This short story was written as part of a writing exercise at the College of North Atlantic - Doha. The Conditions: Less than 500 words; Story to end with the sentence provided. I may have got the ending right but have missed out on the beginning. For the life of me, I cant think of a Title to match the story. Would really appreciate if you could help me out and suggest a suitable title. :-)
Joy looked at her watch again, for the umpteenth time
in the last five minutes. He was late. Something was wrong; the whole plan was
going to fail. She started to panic. Stop It! She commanded her mind. This was
not the time to fall apart. She had to be strong. If she wanted to pull this
off, she had to be brave and patient. The plan was simple and that was why she
was so sure it would work. It all depended on Adam now. She wondered again if
she was right in trusting him for the job. She looked at her watch once more.
Her trusty Timex appeared to be mocking her impatience.
Joy thought back to her
first few days in the city when she spent most of her time in the museum,
studying historic art. She didn’t remember when it was that the idea first
formed in her mind, but once it did, she couldn’t block it out. It was a fortuitous
meeting with Adam, the museum custodian at the local bar that further cemented
the idea in her head.
Convincing Adam that she loved him and then making him a co-conspirator
in her master plan had been a cakewalk. With her knowledge of antiquities, it was
even easy forging those rare coins. All Adam had to do was switch off the
alarms for a few minutes after the museum closed for the night, do a quick
switcheroo and he could easily leave at the end of his shift with half a
million riyals in his pockets. No one would notice the forgery until they were
safely out of the country. And once she handed over those coins to that private
collector, she could easily get rid of Adam.
Joy began to dream of what she would
do with all that money, when the phone rang, jolting her out of her reverie.
Who could be calling at this time of the night? She almost let the call go to
voice mail, but picked it up at the last minute.
“Hello” she said carefully.
“Joy, this is Deena from the museum. I have bad news. They
caught your boyfriend Adam trying to steal some antiques. I guess he wasn’t
aware of the additional security they recently installed. He came clean about
some accomplice; the police are on their way to catch them. I’m so sorry. I
know you loved him. Who would have thought....”
Joy cut off her friend midway and replaced the phone
in its cradle. She stood motionless for a few seconds, fear gripping her heart, then deciding to make a quick getaway; she grabbed her bag and
rushed towards the door.
Just then the doorbell rang.
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