I knew the Kyran Agency by reputation. They were relentless—pugnacious to the core—and notorious for bending, even breaking, the rules.
If a client needed proof of an unfaithful husband, they wouldn’t hesitate to hire an escort to set him up. If a corporation wanted evidence of espionage, they would bait a likely employee with a fabricated offer of secrets for sale.
Suddenly, the strange message I’d received earlier began to make sense. Stop looking for the necklace. You’re not built for this. At first, it didn't fit with the rest of the case.
The thief seemed focused on destroying the Sheikh’s reputation—calculated, personal, and precise. Scaring off a detective didn’t align with that strategy.
Besides, my gut told me I wasn’t close enough to the truth yet to pose a real threat. No, that message hadn’t come from the thief. It had the Kyran agency’s fingerprints all over it.
When I’d taken the job, the Sheikh had promised me a generous reward if I succeeded. He must have made the same offer to them. That gave them every reason to eliminate a competitor.
Paige dug up the number of their lead detective, and I decided to play a little game of my own. I sent him two messages.
First, I copied the one I’d received: Stop looking for the necklace. You’re not built for this. Then I followed with a second, suggesting we meet.
If I was right, that first line would rattle him. If I was wrong, and the threat really had come from the thief—though I doubted it—then the Kyran agency would likely have received the same warning themselves.
Either way, it was the perfect bait. And it worked. Two minutes later, I had my answer: we were meeting in a downtown restaurant.
I was sitting in the restaurant, waiting for Adrian Cole—the lead detective of the Kyran agency. My thoughts drifted back to the young maid who had been fired. The same one from the leaked video, where the Sheikh was screaming at her.
When I pressed the Sheikh for more details, he offered an explanation for his outburst. But not before reminding me—pointedly—that I had only a few hours left to deliver something solid, or I’d be out of the case.
He said she had betrayed him. His youngest daughter had an accident—wet the bed—and the maid had cleaned it.
Three days later, while he was out with friends, Fahad Al Douri mocked him about it. The Sheikh was furious. Since the maid was the only outsider who knew, he assumed she had talked. He dismissed her immediately.
He’d even given me her phone number. I tried reaching out, but she refused to meet. Maybe she was hiding something. Or maybe being thrown into the spotlight, plastered across the internet, was more than she could handle.
Either way, I had no time to dwell on it. Adrian Cole arrived, and I pulled myself back to the present.
“Mr. Cole. A pleasure,” I greeted him with a smile I didn’t mean.
“All the pleasure is mine,” he replied, wearing the same kind of smile.
“It seems we’re both on the same case,” I said.
“I don’t discuss my agency’s business.”
“Of course. Then perhaps you’d prefer to discuss the threatening message your agency sent me?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His smirk was the kind you wanted to wipe off with a fist. So I tried a bluff.
“It was difficult, but I traced the number. It leads back to Kyran.” I slid my phone across the table, the message glowing on the screen: Stop looking for the necklace. You’re not built for this.
“Oh, that,” he said lightly. “Just a harmless joke between competitors.”
“We may be chasing the same prize, but I’d prefer not to waste time with childish pranks. What do you say?”
He leaned back, eyes narrowing with calculation. “I think… we might benefit from sharing what we know. I heard you discovered the fitness coach was spying?”
The rest of the meal was an unpleasant game of mental chess. I gave him scraps that sounded important but were worthless; he returned the favor.
In the end, I’d at least cleared up the matter of the threatening message. But beyond that, I walked away empty-handed.
I was heading to the office when I noticed a car following me—a black Mercedes, taking the exact same route.
I veered into a less crowded part of the city, but the car stayed on my tail. I couldn’t tell if it was the Kyran agency playing their usual games or someone else entirely.
My plan was simple: go to the office. They would learn nothing by trailing me. But I wanted to see if I could learn something about them first.
I began accelerating, taking sharp turns, making it harder and harder to follow me. I kept this up for about ten minutes.
Eventually, we entered an area filled with small factories and almost no people. I pushed the car faster, shot past a building, and made a sudden right turn. Slamming on the brakes, I ducked into an abandoned parking lot.
The Mercedes sped past me, only stopping when it was too late—they hadn’t expected me to vanish. I started my car again and positioned it just behind them, snapping a quick picture of their license plate.
The Mercedes shot off again, accelerating aggressively. They knew they’d been caught and wanted to disappear before anyone could trace them.
I followed, but they were heading toward the city center—tracking them there would be nearly impossible.
I pushed my car to its limits, trying to close the gap. The Mercedes slowed slightly to take a left turn. I floored it, and I collided with them.
The airbag deployed, and it took a few seconds to recover. The front left of my car was badly damaged, but I caught a glimpse of the Mercedes spinning out—its rear right completely mangled.
Exactly what I wanted. With the license plate and the car in that condition, it would be easy to trace it across the city through CCTV. I just needed to call my CCTV wizard—and pay the right price.
Finally, a solid lead I hoped.
When I finally reached my office, Paige caught my eye.
“Marko’s here,” she said.
“That was fast,” I replied. “I expected him to show up eventually—he’s been fired by the Sheikh, which should make him useless to Fahad Al Douri—but not this quickly.”
“You promised him money for information,” she reminded me. “Looks like he couldn’t wait.”
I stepped into my office. Marko was sitting there, waiting. After we negotiated his price, he began to spill everything he knew.
Fahad al Douri had asked him to work for the Sheikh’s wife. His mission: gather as much information as possible about the Sheikh’s life—what he was doing, who he met, what his family was up to.
Marko also admitted he was behind the whole episode with the young maid who had been fired.
“When I was training the Sheikh’s wife, she took a break and spoke with the young maid,” he explained.
“They were in a corner of the room, speaking softly, but I overheard that the daughter had wet her bed. I shared that with Fahad, and that’s how he found out. The poor maid had nothing to do with it.”
He insisted, however, that he had nothing to do with the stolen necklace. His role was purely to gather and share information. He never stole anything.
Even after all that, I still had two questions.
“Do you know if anyone else on the Sheikh’s staff works for Fahad?” I asked.
“Not that I know of,” he replied, “but it’s not impossible.”
“And the video—the one where the Sheikh yelled at the young maid—how did you get that? Did you put a camera in the mansion?”
“No,” he said firmly. “I would never do that. There’s always someone watching in that house. A maid is cleaning, Ben Labna is passing by, and I spent most of my time training the Sheikh’s wife.
I overheard things, but I never planted a camera. Honestly, I have no idea who recorded that video.”
Just as I feared. Someone else in that mansion was almost certainly working for Fahad as well.
It was time to meet the Sheikh. The deadline had passed. Even though I hadn’t found the necklace yet, I had made some solid progress.
We knew Fahad was almost certainly involved. We knew Marko worked for him. And we knew someone else was still embedded in the Sheikh’s household.
Soon, I would even discover where the car that had been tracking me was hiding. I thought I might be able to negotiate a little more time with the Sheikh.
When I entered his office, I didn’t even have a chance to sit before he spoke.
“You’re fired.”
I froze. I was about to defend myself when he waved me off with a dismissive gesture.
“I don’t need your services anymore,” he said. Then, without another word, he opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a rectangular box.
He lifted the lid, and there it was—the necklace. The stolen necklace I had been chasing since the beginning of the case, sitting right there in front of me.
“What is this? You found it? Where was it?” I asked, incredulous.
“We found it. That’s all you need to know,” he replied calmly.
“No. I need more information. Who stole it? How did you get it back?”
“You don’t need to know anything more. The necklace is here. We don’t need you anymore.”
I was stunned. Ben Labna appeared behind me and ushered me out of the mansion.
I left frustrated—not just because I had lost the case, but because I still didn’t know the truth. And that anger burned hotter than any failure.