Agnes

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.