Chapter 11: A FRAGILE BALANCE

The hospital smelled of antiseptic and weary resignation. Karim had returned there first thing in the morning, though exhaustion pressed into every limb like weights chained to his body. The fluorescent lights overhead glared unforgivingly against his bloodshot eyes, the beeping of machines drummed faintly in his ears, and the corridor seemed longer than any he had walked before.

Irene was awake.

He pushed the door gently and found her sitting up slightly against the pillows, her skin pale, her hair disheveled, but her eyes alive. She offered him a smile—weak, pained, yet steady. It was a smile that should have comforted him, should have reassured him. Instead, it shattered him.

Her courage was unbearable. Her willingness to bear the wound without anger only pressed heavier on the guilt already bending his spine. He moved to her bedside, sat down on the narrow chair, and took her hand in his. Her fingers were warm, softer than he expected, and she did not release him.

She held onto his hand as if to anchor him, the faintest strength behind her grip. The smile lingered

on her lips, though he could see how much it cost her. Karim bowed his head, unable to meet it, unable to carry the weight of her quiet forgiveness.

He felt the burn of tears but forced them back, jaw clenched, chest tight. He would not let himself crumble here, not in front of her.

She muttered something. It was so faint he thought at first he imagined it. He lifted his head, searching her lips, his brow furrowing. “What was that?”

Her voice, barely a whisper, came again, steadier this time though still fragile.

“Karim, stop trying to carry the weight of the world

all by yourself. Be happy for once.”

He froze. The words lodged themselves deep inside him, sharper than any blade.

Be happy? He did not know what happiness meant anymore. His world was duty, grief, guilt, endless chases that ended in blood and carved numbers.

Happiness was a language he no longer spoke.

He looked at her, mouth opening and closing without a sound. But she turned her face away, her eyes shutting, as if to say she had given all the strength she had for those words and no more.

So he sat there, still holding her hand, silent. Minutes stretched into an eternity. Eventually, he let her

fingers slip gently from his and stood. He looked at her one last time before leaving the room.

Outside, her father was pacing. The DSP’s fury from the night before had not wholly ebbed, but Karim noticed now the cracks—the way his hands trembled when he stopped, the redness of his eyes. His wife sat quietly on a bench, rosary beads moving between her fingers, whispering prayers under her breath.

Karim felt the urge to apologize again, to abase himself, but knew it would change nothing. He walked past them both, shoulders heavy, and left the hospital.

He didn’t head straight home.

Instead, Karim stopped briefly at the precinct, dragging his fatigue behind him like a second shadow. The corridors buzzed faintly with activity, officers hunched over desks, files stacked high.

Conversations paused when he walked past, eyes following him with a mix of pity and expectation. He ignored them.

Inside his office, he reached for the phone.

“Salako,” he said the moment the line connected,

“put out an APB for Aisha. I don’t care that we don’t have pictures. Use her name. Use the description from the reports. Start pulling her phone records, bank activity, anything. Someone has to have seen

her.”

There was a pause on the other end. “Boss, without

an image—”

“Do it anyway,” Karim snapped, harsher than intended. He pinched the bridge of his nose, voice softening. “She’s out there. And if she’s out there, she’s either a victim or part of this. I won’t have her vanish because I hesitated.”

When the call ended, he sat back heavily, staring at the ceiling. The word sloppy circled in his mind, relentless. He had let her slip away. He should have had an officer tail her, should have kept her close. Now she was a ghost, and ghosts had a way of

turning into graves.

By the time he reached his own home, the sky was already bright. He slipped out of his shoes and let his body collapse into the reading chair, its familiar worn leather embracing him with the weight of habit. He leaned back, shutting his eyes.

The silence was thick. Too thick.

In his mind, Irene’s voice echoed: stop carrying the weight… be happy.

He stood up and made for his study table , only for his eyes to fall upon the note.

It sat on the table where he had left it, Jemima’s

delicate handwriting catching the light like a whisper

of temptation. He reached for it slowly, almost against his will, and ran a finger along the elegant strokes of her pen. The curves, the precision, even the faint perfume still clinging to the paper—it spoke of a world far removed from his own.

For a moment, he let his mind wander: to her easy smile, her poised movements, the way she had listened at the bar as though his words mattered.

Then guilt crashed in. Irene’s pale smile. Aisha’s

tears. The dead with numbers carved into their flesh.

Karim gritted his teeth, but his thumb did not release the note. Instead, he found himself picking up his

phone. His hand moved before his mind caught up. He typed a message, short and hesitant, and sent it.

The reply came almost instantly.

Within an hour, he was preparing to meet her. He told himself it was for answers. For clarity. For investigation. He could not afford loose ends. She had been at the party—she had witnessed things, and she had walked into his life at the strangest of times. He needed to know who she really was.

But beneath all those rationalizations, a quieter truth beat steadily: he wanted to see her.

—

The bar was quieter that morning than it had been the night of their first encounter. The neon sign still flickered faintly above the door, but inside, the atmosphere was subdued—only a handful of patrons scattered at tables, the bartender wiping glasses behind the counter.

She was already there, sitting at the bar with the poise of someone who had never once in her life felt out of place. Her blouse was simple yet elegant, her jewelry understated but unmistakably expensive. Old money radiated from her in ways that could not be faked.

“Karim,” she said, her voice soft but firm, as if she

had been expecting him all along.

He slid onto the stool across from her, awkward at

first, his hands uncertain. “Jemima.”

They sat in silence for a moment before she tilted her head, studying him. “The party,” she said. “That was… something, wasn’t it?”

Karim exhaled, a humorless chuckle escaping him.

“Something,” he echoed. “More like a nightmare.”

She turned toward him fully, eyes glinting with an

empathy that caught him off guard. “I noticed. The

way you carried yourself… you were working, weren’t you?”

He hesitated, then nodded. There was no point hiding

it now. “Yes. I was. And I failed.”

Her hand moved slightly, as if she had almost

reached for his but thought better of it. “You didn’t fail. You’re still here. You’re still trying. That

counts.”

The words struck something in him, echoing too closely to Irene’s plea at the hospital. He shifted uncomfortably, his throat tight. “I don’t know if that’s enough.”

They fell into easier conversation after that, surprisingly so. She spoke about her life—about being fostered overseas by a wealthy couple who had given her everything but roots. About returning to Nigeria not because she had to, but because she wanted to belong somewhere, to carve out her own identity rather than simply live in someone else’s shadow.

Her story explained everything—the elegance, the cultivated grace, the soft accent, the effortless way she carried old money aesthetics. And it soothed a

paranoia Karim hadn’t even admitted to himself. She wasn’t part of the killings. She wasn’t some planted distraction. She was, by all appearances, just a

coincidence who had walked into his life at the strangest time.

Relief loosened something in his chest. For once, he

didn’t feel hunted in her presence.

They lingered at the bar far longer than he intended. They spoke of things he hadn’t allowed himself to speak of in years—his frustration with the system, his exhaustion, his inability to turn off his mind. She listened without judgment, without agenda, and that, more than anything, disarmed him.

When they finally left, the streets outside had grown busy with midday traffic. She walked beside him,

and he realized he wasn’t ready for the conversation

to end. Neither, it seemed, was she.

One step after another, somehow, they ended up at his place.

The door closed behind them with a soft click. The silence that followed was charged, unfamiliar.

Karim’s home was modest compared to the world she had described, but she walked in without hesitation, looking around with quiet curiosity.

Karim stood there, keys still in hand, watching her. He knew he was at a precipice. Irene’s words still lingered in his mind. Aisha’s face haunted him. The

case files lay waiting at the precinct. But here, in this fragile moment, all of it blurred.

Jemima turned toward him, her expression unreadable. For a long time, neither spoke. The distance between them was heavy with things unspoken, with choices neither of them had yet made