ASHES OF TRUTH

The Hunt

A week after the raid, Lagos had already swallowed the story whole.

The city never pauses for grief; it folds tragedy into traffic, turns fear into gossip, then moves on.

But I couldn’t move on. I woke each morning to the same question Where are you, Thomas? and each night to the same answer: Closer than you think.

Sade had arranged for me and the children to stay in a government-owned flat in Yaba concrete walls, one window, two locks.

Every sound outside was suspect: a car idling too long, a footstep in the corridor, the distant click of a camera lens that might have been imagination.

Still, I went back to work.

BACK TO THE NEWSROOM

The building smelled of printer ink and stale coffee, the same as always, but everyone looked at me differently now not Ada the feature writer, but Ada the journalist whose husband had escaped a murder investigation.

Some whispered sympathy. Others watched, waiting for me to c***k.

I didn’t. I wrote.

My editor, Kunle, slid a thin file across my desk.

“They want another piece on the killings,” he said. “Perspective. Human angle.”

“You mean trauma.”

He shrugged. “You write pain better than anyone.”

I forced a smile. “Lucky me.”

But part of me needed that story needed to face what Thomas had done.

Maybe if I wrote it, I could understand him. Or forgive myself.

Working with Sade

Each evening, after the newsroom emptied, I met Sade at a small buka near Tejuosho. We sat in a corner booth, the fan above us squeaking rhythmically like an unending clock.

She looked older than she had a week ago tired eyes, hand bandaged, phone always buzzing.

“He’s off the grid,” she said one night. “No bank traces, no digital activity. But he’s leaving patterns subtle ones.”

“Patterns?”

“Public Wi-Fi pings near crime scenes. Same sequence of login IDs he used years ago when you two shared your router.”

I froze. “He’s taunting us.”

“He’s communicating,” Sade said. “But with who? You, maybe. Or himself.”

She pushed a photo across the table a blurry CCTV still of a man near a pedestrian bridge, wearing a hood.

Even pixelated, I recognized the way he stood, shoulders tilted slightly left.

“That’s him,” I whispered.

Sade sighed. “He wants you to see him.”

Letters from the ghost

Three days later, I found an envelope under my door.

No address, no stamp just my name, written in his handwriting.

Inside: a note on plain paper.

Don’t let them make me a monster. The truth is never that simple.

And beneath it, a pressed hibiscus the same flower he used to leave in my notebook when we were newly married.

My hands trembled.

I wanted to burn it, to throw it away but I couldn’t.

Instead, I hid it inside my reporter’s journal, under drafts of an article titled “The Anatomy of Evil.”

Motherhood and the mask

The children adapted faster than I did.

Muna made friends at the new school; Chika learned to ride a small bicycle in the compound.

Sometimes, watching them, I felt almost normal until something small would shatter the illusion.

Like the day Muna asked, “Mummy, will Daddy ever come home?”

I said, “Maybe.”

And that “maybe” haunted me more than any lie could have.

The digital trail

One night, Sade called.

“Ada, we’ve got a lead. A job-portal account linked to one of Thomas’s old aliases just logged in from an Internet café in Ikeja.”

“You think it’s him?”

“Could be. I need you to come in tomorrow. We’ll set a trap bait him with something only he’d respond to.”

I hesitated. “Bait him how?”

“A message. From you.”

The trap

At the station, Sade handed me a sheet of paper: a fake job posting, supposedly for a cybersecurity consultant the kind of work Thomas used to chase.

At the bottom, I had to add a line only he would recognize.

I wrote:

Because every system deserves a second chance.

It was a phrase he’d once said after fixing my crashed laptop simple, domestic, now poisoned with meaning.

We uploaded the post. Then we waited.

Hours turned into a day, a day into two. Nothing.

Then, on the third evening, Sade called:

“He clicked it. Didn’t apply, but opened the file twice. He’s alive.”

Something inside me twisted relief and dread tangled into one.

“Where?” I asked.

“Somewhere near Surulere again. We’re mapping the signal.”

But even as she spoke, I knew what she didn’t: he was always near Surulere because that was our place where we’d first lived after marriage, where our son was born, where the rain always seemed to fall sideways.

The second message

That night, another envelope waited by my door.

This one had no note just a USB drive.

Sade wanted to confiscate it, but curiosity burned through caution.

When I finally plugged it into my laptop, a single video file appeared.

The thumbnail showed a flicker of candlelight.

I hit play.

Static, then his voice.

“Ada, stop running.”

“You think you’re helping them, but they’re using you. They want your story, not your truth.”

The camera shifted a close shot of his face, pale and calm.

“If you still believe in us, meet me. Just once. Where it all began.”

The video cut to black except for one frame at the end: the beach at Tarkwa Bay.

Our wedding photo location.

The conflict

I didn’t tell Sade.

Not yet.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. Every creak of the flat felt like his step. Every passing car sounded like his arrival.

I sat by the window until dawn, watching Lagos wake danfo horns, street vendors, the pulse of a city that never truly rests.

In my chest, two wars raged: the journalist’s hunger for justice and the woman’s longing for the man who used to make breakfast at 5 a.m.

When Muna stirred and called, “Mummy?”, I forced myself to smile.

“I’m here, baby. I’m right here.”

The clue

Later that afternoon, as I packed the children’s lunch, I noticed something odd: the fridge magnet shaped like a tiny camera a souvenir Thomas once bought in Ikeja was slightly crooked.

When I straightened it, it fell off.

Behind it, taped to the metal, was another note.

I miss breakfast with you.

And beneath that, a small memory card.

My throat closed. I looked toward the open kitchen window.

Someone had been inside.

The doorbell rang.

Twice.

Then a familiar knock slow, deliberate, impossible to mistake.

My heart stuttered.

He’s here.

I grabbed the children, pulling them toward the back room but then another voice came through the door.

“Ada, it’s Sade. Open up!”

Relief crashed through me. I opened the door but her face made my blood run cold.

“We lost him,” she said. “He was right behind one of our units this morning. He knew our route. Someone’s feeding him information.”

I stared at the fridge, the note still in my hand.

“He doesn’t need information,” I whispered. “He’s already inside.”

And from somewhere within the flat, a faint click echoed, the unmistakable sound of a camera shutting off.