CHAPTER 3
The street was quiet except for the soft hum of old transformers. Adanna stood beside her car, the worn picture still in her hand. Her fingers trembled slightly, but she told herself it was just the night breeze. The man in the photo, 'those eyes', she could never forget them, not after everything they had shared.
"Kenechukwu. Rune."
Her heart would not slow down. For years, she had buried his memory, counting him among the dead. But the photo was proof; he was alive. He looked older, sharper, maybe even hardened. The small scar above his eyebrow, the one she had once teased him about, was still there.
She slid into her car and shut the door. The silence felt heavy. She tried to think clearly. Who would send her this? And why now, after five years of silence and pain?
Her phone vibrated. It was a message from an unknown number.
"Stop digging, Adanna. Some ghosts hate the light."
Her breath caught. For a moment, her mind went blank. She looked around no one. Just the shadows of the half-built estate and the distant glow of streetlights. Her journalist's instinct told her one thing: she had stepped into something dangerous.
But she wasn't the same woman she was five years ago. She had seen politicians lie with straight faces, had walked into villages where truth got people killed. Fear didn't stop her anymore, it only sharpened her senses.
She started the engine and drove toward her apartment in Gwarinpa. The road was quiet, only a few night taxis and small pepper-soup joints glowing with yellow bulbs. Abuja at night looks calm on the surface, but chaos is underneath.
As she drove, flashes of memory broke through her thoughts.
Rune, laughing at her in the university newsroom, ink on his hands. Rune, whispering her name during their last night together before everything went wrong.
And then the explosion. The news headline. "Tech Engineer Dies in Factory Blast".
Except… he hadn't.
By the time she got home, it was almost midnight. She placed the photo on her work desk and sat down. Her room was filled with old files, cameras, and piles of papers. Somewhere in those files was the case that ruined her, the one she was working on when Rune disappeared.
She opened her laptop. The screen's blue light caught the tired lines on her face. She typed his name, "Kenechukwu Okafor", into her archived reports. No new results. No recent record. It was like he had vanished from the system.
Then she remembered something. A rumour she once heard about, a secret project connected to government data systems, something Rune had been working on before he "died."
She reached for her phone again, this time calling her contact at the ministry.
"Chidi," she said when he picked up, his voice thick with sleep. "Sorry for the time. I need you to check a name for me."
"Adanna, abeg, it's almost one a.m."
"It's important. Kenechukwu Okafor."
He sighed. "Alright. Give me till morning."
She hung up and leaned back. Her chest felt heavy, but it wasn't fear anymore. It was something deeper. Regret. Hope and pure anger. They all twisted inside her like fire.
She stood up and walked to the window. From her flat on the third floor, she could see the city lights stretching into the night. Abuja looked peaceful, but she knew better. Behind the clean streets and expensive estates were secrets, deadly ones.
Her eyes went back to the photograph. She picked it up again and stared. Rune's eyes seemed to meet hers through the faded paper. That same look was calm, unreadable, and full of something she could never define.
"Why did you come back?" she whispered.
The night didn't answer, but a car horn outside snapped her attention. A black SUV slowed down across the street. Its headlights stayed on for a little too long before driving off.
Her heart raced. Coincidence? Maybe. But her instincts screamed No again.
She turned off the light and stepped back from the window. The shadows of the room seemed to close in around her. Somewhere deep inside, she knew this wasn't just about Rune anymore. Whatever he was involved in, it was bigger than both of them.
And yet, despite the danger, a part of her longed to see him again. Hear his voice. To ask him why he disappeared.
But she also wanted answers.
Because if Rune were alive, then someone had lied. And if someone lied, someone was hiding something.
She picked up her recorder and pressed the red button. "Note one," she said softly. "Subject: Kenechukwu Okafor. Possible survivor of the 2001 Tech Plant Explosion. Investigate links to current corruption cases."
Her voice trembled slightly, but there was steel underneath it. The kind of resolve that made her one of the best journalists in Abuja.
The kind that could get her into serious trouble or killed.