Agnes

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.