Agnes

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.”