Stealing Midnight

The moon rose like a thief over the Indian Ocean, stealing the last traces of daylight from the sky above Whispering Palms. Zara Njeri stood on the private jetty of Midnight Sands Resort, the warm salt breeze tugging at the hem of her linen dress. She had arrived in this sleepy coastal town south of Mombasa three days ago with one mission: bury Jamal “Leo” Mwangi.

Her dossier from Apex Investigations was ironclad. Wire transfers routed through shell companies in Dubai. Anonymous guests who paid in cash and left no names. Whispers of antique Swahili artifacts disappearing from protected sites along the coast, funneled through the resort’s “exclusive” art gallery. Leo’s luxury eco-resort was supposedly the perfect front. It was beautiful enough to distract, but remote enough to hide sins.

Zara had spent years chasing white-collar ghosts in Nairobi boardrooms. She trusted...