Before leaving to find Rukia, Amina insisted that they review every tenant notice one by one.
The dates did not match. Zulekha had been given thirty days. The watch repairman had been given twenty-one. The salon had received a letter that did not even identify the lease clause supposedly allowing termination.
“Does this help us?” Mariam asked.
“It doesn't prove the ownership problem,” Yusuf said, “but it shows the harm started before the transaction was completed.”
Amina drew another line on the timeline. “And it shows someone planned vacant possession in advance.”
Zulekha returned with tea for everyone. “You people will run around all day without eating, then announce justice became tired.”
Amina accepted the cup. “If you see anyone trying to change a lock or remove records, don't fight them. Call.”
“And if I see another sign?”
“Take a picture.”
“You like photographs of signs more than people.”
“A sign doesn't change its statement later.”
Yusuf laughed, but in the car he said, “You turn everything into evidence.”
“Because when people are hurt, memory gets mixed up.”
“And yours?”
Amina looked through the windshield. “Mine too.”
That was the fact she disliked admitting. Every time Mariam spoke Salim's name gently, part of Amina returned to the argument seven years earlier. Unless she separated that wound from the file, she could find guilt where there was only inconvenience. That was why she needed Rukia, the registry, and an independent auditor.
At Yusuf's office he wrote **72** on the whiteboard and underlined it.
“This is not a movie,” he said. “A court does not grant an injunction because something feels wrong.”
Three files lay open in front of Amina: the title documents, tenant notices, and sale correspondence. Mariam sat beside her with her handbag on her lap.
“What exactly do we need?” she asked.
Yusuf counted on his fingers. “Authority to sell. Risk of harm that cannot easily be reversed. A credible basis to say the process is defective. The accounting discrepancies matter, but by themselves they may be treated as an accounting dispute.”
Amina opened a title document. “There is a reference here to a 2019 deed variation.”
“Where is the attachment?”
“It isn't here.”
Yusuf pulled the copy closer. “Page numbering jumps from seven to nine.”
Mariam leaned in. “Who was Mama's lawyer then?”
“Do you remember?” Amina asked.
“Bi Rukia Mbarak. She had an office on Digo Road years ago.”
“The retired lawyer?” Yusuf asked.
“Yes. Mama trusted her.”
Amina wrote down the name. “How quickly can we find her?”
“If we lose today,” Yusuf said, checking the time, “tomorrow afternoon we'll be filing in panic.”
The tenant notices gave them another thread. Some relied on redevelopment clauses, but two older shop leases required longer notice. Even after a sale, vacant possession would not necessarily be automatic.
“And that may interest the buyer,” Yusuf said. “If Bahari Crown was told the building would be empty, they may not have received the full picture.”
Mariam removed her glasses. “Salim told the tenants to leave before we even met.”
Nobody answered. The fact was smaller than the missing millions, but it hurt more.
They found Rukia's old Mombasa address and drove there. The front door was open because a painter was working inside. A neighbor carrying vegetables stepped out.
“Bi Rukia?” Amina asked.
“She moved to Kilifi three months ago.”
“Do you know where?”
“Near Mnarani. With her daughter.”
Amina closed her eyes for one second.
“We can go now,” Yusuf said.
“If we wait until tomorrow, we lose another half day.”
Mariam stayed behind for a family meeting Salim had called to “speed up decisions.” Before leaving, Amina caught her hand.
“Don't sign anything.”
Mariam gave her a pained look. “I know.”
Amina released her. “Sorry. Reflex.”
“A reflex you learned from me.”
It was not an apology. It was a truth. Amina accepted it without argument.
On the road to Kilifi, Yusuf said, “We could file without Rukia.”
“And if the application collapses?”
“We add evidence later.”
“I don't want a weak panic filing when we may still get a stronger basis.”
“And if your need for perfection makes you late?”
Amina watched the sea appear and disappear between buildings. “That's my risk.”
Before leaving Mombasa, Yusuf had reduced their questions for Rukia to three lawful points: confirm that she handled the variation, direct them to the registered record, and—if she agreed—give an affidavit describing the process she personally witnessed.
Amina wanted to ask what Saada had intended.
Yusuf stopped her. “The intention of a dead client without a document may help us understand the story. Court will want the record. Don't turn Rukia into a replacement grandmother.”
The accuracy of the sentence irritated Amina. A part of her wanted an older adult from that time to say Saada had been on her side.
That was not why they were going.
A message came from Mombasa: the buyer's site walk had finished without entry into any room whose tenant had refused permission. Amina noted that too. The tenants had not waited for a court to save them; they had exercised their own boundaries.
Before leaving Mombasa, Amina had also asked two tenants to sign only for the dates on which they had actually received their notices. She refused to let Yusuf summarize the events for them. The watch repairman read the wording slowly and objected to a phrase that could later sound as though he had agreed to leave voluntarily. Amina deleted it and handed the pen back. The correction cost them twenty minutes they badly needed, but it reminded her why a hurried filing could be more dangerous than a late one. On the Kilifi road, Yusuf finally made her close the file for five minutes. ‘If you arrive exhausted, you will hear what you want to hear,’ he said. Only then did Amina notice how tightly she had been holding her shoulders all day.
“You really do write everything down,” Yusuf said.
“Not everything.”
“You wrote that Zulekha refused them entry.”
“Relevant.”
“You wrote our departure time.”
“Relevant to the deadline.”
He laughed. “Fine, auditor.”
When they reached the address in Mnarani, it turned out to be the pharmacy run by Rukia's daughter. Rukia herself lived several kilometers farther inland.
Amina's phone rang. Hamza.
“Dad brought two Bahari Crown people to Nyumba ya Taa,” he said quickly.
“For what?”
“Site walk. They're looking at rooms.”
“Did the tenants agree?”
“I don't know.”
“Hamza, don't open anyone's room without permission.”
“I know.”
“And don't remove any records.”
“Do you think I'm a child?”
“I think you're a company director who still hasn't given me the statements.”
Silence.
“Tomorrow,” he said.
“Tomorrow may be too late.”
Amina ended the call and looked at Yusuf.
“Let's go to Rukia.”
More than eighteen hours had already disappeared from the seventy-two.
They still did not have the missing attachment.