Redeemed (The Dark Redemption Series Book 2)

by Lane Hart

  “9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” the feminine voice asks.

  “I’d like to report a kidnapping in progress.”

  …

  Blair

  I wake up in a strange place. Again.

  God, I really wish this would stop happening. It’s my own damn fault. Every single time I go off without Brede, this is how I end up. Before, he came to save me; but this time, the bitch is waiting for him. And as soon as he walks through the door, he’s dead. Then I’m dead.

  I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’ll never leave this room alive. It would take a miracle, and I’m pretty sure I’ve used up my lifetime supply of all those.

  “He better show,” the platinum blond bitch says while holding, no shit, her pink gun on me. Brede and I are gonna die by a fucking pink gun, of all things, fired by some snobby woman in a white pantsuit with her white hair cut in a chic bob. It’s so ridiculous it’s almost funny how anti-villain she is when compared to my father, who could level a grown man with one look. Even Roger was scarier than her. This prissy bitch is gonna be the one who kills me, the man I love, and our unborn baby.

  “He’s not gonna come,” I lie, maneuvering so that I’m sitting up with my back against the dingy wall, thankful that she removed the gag from my mouth and didn’t put it back after the phone call from Brede. He will show, there’s no doubt in my mind. I just wish he wouldn’t.

  And, dammit, I didn’t even get to tell him I’m pregnant. Sure, I could’ve blurted it out when she held up the phone; but if I were to die and he somehow lives, I don’t want him to know.

  “Liar,” the woman calls me out. “Even if he doesn’t, I’ll still track him down like a dog and kill him for what he did to Roger.”

  “I thought you just wanted your money back,” I reply.

  “I do,” she answers, but her face is pinched with longing or grief. Did she actually give a shit about Roger? “But I’ll get the money back too once the asshole’s dead.”

  “How did you kill my father?” I ask her as a distraction from talking about ending Brede’s life. All I can hope is that she kills me first because it would be too hard to see him take his last breath...

  “What does it matter? Are you sad daddy’s gone?” she asks with a pout.

  “No. I wanted to kill him myself for murdering my mother. Did he even have any remorse for what he did to her? To me?”

  “Oh, who cares? He was ruthless and a dick, but he had lots of money, and he liked to spend it on me. Everything would have worked out if that dumbass had just killed you instead of Roger. Either way, you’re gonna die now, so whatever. Four minutes to showtime.”

  Ugh, she’s an annoying bitch, sounding like a reject from 90210. Yeah, I watched reruns of the old shows. My options were somewhat limited in the hospital.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I tell her as I try and wiggle my wrists out of the rope behind my back.

  “I poisoned him on our honeymoon,” she replies with a smirk. “He died almost instantly.”

  “Too bad. You should’ve made him suffer.”

  “Why? He never hurt me. The idiot thought I loved him,” she says while fluffing the bottom of her bob with her free hand.

  “Serves him right,” I mutter. “Were you cheating on him with Roger?” I ask, and her stunned expression is all the answer I need. “Thought so. How ironic.”

  “How did you know?” she asks, lowering herself into one of the few plastic chairs still intact in here. Glancing around, it looks like some sort of waiting room of an old business. The windows are now boarded up, and the place has gone to shit.

  “Doesn’t take a genius,” I tell her with a shrug, continuing to talk and distract her while I try to work my wrists out of the rope. Not that I have a plan if I do manage to free them. “He tried to rape me, by the way. That’s where Brede found him and killed him.”

  “Liar!” she screams, jumping to her feet and pointing the gun that’s wobbling in her hand at me again.

  “I wish,” I snort. “After I made his dick bleed, he nearly choked me to death.”

  “Shut up!” she yells as she starts to pace. “He loved me. He wouldn’t have…”

  “He did,” I assure her. “What about those two women hanging around his house? Cat and Jaylen or something? I bet he was fucking them too.”

  “No, he wasn’t! Not anymore!” she exclaims.

  “They were over at his house just days before Brede killed him.”

  Her pacing comes to a stop just a few feet in front of me. The gun may be shaking slightly in her hand; but at this range, she’d probably still hit me. Her brown eyes go cold and empty before her thumb moves along the top, cocking it.

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I prepare for death. Hopefully, it’ll be like before when Roger nearly choked me to death, dark and peaceful, painless…

  The silence of the last seconds of my life are shattered when there’s a sudden rush of sounds coming from outside the abandoned building. My eyes flash open in surprise when I recognize the wailing sirens approach rapidly, followed by car doors opening and slamming.

  The police are here? Was the detective following me after all?

  Thank fuck!

  But then I hear the rapid pop, pop, pop of what could only be gunfire, and my heart shatters into a million pieces.

  Oh, God, no!

  “Shit, shit, shit,” I vaguely hear the bitch muttering before the door bursts open and…men in dark uniforms swarm inside.

  “Hands in the air! Drop the weapon!”

  They yell various orders; and then Nadia’s face first against the wall, wearing handcuffs while I continue to pray that I’m wrong.

  Please God, tell me that Brede was late. That he wasn’t the reason…

  Detective Matkins strides into the room, a somber expression on his face when he avoids eye contact with me, and I know…

  That doesn’t mean I won’t ask him, hoping I’m wrong. “Tell me he’s okay!” I shout.

  Lowering his eyes to the ground, I hold my breath until the detective answers. “I’m sorry, Miss Lockhart. He was armed, and we ordered him to drop the weapon and surrender, but –”

  “No!” I sob shaking my head in denial and pulling on the ropes at my wrists to try and get free to go to him. “Please, no!”

  The detective cuts my ankles and then releases my wrists, but my legs barely withstand my weight when I pull myself up on the wall and then race to the door.

  “Miss Lockhart! Miss Lockhart, don’t go out there!”

  Ignoring him, I push my way through the group of uniformed officers and step out onto the front of the building, my eyes blurred by the tears filling them.

  “Brede!” I cry out when I see him sprawled face down on the grass, his jeans and leather jacket covered in blood stains. “Brede!” I yell again, swiping away the moisture from my eyes to try and see him clearer, to watch for some type of movement, but his chest doesn’t rise or fall, not a single muscle moves... I want to go to him, but my legs give out, like my life is being drained from me. Arms grab me around my waist before I crumble to the ground.

  “Please! Someone help him! Call an ambulance!” I shout, but no one goes near him.

  Oh God! It was all for nothing! He’s gone, and it’s my fault…

  “Kill me! Kill me too!” I beg, clawing at the arms holding me.

  Without Brede…I don’t want to live. It hurts too much.

  I can’t seem to get any air in my lungs, and my chest feels like my heart’s being ripped out of it. I’m in agony remembering being in his arms last night.

  I didn’t even tell him goodbye this morning. I bet he was so angry when he realized I was gone…

  Remembering why I left, why I tried to make everything right, my palm goes down to my stomach. There’s a new life growing inside me, our son or daughter; and if I die, he or she will die too.

  But living without Brede just seems too hard…

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Si
x months later…

  Blair

  “Please place your left hand on the Bible and raise your right so Madam Clerk can swear you in,” the rotund judge in the black robe says from his raised seat beside me.

  I do as he said, my hand shaking with nervousness as I raise it.

  “Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?” the tiny, young clerk asks from across the room.

  “Yes,” I state loud and clear.

  This is it.

  Today, we’re finally all sitting in a courtroom, and now I’m face-to-face with Brede and Aden’s father for the first time in almost eleven years.

  Ben Rawls has, of course, aged significantly while serving a long sentence for a crime he didn’t commit. His dark hair has thinned and turned gray, and his long, salt and pepper beard reminds me so much of Brede the first day we met. He’s still handsome, despite his aging, and right now he’s giving me a smile of encouragement, which I easily return despite the permanent ache in my chest that I know is also in his. Not only did we both lose the woman he loved, but now we’ve lost his son.

  “Please state your name and occupation for the record,” the tall and lean attorney says, standing up from her table. Assistant United States Attorney Sharon Burke’s a federal prosecutor, the one who has been helping us get to this point for the last few months.

  “My name is Blair Elizabeth Lockhart. I’m a student at Jefferson Community and Technical College in Louisville, Kentucky.”

  “Thank you, Miss Lockhart. So let’s start from the beginning for His Honor. You are the daughter of Valerie and Trevor Lockhart, both deceased?”

  “Yes,” I answer, the fact that I’m an orphan actually hitting me for the very first time. My palm automatically goes down to caress my swollen stomach where our daughters are growing, silently promising them that they’ll never be without their mother and father.

  “And is it true that you were present when your mother was murdered on April 17, 2005?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “How old were you?”

  “I was eight years old.”

  “And at the time, Benjamin Rawls was charged with murder, tried and convicted, yet you never once got on the stand as you are now and testified that he is the man who killed your mother?” she asks.

  “Yes, Mr. Rawls was charged. Someone tried to take a statement from me. My, um, my father threatened my life and told me to lie and say it was Ben when asked, so I wrote his name on a sheet of paper, but I never testified in court.”

  “And if you had testified, what would you have said under oath?”

  “I was scared of my father back then after watching him stab my mother in her stomach and chest over and over again before he threatened me with the same bloody knife. Blood was everywhere. It dripped from his hands onto my dress that he made me change and hide. But Ben Rawls is innocent. He loved my mother. They were planning to be together. My mother had packed our things…” I reach for a tissue from the box in front of me and try to dab at the tears forming in the corner of my eyes before they fall. “When my father found out, he told her we couldn’t leave, that he wouldn’t let us. She told him he couldn’t stop her. That’s when he hit her. I think she was trying to tell him she was pregnant. He said he knew it wasn’t his, and then he stabbed her in the stomach with a kitchen knife.”

  I hear Ben’s sniffles from where his face is hidden behind his still cuffed hands, hearing me tell what actually happened for the first time. I can’t imagine how hard it must be on him, losing my mother and their unborn child. I can’t bring them back for him, but hopefully, he won’t be in restraints much longer.

  “I’m so sorry, Miss Lockhart, that you witnessed something so awful when you were so young. And Judge Harnett may want to know where you’ve been residing for the majority of the past ten years and seven months.”

  “After that day…I wouldn’t speak afterward or eat. I barely slept. They put me in an institution, and I…I escaped right after my eighteenth birthday. I promise you that I am mentally stable now. Back then I was suicidal. I had watched my mother be murdered by my father. I had lied and sent an innocent man to prison for years. There didn’t seem to be anything worth living for…” Until Brede. “But I’m no longer suicidal, and I’m under the care of a psychiatrist, Dr. Amelia Goldman, in Louisville.”

  “And Dr. Goldman has provided the court with this letter that says she’s carefully tested and evaluated you to be in good mental health?” Attorney Burke asks, holding up my doctor’s signed statement and showing it to me.

  “Yes.”

  Setting the paper down, she picks up the small blue dress with dark blood stains that Aden sent to the FBI office here in Charlotte.

  “And is this the dress you were wearing the day of your mother’s murder?” Attorney Burke asks.

  “Yes. My father told me to hide it in the dollhouse in my room, and that’s where I found it after I left the hospital several months ago.”

  “Your Honor, DNA tests have been performed and are a positive match to Valerie Lockhart, the report of which was attached as Exhibit D in our joint Motion for Appropriate Relief,” Attorney Burke advises.

  “Thank you,” the Judge says with a nod before lowering his head and jotting down notes on the legal pad in front of him.

  “And, Miss Lockhart, is it true that your father is now deceased? Murdered by a woman named Nadia Thomas, who is currently incarcerated?”

  “Yes,” I answer, hating that bitch for what she did. I wish she were dead, but spending life in prison is the best the courts could do.

  “That’s all, Your Honor,” Attorney Burke says. And when she retakes her seat at her table, I let out a sigh of relief.

  “Any questions from the defendant?” the judge asks.

  Ben’s attorney that we hired for him, Alan Clark, stands up and buttons the front of his suit jacket. “No, sir. The defense would only like to thank Miss Lockhart for her testimony.”

  “Very well. You can retake your seat, Miss Lockhart,” the judge turns to tell me. “Court will be in recess for fifteen minutes.”

  “All rise. This honorable court now stands in recess,” the United States Marshal standing to my left calls out, and everyone gets to their feet and stays still until the judge leaves the courtroom through the door behind his bench.

  Relieved that my part is done, I waddle back to join my fiancé where he’s been watching from the gallery. Trying to stay strong, I refused to even look at him while I was on the stand, knowing the sympathy on his face would be the end of my composure.

  “You did great, baby,” he stands up and whispers before wrapping his arms around me and kissing my cheek.

  “Thanks,” I reply. And then we sit down together and wait silently during the break, anxious to see how things will play out. Both of us are too nervous to even engage in small talk. Instead, I hold his hand and say a silent prayer that this portion of our shared nightmare may soon end.

  My shoulders sag with the weight of all that we’ve lost getting here to this moment. We can’t possibly forget the man we loved and lost six months ago, but we agreed to try and live life to the fullest, finding happiness where we can, because that’s what he would have wanted for us. That’s why he sacrificed his life to save us. I know he’s still watching over us, protecting us, forever our guardian angel.

  After what feels like fifteen hours instead of minutes, the U.S. Marshal announces that court is back in session. Our hands clench each other’s tighter as the judge takes his seat.

  This is the moment we’ve been waiting for. No, it won’t undo the pain and suffering we’ve endured. But if he finds in Ben’s favor, it’ll go a long way towards finally righting a wrong.

  “Having reviewed defense counsel and the prosecutor’s jointly filed, twenty-five page Motion for Appropriate Relief, and after considering the new evidence and testimony of an eyewitness who was not allowed to be questioned by defen
se during the initial murder trial in state court because of what was clearly a conflict of interest in the originating jurisdiction, I hereby grant the motion. This case and the defendant are formally removed from the State of North Carolina’s jurisdiction. Furthermore, while I cannot make a ruling on the defendant’s guilt or innocence, I can offer him a new trial in the Western District of North Carolina or, if he wishes, he may maintain his guilt, and I will release him immediately from custody based on time served. Would defense counsel like a moment to discuss this with your client?” the judge pauses to ask.

  “No, Your Honor. My client has advised me that he will waive his right to a new trial and gladly accept the relief offered,” Ben’s attorney stands up and declares.

  Does that mean what I think it does? He’s really going to let him out?

  “Is this your informed decision, Mr. Rawls?” the judge asks while I hold my breath.

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Ben stands up and replies. “Thank you.”

  “Then it is hereby ordered that Benjamin Rawls is released from custody and placed on supervised release for a term of two years. Marshal, please remove Mr. Rawls from his restraints and take him to the probation office so he can begin his supervision. Court is adjourned.”

  Our prayers have been answered! All the hurting and misery of the past decade wasn’t for nothing.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Benjamin Rawls

  Pressing on the bar, I open the heavy courthouse door and step out into the world as a free man for the first time in almost eleven long years. The moment is bittersweet.

  The judge may have declared my life sentence served, but that’s not entirely true. Not a moment of any day will ever pass without me holding myself responsible for Val and Betsy’s deaths. The only two women I’ve ever loved, and I couldn’t save either of them. Their blood is on my hands and always will be.

  Wiping away the wetness from underneath my eyelashes, I walk toward the parking lot, wearing the same clothes I had on the morning my entire life ended. On the day Val and I were supposed to start our lives together, I found out she was gone. Then I was handcuffed and taken from my boys. In one moment, I lost everything.