Chasing Faith

  “Troy, this is Christian.”

  “How are you doing?”

  “I’m okay—I’m in Atlanta with Sebastian.”

  “What! Are you crazy?”

  “It’s okay, Troy. He knows that I’m innocent and we’ve decided that I should surrender, but only to you.”

  “Are you sure that this is what you want to do? You know you’ve been charged with first-degree murder, don’t you?”

  “I understand that, but I feel I must surrender. I’m tired of running. Plus, now that I’m a fugitive, the FBI is all over this case. Because of our past history, I know they’ll let you bring me in. Also, you need to come down here anyway to pick up your Montero,” I said jokingly.

  Troy agreed to fly down to Atlanta that afternoon. Sebastian and I met him at the airport and when he looked at us together, I saw a look on his face that said he knew we were more than just friends.

  Sebastian called a press conference for first thing the next morning. He didn’t tell the media what it was about, he just said he had an important announcement. Then Troy called our FBI office, talked to Supervisor Hunter, and told him I would surrender peacefully immediately following the press conference.

  When the two of us arrived at the Atlanta Police Department, a large crowd had gathered. As reporters mumbled and cameras flashed, Sebastian and I wound our way through the crowd, hand in hand. We stood at the top of the concrete steps, still holding hands, and faced the group. The crowd immediately hushed.

  With a dozen microphones and videocams pointed at us, Sebastian announced, “This is Christian Ware. She is a very important person in my life. There is currently a warrant out for her arrest, but she is innocent, and there are several people working hard to prove it.”

  I stared at Troy, talking with two FBI officers. He was standing nearby, waiting to take me to D.C. after Sebastian and I were finished.

  “Turning the woman I love over to authorities for a crime she didn’t commit breaks my heart. But I believe in doing the right thing, even when the consequences are risky.”

  Sebastian glanced at me to indicate that it was my turn.

  “My life has been crazy these last few weeks. Everything I thought I believed in, everything I stood for, everything good that I’ve ever done, was stripped away from me. The world thinks I’m a killer, but somebody set me up and made it look like I killed Max Cross. Then that same person tried to kill me.”

  I looked at Sebastian. His smile gave me the confidence to keep going.

  “Whoever is behind this plan to discredit me has also tried to damage Reverend Stokes’s reputation by saying that I am responsible for introducing him to known felons. But I never tried to sabotage his campaign.”

  A barrage of lightbulbs went off in my face, but I kept my cool.

  “Politics can be a dirty game. Some people are willing to pay any cost, or promise impossible favors, even stoop to illegal activities, just to get elected. Well, I’m not running for any political office. I don’t owe anyone anything. I’m not trying to get anything from anybody except the truth. Because when the truth comes out, everyone will see that I’m innocent. However, I have decided to turn myself in until that can be proven.”

  The reporters raised their hands and started blurting out questions, but I didn’t have a chance to answer them because Troy grabbed me roughly, slapped handcuffs on my wrists, and escorted me to their black van waiting at the curb. Sebastian tried to come to my aid, but other FBI agents stopped him.

  Troy turned to my guy and said, “Man, don’t worry, I’ll make sure she’s treated right.”

  Sebastian nodded, but I could tell by the solemn look in his eye he was second-guessing this decision.

  When I felt the cold handcuffs on my wrists, I instantly wondered if I’d made a mistake. Maybe I should have run after all.

  “I love you,” Sebastian screamed, giving me comfort to hang in there.

  As I was being shoved into the van, I heard a reporter say, “This is going to ruin his chances of being elected lieutenant governor of Georgia.”

  During the ride to the jail, I tried talking about sports and politics with the black cop who was in the seat beside me. We ended up having a pretty good chat.

  “You’re pretty cool,” he said to me. “I’ve got good instincts, and my gut feeling is that if you did kill that man, you would’ve stayed around and said, ‘Here I am. I did it.’”

  “That’s right,” I told him.

  The car took me to the airport where I boarded a commercial plane. Once on board, I was handcuffed to Troy, who said that he had to make it look like he wasn’t giving me special treatment. I smiled and waved to the guy in the car as they drove away.

  When the plane landed at the airport in D.C., I saw Sebastian standing by the hangar, waiting. Beside him stood a tall black man in a navy blue suit. Sebastian introduced him as Greg Smith, my attorney.

  “Don’t you worry, Ms. Ware,” Mr. Smith assured me. “You’re not going to spend one night in jail.”

  “Greg went to Harvard with me,” Sebastian said. “He’s one of the top African-American defense attorneys on the East Coast.”

  Unfortunately, the police took so long booking and charging me that no presiding officer would come out that late. The arraignment was scheduled for first thing the next morning.

  Sebastian, Greg, and I sat down in an interrogation room and I told my entire story. We decided that I should plead not guilty. Greg would argue for bail, and if bail was granted, Sebastian would pay it.

  When the police officers told Sebastian he had to leave, he pulled me close, hugged me tight, then looked deep into my eyes. “I won’t be with you tonight, but God will. I’ll be praying for you.” Tears fell from his eyes and his voice cracked. “I love you with all my heart, and I’ll see you through this. Together we’ll prove your innocence to the world.”

  I wiped the tears from his face. “Shhh, baby, don’t cry—have faith in God. I know God will see us both through this ordeal. I love you.”

  We began to kiss passionately but were interrupted by an officer who told us it was time for me to go.

  “Sebastian, I’m scared,” I said as a female guard slapped handcuffs on me again.

  “Just pray, Christian. God will bring us through this. You have to be strong, baby.”

  “Come on, man,” Greg said, tugging on his arm. “You’ll see her tomorrow. I promise.”

  The guard took me to a room where my fingerprints and mug shots were taken. Then I had to take off my clothes and allow every cavity of my body to be searched. My clothes were put in a clear plastic bag and I was given orange overalls to put on. Then I was taken to a cell block that smelled like urine and smoke.

  The cells were the size of a small bathroom, with little space for anything but sitting down on one of the two narrow bunk beds. A sink and a toilet were the only other furnishings.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” I hollered when I noticed that two women occupied each cell. The guard turned around and looked at me with raised eyebrows. “I’m a Secret Service agent,” I explained to her. “I’m supposed to be segregated from the regular inmates.”

  She laughed heartily, shoved me into a cell, and closed the door with a loud, metallic slam. Memories of the dream I’d had about being in jail suddenly filled my mind.

  “This is your cellmate, Mrs. Willie Mae,” the chunky woman guard said smugly. “She requested that you be put in her cell, though I sure don’t know why.”

  The guard laughed as she walked away down the hall. I could hear the soles of her shoes slapping the concrete floor—the sound echoed through the row of cells.

  I stared at Mrs. Willie Mae. She looked to be in her late fifties, with heavily wrinkled eyes and thick, salt-and-pepper hair. She was a heavyset, strong-looking woman, more muscular than fat.

  “I been in prison for thirty-two years,” she said in a rusty voice. “They put me in here ’cause I stabbed somebody.”

  She sat on the lower bunk
and looked up at me. “I ain’t gonna lie to you, honey. I did it.”

  “Why?” I asked, barely breathing.

  “A teenage boy raped my baby and killed her. Wouldn’t nobody do nothing about it, so I found him myself and made him pay. I realize now that vengeance is the Lord’s, and I feel bad for what I done. But at the time it seemed like the only thing I could do.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, sitting beside her on the bunk.

  “Everybody in here has been talking about you for weeks. Rumor has it you’ve been on the run.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t do what I’m accused of. I was trying to gather evidence to prove it.”

  “Guess you didn’t find any, or you wouldn’t be here.”

  My shoulders slumped. “I don’t know that any will ever be found.”

  Mrs. Willie Mae picked up a Bible from under her pillow. She turned to Psalm 10 and read verses one through six to me. Then she started breaking down what the passage meant.

  “In them first two verses, we can see that David was angry. Mighty angry. He kept asking the Lord what he’d done to deserve such a fate.”

  “I can understand that,” I grumbled.

  “In verses three and four, though, he realized that maybe there was something God was trying to get through to him. David realized he was blocking his own blessing.

  “David got himself right with the Lord, and verses five and six record his praises to God. David didn’t worry about his circumstances. He just praised the Lord. And the next thing you know, he got what he wanted.”

  She closed the Bible and put it back under her pillow. “So don’t you worry about getting the evidence you need. Just think about how good God is and start praising Him. Even if you never step outside this jail cell, God’s been good enough for you to praise Him. Shout praises so loud until it gives you a headache.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. She was so passionate and so right. God had brought Sebastian back to me. He had given me a great relationship with my sister. More important, He gave me Himself.

  “I can do that,” I said.

  She started singing some old hymns and I sang along with her. “Thank You, Lord,” I cried loudly, “for sending Your Son.” I waved my hands high. “I love You, God,” I shouted.

  For two days I spent most of my time singing and shouting praises to God. I wrote a list of all that I had to be thankful for. I loved my carpet, my car, fresh air. I was thankful for the telephone. The two days passed quickly.

  On day three, the guard came to my cell and said, “Ware, you got a visitor.” She led me down a series of hallways and into a small room divided in half by a glass wall. On each side of the wall were little booths, each with a chair and a phone. When the guard shoved me into one of the booths, I was shocked to see Dion sitting on the other side of the glass partition.

  I looked at Eden’s husband through the glass. We both picked up the phone. “What are you doing here?” I asked gruffly.

  “I have something to say that you’ll want to hear.”

  “All I want to know from you is how Eden’s doing.”

  Ignoring my attitude, he said, “She’s fine. I’ve found the Lord through that whole ordeal. And now I’m a changed man.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. But his mannerisms were more relaxed, the cold expression on his face gone. He even talked with humility. Was he really saved?

  Quickly I said, “I don’t believe you, and anyway, I’m sure you didn’t come here to tell me that.”

  “Whether you believe me or not isn’t the issue. You’ll see in time that my heart has changed. I feel reborn and though I know my past sins are forgiven, I’m still hurting from them. So I came here to tell you something that I think can help your case.”

  Still reluctant, I listened on.

  “You remember I was with Max a few hours before he died?”

  “Yeah, that’s who called me to tell me you sent my girl to the hospital. He said he had to see you,” I said.

  “When he came to visit Eden in the hospital, he told me that if anything happened to him, I was supposed to get a package he’d left at my house a month ago and give it to you. If you weren’t alive, Max said, I was supposed to take the package to the cops.”

  If it weren’t for the glass between us, I’d have slapped Dion for sitting on this information for so long.

  “I asked Max why he couldn’t go get the package himself. He told me somebody was after him. I thought he was just paranoid—now I wish I had listened. Maybe I could have saved his life.”

  “I did the same thing,” I admitted. “Just a few minutes before I left him that day, he told me someone was after him. Don’t blame yourself.” I took a deep breath, finally feeling Dion’s pain. “Did you get the package?”

  “Yeah,” he said, lowering his eyes.

  “Have you opened it?”

  “Max told me it would be better if I didn’t. Considering what happened to him, I wanted to honor his request and just give it to you.”

  He leaned down and picked up a large, bulging manila envelope from the floor beside him.

  A guard on his side of the glass partition came up and took the envelope. “You’ll get this later,” he assured me.

  “So,” I asked Dion after the guard resumed his position in the corner, “how are things between you and Eden?”

  “I messed up with her big-time,” he said, massaging his forehead. “But she’s giving me another chance.”

  “How did you get so out of whack, Dion?”

  “I didn’t have God. I always swore I would never be anything like my father. But as soon as I took a wife, his characteristics started to surface.”

  “And why the change now?”

  “God broke me and showed me why I needed a Savior. I can’t explain it—it’s just like I heard Him calling my name. We had a chat and I agreed to His terms. Plus, Eden and I have been in counseling. Besides, now that my best friend’s gone, she’s all I’ve got.”

  I stared at the broken guy before me. Though I couldn’t completely forgive him for what he’d done to my girlfriend, I knew I had to pray for him. I hoped this change he spoke of was real and would last.

  The guard, who was still holding the envelope Dion had brought for me, tapped him on the shoulder and told him his time was up. I thanked Dion for bringing me the package. He told me to let him know if there was anything else I needed.

  Back in my cell, I stared at the package the guard had brought to me. I could tell it had already been opened and searched. Was this the evidence I needed to get me out of this horrible mess? I decided to wait for my lawyer to arrive, hoping this was the break we needed.

  “The package contained a tape and several documents,” Greg said, looking at me with a solemn face. Sebastian reached out and took my hand. The three of us sat at a table in a small room that was used for defendants to meet with their lawyers.

  “We haven’t verified everything,” Greg said, “but one of the pieces of paper had a phone number on it. It belongs to a private investigator, the one who rigged Max’s office three weeks before he was shot.”

  “Go on,” I said impatiently.

  “Apparently Max hired him because he was afraid for his life—he was trying to find out who was threatening him and why.”

  “He told me that much.”

  “The security cameras at the bank where he worked taped the proof he was looking for,” Sebastian said. “The bank president talked to four goons in slick suits and dark glasses, about how he was going to frame you for something, and if Max didn’t cooperate in bringing you down, he wouldn’t live too long. Rudy Roberts is one of those men.” Sebastian squeezed my hand. “When Max asked why he was doing this, the guy told him the orders were coming from a much higher place.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have a clue.”

  “What happens now?” I asked.

>   “We’re going to turn this stuff over to the FBI and see if they can come up with the missing pieces of the puzzle.”

  “I have a good friend who’s an FBI agent. Troy Evans. I’m sure he’d be glad to help.”

  “Max gave the stolen money to his buddy Dion. He’s turning it in to the authorities today.”

  “So is all this enough to clear me?”

  Greg shrugged. “The district attorney has to assess the evidence. Your fate is in his hands now.”

  The guard came to escort me back to my cell. As I was led from the room, Sebastian and I gazed at each other, our eyes expressing our love—and our desperation.

  As I took each step down the narrow corridor, I realized my fate wasn’t in the hands of the D.A. It wasn’t even in my hands. God would have to clear me. I just had to focus on the blessings He had bestowed upon me. At least we had some evidence now.

  Even before the guard slammed my cell door shut, I had decided to adopt a new motto for my life: Too blessed to be stressed! Even though I wasn’t free on the outside, I was free within. Nobody could take away my joy.

  Moments later, the guard came back. She slapped handcuffs on me and escorted me to the fourth floor of the jail-house.

  When the elevator doors opened, the guard handed me over to a security officer who took me to the assistant D.A.’s office, a large room with tall shelves filled with books. The prosecutor was a pale, balding, middle-aged man who sat behind an antique desk with a Tiffany lamp on it. He was holding a phone against his ear and looking out the window.

  “Have a seat,” the officer said. I settled into a small chair near the door. As I waited for the man to get off the phone, the door opened and Sebastian walked in. My heart leapt. He sat in the chair next to me, held my hand even though I was in handcuffs, and whispered that everything was going to be all right. The guard at the door motioned for us to quiet down.

  When the assistant D.A. finally hung up, he folded his hands on the desk and looked at me. “The evidence brought in by your lawyer indicates that you were indeed framed.”

  I stared at him for a moment, hardly believing what I had just heard.