking the foundation to four shell accounts, each barely a week old. The amounts were small, but the pattern was clear.

Money was moving.

And not all of it was going where the brochures claimed.

At the estate, Amaka stood on the balcony again.

A knock came at the door behind her.

Mama Tutu entered quietly.

“You have a visitor.”

“Who?”

“She didn’t give her name. Just said she’s... family.”

Amaka turned.

Walked to the stairwell.

And froze.

At the bottom of the stairs stood an elderly woman.

Simple wrapper. No makeup. Bare arms. A face Amaka had never seen in person.

But recognized instantly.

“Oluchi Nwankwo,” she whispered.

The woman nodded.

“I heard what you did to her.”

“I did what I had to,” Amaka said.

“She raised you.”

“She claimed me. Not the same thing.”

Oluchi stepped forward, slowly. “You can run from blood, Amaka. But you can’t outrun origin. One day, it catches up.”

Amaka looked at her for a long time.

Then said quietly, “Let it try.”

Chapter 15 – The Woman Who Knew Too Much

Amaka sat across from Oluchi Nwankwo in the private sitting room, the air between them taut like a drawn bowstring.

“You should have stayed gone,” Amaka said, pouring herself tea.

“I stayed gone long enough to know what you became.”

Amaka stirred slowly. “Then you know I don’t respond well to threats.”

“I’m not here to threaten you,” Oluchi replied. “I’m here to remind you.”

“Of what?”

“That you weren’t born of her.”

Amaka laughed. “And yet I killed like her.”

Oluchi flinched slightly at the brazenness.

“You’re proud of it?”

“No,” Amaka said, sipping calmly. “But I’m not ashamed either.”

Silence stretched.

“You’ve built an empire on her ashes,” Oluchi said.

“No,” Amaka replied. “I built a shelter from her fire.”

Across town, at the Ministry of Women Affairs, the Commissioner’s office hummed with suppressed tension. The financial report had reached her desk. Anonymous source. Clear trails.

Four shell accounts.

Minor but irregular withdrawals.

All tied to the Agnes Emecheta Foundation.

The Commissioner’s assistant knocked once and entered. “Should we call the press?”

“Not yet,” the Commissioner said. “She’s too clean. Too loved. We’d look like vultures.”

“What do we do?”

“We wait,” she said. “Everyone slips. Even the ones in pearls.”

Chuka sat at his office, staring at divorce papers.

He hadn’t signed yet.

Some days, he wondered if the silence was safer than the scandal.

He still loved her.

Or maybe he still loved the version of her he married—the one with eyes full of hope and a voice that trembled when she spoke about the future.

But that woman was gone.

Replaced by someone who didn’t tremble. Ever.

His phone buzzed.

A number he didn’t recognize.

He answered.

“Mr. Okonkwo,” the voice said. “We have something you might want to see.”

Musa stood outside the Lagos Internal Audit Bureau, a plain folder in hand.

Inside: printouts from the burned memory card he had recovered before Amaka got to the safe.

Backup copies.

Agnes's final words on record.

She hadn’t left a suicide note.

But she’d left enough paranoia behind to fuel a thousand questions.

And Musa was ready to ask them all.

Back at the estate, Oluchi rose to leave.

“I came here thinking I’d speak to a daughter,” she said. “Instead, I met a fortress.”

Amaka stood as well.

“I became what I had to become.”

“That doesn’t make it right.”

“Right?” Amaka laughed. “In Lagos? Power is the only thing that justifies itself.”

Oluchi shook her head. “She made you into her.”

“No,” Amaka said coldly. “I made myself into the woman she feared.”

As Oluchi left, she passed Mama Tutu in the hallway. The old housekeeper gave her a brief nod—half-respect, half-warning.

And then Amaka was alone again.

She walked to her mother’s old mirror and stood there.

Not brushing her hair.

Not adjusting her makeup.

Just staring.

And for the first time, the reflection looked tired.

Not broken.

But tired.

At the CID office, Musa received the photos Chuka had been sent.

Grainy screenshots from security footage—likely leaked from a member of the kitchen staff.

A still frame of Amaka handing a waiter a small white envelope.

Not Moses.

But close.

Musa squinted.

Then called the lab.

“Run a frame analysis on all kitchen footage from the morning of the wedding. I want every movement tracked. Every handoff. Every interaction. Timeline them to the second.”

“Still chasing ghosts?” the tech replied.

“No,” Musa said. “I’m finally catching one.”

That evening, Amaka received a message.

No name.

No number.

Just one line.

The mirror is cracking. You might want to look away.

She stared at it for a full minute.

Then deleted it.

Then walked upstairs.

Then took a hammer from the bottom drawer of her mother’s closet.

And smashed the grand mirror into jagged dust.

Chapter 16 – Agnes’s Shadow

The shards of the shattered mirror lay scattered across the marble floor like frozen screams.

Amaka stood above them, barefoot, motionless. One piece caught the light and reflected a sliver of her face—just the eye, framed by a spray of blood.

She had cut herself.

But she didn’t feel it.

Not yet.

At the State CID, Detective Musa clicked through the newly enhanced footage frame by frame.

In the final composite, two scenes aligned:

• Frame 143: Amaka hands Moses a small paper bag.
  
  

• Frame 211: Moses delivers the champagne to Agnes, alone, not part of the tray with the other drinks.
  
  

• Frame 212: Amaka walks past the rear corridor—empty-handed—her eyes flickering toward her mother’s table.
  
  

Not direct evidence.

But damning choreography.

A story told without words.

Musa sat back in his chair, exhaled slowly.

He had seen killers with worse tells.

He had arrested women who wept more convincingly.

But he had never watched a murder played like a symphony.

Until now.

Uju’s flight landed in Accra, but she hadn’t told anyone—not even her sister.

She checked into a small boutique hotel, drew the curtains, and collapsed onto the bed without unpacking.

Her phone buzzed three times.

All messages from Nigerian numbers.

She ignored them.

But one caught her eye.

Unknown Number:

"You disappeared once. Don’t make it permanent. You still owe the truth."

She blocked the number.

But she didn’t delete the message.

Chuka sat across from the journalist at a quiet café near Ikeja GRA.

“I’m not sure I want to do this,” he said.

The journalist—a young woman with box braids and tired eyes—nodded. “You probably shouldn’t.”

“Then why did you call me?”

“Because your silence helps her story. And if the truth matters, someone has to ruin the ending.”

Chuka said nothing.

She slid a recorder across the table.

“Even off the record,” she said, “her version of events can’t be the only one left standing.”

Amaka sat in her late mother’s chair—Agnes’s infamous writing chair, the one reserved for letters, donations, and declarations—and reread the last few articles about her.

She was a star now.

A social icon. The “New Woman of Lagos.”

She was invited to speak at conferences. To cut ribbons at foundations she hadn’t funded. To sit on panels about grief, legacy, and female empowerment.

She was everything Agnes pretended to be.

But for how long?

She turned to Mama Tutu.

“Has anyone checked on the media team’s NDA renewals?”

“Yes, ma.”

“And the burner phones?”

“Destroyed.”

“The backups?”

“In the secondary vault.”

“Good.”

Pause.

“Send the driver. I want to go to the beach.”

Detective Musa drove alone to the shelter Moses had been hiding in before the first attempt on his life.

The place was mostly abandoned now.

But the caretaker handed him a note that had been left the week prior.

“If they find me again, I won’t run. I’ll disappear for good.”

Musa folded the note.

He didn’t know if Moses was bluffing—or already dead.

But one thing was clear: the longer Amaka stayed untouched, the more people faded in her shadow.

At Elegushi Beach, Amaka stood barefoot in the surf.

Not for a photoshoot.

Not for a performance.

Just her.

The waves lapped around her ankles like something ancient, whispering, pulling.

Her phone buzzed.

A message from her private number. One no one was meant to have.

“She wrote a final letter. Not the will. The one she hid from you. You missed it.”

Amaka read it twice.

The wind picked up.

She walked back to the car.

“Take me to the vault,” she said.

That night, she opened the secondary safe behind the piano wall.

It held Agnes’s journals, printouts, copies of transfers, notes, old campaign donations.

She sorted through them one by one.

Until she found an envelope taped behind the drawer.

Old. Yellowed. Unmarked.

She opened it.

Inside was a handwritten letter.

To her.

“Amaka, if you’re reading this, I’m already gone. You think you won. You didn’t. I made you exactly as I intended—efficient, feared, untouchable. But I never made you whole. That part, you needed to fight for. If you didn’t, then you’re already dead. Just like me.”

Her hand trembled for the first time in months.

Because for once, her mother hadn’t threatened her.

She had simply… known her.

Too well.

Chapter 17 – The Confession Trap

Detective Musa sat in the back booth of a quiet lounge in Surulere, stirring a cup of coffee he had no intention of drinking. Across from him, the journalist—Aisha Tunde—scanned the timeline pinned to her notebook.

“She controlled every narrative,” Aisha said. “Every leak. Every retraction. Even the people who hated her were afraid to speak.”

“She was trained by the best,” Musa muttered.

“Her mother.”

He nodded.

“Agnes was a tyrant, but she was obvious. Amaka? She smiles while burying bodies.”

Musa reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small black device.

“Let’s make her smile on tape.”

At the estate, Amaka reviewed the new Foundation campaign footage.

She gave notes on lighting, music, phrasing. She asked for more emphasis on ‘resilience,’ less on ‘charity.’

Mama Tutu entered softly. “Detective Musa is at the gate.”

Amaka didn’t hesitate. “Let him in.”

She wore black again.

Not mourning.

Command.

They met in the drawing room, where Agnes had once hosted governors and terrified journalists.

Amaka stood. “No warning today?”

“I figured you'd already see me coming.”

“Still chasing ghosts?”

“I brought you something.”

He placed a file on the table.

Photos. Documents. Screenshots.

Amaka flipped through them.

Moses. The cook. Alive.

The burner transactions.

The photo of her and the white envelope.

The footage frame analysis.

It was everything. All laid bare.

“Why show me this?” she asked calmly.

“Because I want you to tell me the truth.”

“I thought you didn’t arrest ghosts.”

“I don’t,” Musa said. “But I talk to them. One last time. Before they vanish.”

She studied him. “What do you want, Musa?”

“Closure.”

She stood, walked to the window, then turned back.

“You want a confession.”

“I want to know why.”

She was silent for a long moment.

Then: “She made me into a weapon. I simply aimed myself.”

“Was it worth it?”

“She would have destroyed me, Musa. You know that now.”

“I do.”

“She tried to disinherit me. Replace me with a lie. Humiliate me even in death.”

“But she didn’t kill herself.”

“No,” Amaka said softly. “But I gave her the fear that finished the job.”

He hit stop on the recorder under the table.

She hadn’t confessed directly. But the weight of implication was undeniable.

“Is that enough?” Aisha had asked earlier.

“It’ll never be enough to arrest her,” Musa had said. “But it’ll be enough to ruin her.”

The next morning, the clip hit the press.

Not the full conversation.

Just Amaka’s voice:

“She made me into a weapon. I simply aimed myself.”

The public response was immediate.

Praise turned to doubt. Op-eds questioned the carefully curated legacy. The Foundation’s upcoming partnership with the federal government was ‘indefinitely postponed.’

Corporate sponsors began pulling out.

And for the first time, Amaka had no counter-narrative.

She said nothing.

No statement.

No press release.

No Instagram post.

She simply… disappeared.

Three days later, Musa received a package at the station.

No return address.

Inside: a single item.

A gold bracelet with the inscription:
"To my Amaka — The last flame.”

And beneath it, a note:

You’ve played your part well, Detective. But this is not a game I intend to lose.

That same evening, a fire broke out at the Emecheta Foundation headquarters.

No injuries.

No suspects.

But every file, every contract, every record… gone.

The building was declared a total loss.

Chapter 18 – The Final Puzzle

The Emecheta Foundation headquarters burned for seven hours.

Fire crews arrived late. Delayed “by traffic.” Surveillance feeds? Offline—“scheduled maintenance.” Neighbouring offices had no useful footage. It was, officially, an accident.

Unofficially, it was arson. Elegant. Clean. Total.

Musa stood across the street that morning, watching the smoke curl like a secret.

“Everything inside?” Aisha asked beside him.

“Everything that mattered.”

“Records?”

“Gone.”

“Testimonies?”

“Dead weight without paper.”

She stared at the ashes. “She erased herself.”

“No,” Musa said. “She buried the evidence. She’s not running. She’s waiting.”

In a rented apartment on the outskirts of Abuja, Amaka poured herself a cup of black tea. No cream. No sugar. No pearls.

She sat on a small balcony overlooking nothing—just cracked streets and electrical wires.

The TV was off. The phone was silent. The world was spinning without her now.

And yet, she felt… lighter.

She opened her notebook.

The one with no names, no dates—only lessons.

At the top of today’s page, she wrote:

“Power isn’t about being untouchable. It’s about being untraceable.”

She drew a line beneath it.

Then flipped the page.

Uju watched the news from Accra.

Amaka’s clip had vanished from the networks—scrubbed clean within 48 hours.

The Foundation fire was already being blamed on faulty wiring. Public sympathy was rising again.

A “grieving daughter,” forced into hiding.

It didn’t surprise her.

What surprised her was the email.

No name. No greeting.

Just one line:

“You were always my softest edge. Thank you for staying sharp.”

She stared at the screen for a long time.

Then deleted it.

And booked another month at the hotel.

Chuka filed for divorce quietly.

No press. No drama. No accusations.

Just three signatures.

When the court clerk asked for a reason, he wrote: “Irreconcilable truths.”

That night, he drank alone.

Then took the wedding photo off his shelf.

And tore it straight down the middle.

At the State CID, Musa closed the file labeled “Case #4037 – Emecheta, Agnes (Death of)”.

He placed it in a sealed archive box.

Labelled it: Unresolved.

Then sat back and stared at the ceiling.

She had won.

Not because she walked free—but because she made truth optional.

Like her mother.

Only better.

More elegant.

More dangerous.

He looked down at the gold bracelet she’d sent him.

He hadn’t returned it.

Not out of sentiment.

But as a reminder.

Monsters didn’t always roar.

Sometimes, they sipped tea in silence.

Two weeks later, a new foundation was announced in Ghana.

The G. Foundation.

Its mission: support women rebuilding after family trauma.

The founder? Anonymous.

The funding? Untraceable.

But the logo?

A gold phoenix, rising from ashes.

Stylised in the shape of the letter A.

Amaka watched the digital press release from her phone.

She didn’t smile.

But her reflection in the screen did.

And for the first time, that was enough.

Chapter 19 – The Girl in the Video

Three months had passed.

The buzz had faded. The gala speeches forgotten. The fire ruled as an accident. Musa transferred to a new department—financial crimes. Clean cases. Predictable suspects.

But the Emecheta file never left his drawer.

He thought about burning it.

Often.

Until the footage arrived.

It came in a slim brown envelope.

No return address.

No fingerprints.

No message.

Just a flash drive.

Musa sat alone in his living room. Curtains drawn. Laptop open.

The footage was dated the morning of the wedding.

7:49 a.m.

A hallway camera. Not one tied to the estate's main network—likely a personal camera set up by private security. Off-grid.

It showed the staff wing. Quiet. Empty.

Then—movement.

A young girl. 13, maybe 14.

She moved quietly, carrying a tray.

She wore a veil over her face, light lace gloves, and flat shoes. Not a waitress. Not a guest.

She entered the bridal suite.

Five minutes later, she exited empty-handed.

Musa paused the footage.

Zoomed in.

The lace gloves.

The gloves Amaka had claimed were a bridal fashion accessory—"to honor tradition."

But in this video, she wasn't wearing them.

Someone else was.

He replayed the moment again and again.

Then checked the timestamp.

7:49 a.m.

Agnes died after 2 p.m.

This wasn’t the poisoning.

This was the preparation.

The next morning, Musa returned to the estate grounds.

The house had been locked up. Cleaned. Unused.

But the gardener still came once a week.

Musa walked the back path, down to the detached servant quarters.

Knocked.

Mama Tutu opened the door.

“You’re not supposed to be here.”

“I know,” Musa said. “But I need to ask you one last question.”

She looked tired. Older. As if five years had passed in three months.

“I’m retired,” she said.

“But you remember everything.”

She stared at him.

Then stepped aside.

Inside, he placed a photo on the table.

A still frame from the video.

The girl’s eyes were visible now. Big. Unfamiliar. But undeniably watching.

“Who is this?” he asked.

Mama Tutu looked down.

For a long time.

Then quietly: “Her name was Adaeze.”

“Who was she?”

“She was… part of the house. Quiet girl. Came in through one of Madam’s staffers. Stayed out of sight. Did small errands.”

“Whose errands?”

Mama Tutu didn’t answer.

“You knew,” Musa said.

“She said the girl was being trained. Taught to be useful. Like Amaka was.”

“Trained by who?”

Mama Tutu looked up.

And said it without fear:

“Amaka.”

Musa drove straight to the internal surveillance archive, his clearance long since expired, but his presence still respected.

He requested backup footage from the bridal suite hallway, dated a week before the wedding.

After hours of fast-forwarding, he found her again.

Adaeze.

Always in the periphery.

Running messages. Picking up packages. Carrying sealed bags.

Never speaking.

Always watching.

He checked her entry in the estate’s staff records.

There wasn’t one.

No surname. No ID. No tax file.

Nothing.

Just a name Amaka had written in a side note six months ago: “A. – silent runner.”

He knew what it meant.

She never intended to leave fingerprints.

She’d left another her.

An echo.

Back in Abuja, Amaka walked the dusty path to a local market, dressed in jeans and a simple blouse. No heels. No handlers. No makeup.

She paid in cash.

She never lingered.

At home, she fed the stray cat that waited outside her door each morning.

She lived like a ghost.

But tonight, she waited.

Because she knew something had changed.

She felt it.

And when her private line rang—only once every few months—she answered on the second ring.

No greeting.

Just Musa’s voice.

“She was a child.”

Silence.

“You used her.”

More silence.

Then Amaka said softly, “I taught her.”

“To poison.”

“No. To protect herself.”

“You made her your shadow.”

Amaka stared out the window.

“Better a shadow than a sacrifice.”

“Where is she now?”

Amaka hung up.

In a church-run orphanage outside Port Harcourt, a girl with sharp eyes swept the hallway in silence.

She wore lace gloves.

And when asked her name, she simply said:

“A.”

Chapter 20 – The Last Toast

Six months later, Lagos had moved on.

Agnes Emecheta was remembered in newspaper columns and dusty portraits on NGO walls. Her daughter, Amaka, remained absent from public view. The fire at the Foundation was declared an unfortunate tragedy. No charges. No arrests. No answers.

Just stories.

And somewhere inside the silence, a legend was growing.

Detective Musa sat on a bench by the Lagos Marina, staring at the water. He had just been promoted—Superintendent now—but the case file still haunted his thoughts.

He knew what happened.

He knew how it was done.

But he had no proof, no witnesses, no physical evidence—just a girl who vanished, a city that wanted heroes, and a woman too polished to be punished.

He had seen many things in his career.

But never anyone like Amaka.

He took out a slip of paper he’d kept folded in his wallet. A printout of the quote she once said—recorded just before she vanished from the public eye.

“She made me into a weapon. I simply aimed myself.”

He folded the paper again. Put it away.

And whispered, “Well played.”

That same evening, at a quiet rooftop lounge in Accra, a private event was taking place. Just twenty guests. No press.

A fundraiser.

For a new foundation.

Not the Agnes Emecheta Foundation.

This one had no name on the banner.

Just a symbol:
A gold phoenix, its wings shaped into the letter A.

Amaka stood at the edge of the rooftop in a backless silk dress, hair tied up, wine glass in hand.

She wasn’t on the guest list. She didn’t need to be.

She owned it.

Across from her, a soft-spoken British venture capitalist raised his glass.

“To rising again,” he said.

Amaka smiled.

“To never falling,” she replied.

They clinked glasses.

And she drank.

Later that night, she stood alone, barefoot on the cool marble floor of her suite.

She opened her private journal—the one no one had ever seen.

And wrote the final line:

“They will remember her name. But they will never know mine.”

She closed the book.

Then turned off the lights.

And disappeared into the night.

THE END.