Murdergram, Part 2 Page 20

  He hurried out the door and jumped into his Civic. The ride to Charlotte wasn’t far, but he didn’t want to be late. He wanted to be right there when her bus pulled into the station.

  Daniel arrived in time to see the bus Beatrice was scheduled to be pull in, but she wasn’t on it. Maybe she missed it, he thought.

  The next bus came and still no Beatrice.

  Two hours went by.

  He started to worry. He attempted to call her cell phone numerous times, but it kept going to voicemail. By the fourth hour of waiting at the bus station, he was almost into a full-blown panic. It was time to notify the police.

  The officer advised him that they couldn’t file a missing-person report on his girlfriend until twenty-four hours had passed. Daniel became frantic. He tried not to think the worst, but he couldn’t help it.

  “Where is she!” he exclaimed, wandering about nervously.

  He knew something was wrong. He could feel it. Beatrice would never have stood him up like this. She was always punctual with her arrival.

  When he climbed into his car, he couldn’t control the tears trickling down his face. He couldn’t go anywhere at the moment. He felt paralyzed with worry. Something was definitely wrong. He could feel it.

  ...

  Cristal knew it had to be done. Walking away from Daniel was a hard choice, one of the hardest she had to make. She had wrestled with her options. She could either walk away and never look back, or snatch him up, tell him the truth about who she really was, and hope that he’d forgive her and give up his life as he knew it to live out his years with her on the run.

  But she just couldn’t be that selfish. To save his life, she had to leave. She had chosen the life she was in. If she had to do it all over again, she would have never walked into that white church with the steeple. At the time she didn’t think she had options. She was young and naïve, and her future seemed bleak.

  After meeting Daniel and falling in love with him, Cristal realized that all she had to do was work hard, stay focused, and she could have made any dream she had come true.

  She was an hour away from Seattle two transfers later. The trip was a smooth one. She sat alone in the seat, peering out the window. On both sides of the highway an immense wasteland stretched for miles into the horizon. Everything looked desolate and stagnant. The bus roared up the highway. It was the only sound for miles around.

  As the bus pulled into the Seattle, she felt a little relief mixed with uncertainty. It was going to be her first time in the city.

  Cristal stepped of the Greyhound clutching her duffel bag of guns and money, and instantly took notice of her surroundings. The bus station wasn’t anything like New York’s or Boston’s; it was busy, but the crowd seemed to be fading fast, whereas in the bigger cities, the people coming and going seemed perpetual.

  With her new identity and enough money to last, Cristal wondered how long this would be her home. Seattle had a magnificent setting, with the snowy peak of Mount Rainier in the distance, a modern skyline of glass skyscrapers, a friendly charm, and plenty of fun coffeehouses, good restaurants, and engaging clubs.

  She planned on staying away from it all.

  Thirty-Six

  The cell phone ringing in the next room startled Daniel from his brief sleep. It was four in the morning. Trying to retrieve his phone, he jumped out of bed, collided with the coffee table, and banged his knee. “Ahh!”

  He had been up most of the night drinking Red Bull and black coffee, hoping Beatrice would walk through the door any minute.

  “Hello!” he spat into the phone, eager to hear her voice.

  “Can I speak to a Daniel?”

  “Speaking,” he immediately announced.

  “You do not know me,” she said. “But I’m Beatrice’s aunt.”

  “Is she okay? Where is she?” Daniel nervously asked.

  For a moment, there was silence from the other end. The silence made Daniel even more nervous.

  “I’m afraid I have some bad news,” the aunt said gently.

  Daniel took a seat on the couch, bracing himself for the bad news.

  “I received a call from the Red Cross. They sadly informed me that Beatrice was killed in Uganda during a revolt by the villagers.”

  “No! No! No!” he hollered, falling to his knees as his eyes immediately began to water up. “Please, no!”

  The aunt continued with, “I’m sorry. Her body is going to be cremated, and unfortunately there won’t be a memorial because of financial constraints.”

  Daniel continued to sob. He had fallen to the floor. He couldn’t believe it. She is dead!

  “I’m sorry,” the fake aunt said.

  He didn’t have much to say himself. The only thing he could ask for was her remains, and she promised to send it all to him. Daniel remained against the floor for hours sobbing. It was hard to believe she was gone.

  Epilogue

  Eighteen Months Later

  Hundreds of people gathered in the large open area at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, North Carolina for the graduation ceremony on a beautiful May day. A crowd of seniors in their blue caps and long blue gowns flooded the grassy area. They were all smiling, laughing, and congratulating each other. They had come a long way, four years or more of midterms and late study nights. Now, they were ready to march across the stage and receive their diplomas and degrees.

  Spring was now well advanced and had sprinkled the meadows with lovely flowers, and the trees were coming alive with greenery. The sunlight flooded the many graduates and their family seated in their chairs. There was a sea of matching blue in the front rows, the graduates seated silently and listening to the dean’s speech about growth and prosperity.

  Daniel was among the graduates ready to march across the stage to receive his degree in his medical field. In fact, he was named the class’s valedictorian. He’d studied hard and long, and he was inching his way closer to becoming a brain surgeon. He had been accepted and given a full scholarship to Johns Hopkins University and would start in the fall

  He sat in the front row, holding onto an urn and feeling proud of everything he had accomplished. But he still felt a little empty without Beatrice in his life. In the urn he carried her ashes, supposedly. Wherever he went, he kept the urn close to him.

  As the dean wrapped up his “Prosperity” speech to the graduates in front of him, Daniel was little nervous about going up to give his own speech to the class. He took a deep breath and clutched the urn tightly.

  “And now,” the dean announced. “I would like to call up the university’s valedictorian, Daniel Roberts.”

  Daniel stood up and gripped the urn. He headed toward the stage and stood behind the podium ready to deliver his valedictorian commencement speech. He gazed into the attentive crowd of faces, placed the urn on the podium, cleared his throat, and started his speech.

  ...

  Unbeknownst to him, deep in the crowd watching and smiling was Cristal. She was in profound disguise, keeping alert of everything around her. It was a risk coming back, but she wouldn’t miss this day even if it was going to cost her her life. She assumed there would be numerous assassins looking for her, so she came ready with a concealed pistol.

  She watched Daniel standing at the podium, looking handsome and educated, and she was so proud of him. She wished she could hug and kiss him, experience his happiness with him, but it wasn’t happening. The only thing she could do was observe him from afar and be happy for him.

  She sat and listened to him speak.

  He started with, “One of the most unbelievably courageous people I’ve met once told me that tomorrow isn’t promised to anyone, so how can you plan for it? Well, I can tell you how.”

  Cristal listened intently and beamed with pride as she listened to his speech that was filled with hope, nostalgia, and sheer optimism.

  As the crowd began to disperse, she spotted two notable assassins scouring the crowd. She was sure there were more. If today was
her last day on earth, seeing Daniel in his element made it all worth it.