Kathleen and her partner sat under the mango tree. There was more to be done. She knew she couldn't go home, not yet. There was something about this case that didn't sit quite right with her. She needed to talk to Prince Kojo, she needed to ask them questions that would make them slip. They were hiding something, he and his beautiful fiancée.

"What now? What more do you want?" Nick asked, clearly frustrated.

"If you're going to whine all day, you better head back. I'm not leaving till I get answers."

"We just need to talk to the prince. You'll get all the answers you need."

"I know that. But I still need to talk to village folk. I feel like there's something we're missing."

And she was right about that. They wasted a lot of time asking questions from people who were more willing to give away their kidneys for free, that is, until that one girl.

She was pretty, nothing like Araba but a looker in her own right. She'd seemed hesitant at first, looking everywhere but at the journalists. Kathleen made her sit on the bench, under the mango tree with them.

She relaxed a bit but was still clearly uneasy.

"I want to tell you something, but you have to promise me that you'll tell no one. Can I trust that you won't tell anyone?" she asked Kathleen, her big brown eyes looking up at her hopefully.

"Of course," she promised. She didn't mean it though. She was a journalist; she wouldn't go anywhere in her career if she kept secrets for people.

"The prince wasn't a good man," she began. Kathleen wanted to urge her on, this wasn't something she didn't know. By now it was obvious. "You don't understand," the girl said frantically, sensing her impatience. "He was evil. Pure evil." She wrapped her arms around herself and began to shake. "He never took no for an answer."

Kathleen froze. She darted a glance at Nick. His expression mirrored hers.

"I'm not the only girl he did that to. There are many of us. Some will never admit it, but I know. I just know," she whispered. Without another word, she picked herself up and walked off, her head held high.

You'd have never guessed.

"Wow," Nick said.

"Yeah, wow."

* * *

A week had passed without any further leads. Nick and Kathleen pieced together the information they had now. They'd created a storyline, and it went like this:

Prince Agyei was a rapist. And he'd set his sights on the village beauty, except she had a man already. He may have tried or even succeeded in harming Araba, and as revenge, her fiancé killed him. In order to show her gratitude, she agreed to be engaged to him, even though she'd previously wanted to wait until she was a little older.

Their storyline wasn't too far-fetched. It wasn't something that hadn't happened before. But Kathleen knew that to prove their theory, they had to find the body. And to do that, she had to be careful. They couldn't let the village prince or the beauty know that they were on to them.

"What now?"

"We interrogate our suspect." She pushed forward a paper onto which she'd scrawled "Prince Kojo".

"And how do you plan on doing that?"

"'You'? When I crack this case, I'm taking all the credit because Lord knows how useless you've been this whole time."

Nick rolled his eyes and plopped onto his bed. "Wake me up in the morning. Living with you is so tedious that I might be tempted to sleep the whole day, just so I won't have to see your face."

Kathleen rolled her eyes. She was just about to go to bed when a loud crashing noise broke the stillness of the night. Nick shot up, startled. The window was broken. A brick had smashed through it, and it now lay on her bed.

A paper had been taped to it, on which was written, "Leave this village while you can. Otherwise, you will never leave. You will never leave at all."

* * *

"Do you know the worst part? I can't tell if it's a threat or not. It says, 'Never leave at all.' Does that mean I'm welcome?"

"Of course not. Don't be silly." Nick replied. They'd been moved to another room in the hotel after reporting the incident. This time, Nick took the bed facing the window. "On the bright side, this is a good thing, for two reasons. One, we can take a complaint to the Odikro's palace, and now possibly speak with his son. Two, maybe the threats mean that we're on the right path. They're getting scared."

Kathleen thought about this. He was right, but it didn't mean she felt any safer. She hadn't told him about the white face because she believed she'd imagined it all. After she did tell him, he told her not to worry about it. As if her life wasn't probably in danger!

"Let's just get this over with and go back home," the investigative journalist said. She missed Accra. She missed her favorite boba tea place, and she missed her favorite sneaky link, even though she'd secretly fallen in love with him. It hurt that he hadn't texted or called once to find out how she was. Maybe if she was just as beautiful as Araba...

"Good. Let's go to Uncle Ebo's place again, I think we should ask the girl more questions. After, we can head to the palace."

Kathleen nodded.

The walk back to Ebo's filled her with anticipation. He was still the most handsome man she'd met, even though he must've been nearing his sixties or seventies. She wanted to make a good impression.

When they got there, they knocked, only to find the house was empty. She looked over to the garden tempted to steal one of the flowers. This was a small town though, and they probably took theft seriously. Seeing as to how she was already unwelcome, she didn't want to push her luck.

She headed over to their neighbor's house to try her luck. Maybe she could get some information from them.

She knocked for a bit, and then out stepped a short, dark man with yellowing teeth. He wasn't as friendly as Uncle Ebo. He took offense to the early morning interruption. "What do you want?" he asked harshly.

"Um, I'm investigating the prince's disappearance," Kathleen said.

The man rolled his eyes and moved to close the door, but she stuck her foot in the doorway just in time. "I'm sorry, I just need you to answer a few questions."

The man looked at her, clearly annoyed, however he stepped out and nodded firmly. "Ask what you want, and then never bother me again."

Kathleen shared a worried glance with Nick but she nodded in agreement. "When was the last time you saw the prince?"

"The last time everybody saw him."

This was hardly an answer, but Kathleen quelled her annoyance and continued.

"Do you know anything about his relationship with Araba?"

"Why am I the village young adult love police?"

Nick stifled a giggle and his partner shot him a glare. She turned back to the man with a tight smile. "That will be all."

He laughed, pleased that he'd annoyed her away. "If you get me a rose from their garden, I'll tell you everything I know."

At that, Kathleen stopped. "Why not get it yourself?"

"Hm, Ebo's family. They're not a very generous family o. They don't share anything. They're very particular about nobody coming near their garden. There was this one time, about six months ago, they caught a large antelope. Araba even came to my house and borrowed my axe so they could chop it up. Can you imagine they didn't even spare me a pound of meat? No. They sent some to the Asantehene—they were lodged here at the time—and he and his family ate the rest. Greedy man!"

"Thank you," Kathleen said, suddenly in a hurry to get away. She grabbed Nick by his forearm and practically dragged him away from the house. She ran, forcing him to run with her.

"What's wrong with you?" he yelled back, panting as they ran against the wind.

She ran until they were back under her beloved mango tree, where she forced him onto the bench and pulled him close, making sure no one was close enough to hear her.

"I think I know where the prince is," she announced, out of breath.

"What? Where?"

Kathleen gave him a pointed look. The idiot still looked bewildered. She shook her head. Of all the people she could've chosen as a partner, she chose this block head? "The garden!" she whisper-yelled. "What better place to hide a decomposing body than under a bunch of sweet smelling flowers!"

Nick had to gull to look astonished. His mouth dropped open and his eyes were wide. "Oh my goodness. If you're right, you've done it. You solved the case!"

Kathleen smiled wickedly. "I have! And that witch Araba is going to pay for her crimes!" She could barely contain her excitement.

"But how are we going to get the body?"

"I. Don't think you will get a taste of my glory!"

Nick rolled his eyes, leaning against the tree with his characteristic bored expression settling back across his face. "How are you going to get the body?"

"I'll go tonight. At midnight. They're out of town, by the looks of things. I'll quietly dig up the garden. When we get the bones, or the body, we'll leave immediately, take them to a lab in Accra for testing. I need you to pack all our stuff. Once I call you, bring the car here, to this mango tree and wait for me. We leave immediately. Got it?"

He gave her a rare smile. "Got it."