Black Rose

by Kris Thompson

  Still looking at me, she let a tear roll down her face. “I heard him in Ruth’s room, moaning. Ruth was crying out in pain, over and over. I knew by then that he didn’t like being called names, so I decided to pick a fight with him to get him away from Ruth.”

  Wait, what?

  “And by him, you mean the defendant, David Reed,” Ms. Howard said.

  “That’s correct.”

  Why didn’t Lee ever tell me this?

  “Why did you do that?” she asked.

  Lee glanced back at Ms. Howard and ran the back of her hand under her nose, wiping away the wet residue. “She was just a child. I had to get him away from her.”

  To say I was proud of Lee would have been an understatement, but it still broke my heart. And, even though she was going through this whole process to put David Reed behind bars for life, it was almost as if he was getting one last shot at torturing her since she had to relive the experience all over again.

  “What happened next?”

  “I called him names and taunted him until he left her room and came into mine. He left her door open when he came over . . .” Lee trailed off and a look of pain flashed across her face.

  Helplessness washed over me. I was afraid of what she would say next. She’d told me once, vaguely, how Ruth had died, but it was clear I didn’t know everything.

  “Miss Locke . . .” Lee’s eyes seemed to glaze over. “Miss Locke . . .” Her face became pale and she slouched forward a little in her chair. “Miss Locke . . .”

  When her hands began to shake I was ready to run over there and take her home. She didn’t need this. None of them did.

  “Miss Locke,” Judge Cooper said, tapping her gavel against her desk.

  “Sorry,” Lee whispered, wiping away her tears once again.

  “Do you need a minute?” the judge asked.

  She shook her head and looked over at Ms. Howard, who smiled and nodded before giving Lee a small wink. “What happened when the defendant came into your room?”

  “He beat me, strangled me, threatened to kill me.” Her voice sounded robotic and dull.

  “How did you survive?”

  “I fought back, clawing and hitting him as best as I could.”

  My eyes burned and my throat closed up as I imagined it, but Lee continued without emotion.

  “He got mad at me for not giving in, then went across the hall and hit Ruth so hard that it knocked her out. Then he came back into my room and kicked me in the face, also causing me to black out.”

  I took a deep breath and lowered my head to my hands, clenching my eyes shut. A hand rested on my shoulder and I sat back up to see it was Luke. The pain in his eyes told me he was just as hurt and upset as I was.

  “And then what happened?” Ms. Howard asked. I held my breath.

  “I woke up and saw that my door was still open. I could see into Ruth’s room.”

  “So Ruth’s door was also left open?” Ms. Howard turned toward the jury.

  “Yes.”

  “Could you see Ruth?”

  “Yes. She was still out cold. The other girls and I called out to her until she finally woke up. That’s when she realized she wasn’t chained to the wall anymore.”

  “How did Ruth become unchained?” Ms. Howard asked.

  “I’m not sure.” Lee blinked slowly, dazed for a second. “She just stood up and the chain was gone.”

  “Did you ask Ruth to come into your room?”

  Lee shook her head. “No, I told her to stay where she was, but she didn’t listen. As soon as she stepped into the hallway, he came out and snapped her neck.”

  “The defendant?” Ms. Howard asked, motioning toward Reed.

  No, it was fucking Santa Claus, you box of rocks.

  “Yes,” Lee whispered.

  “Miss Locke, could you please tell the jury how you managed to escape from your cell?” Ms. Howard smiled, walking over to the jury, and leaned against the wooden rail.

  Lee took a deep breath and raised her eyes to mine. I forced a smile and nodded, praying that she could see not only how much I loved her, but how proud I was of her. I regained my composure while she told the jury about the holes they dug in the ground between their cells, and how they’d exchanged Anna’s bobby pins. Lee explained how she used them to unscrew the bolts on the wall, which had given her the scars that still covered the insides of her hands. Ms. Howard had her raise them, palms up, so the jury could see them. Lee described how she waited for Reed once she’d gotten free, and how she’d provoked him to open her door.

  “When you hit the defendant with the metal plate, did you think he was dead?” Ms. Howard asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And when you stepped out of your room, what did you see?”

  She closed her eyes and took a shallow breath. “Darkness. Everything was dark. There was a soft light overhead, but it took a while for my eyes to adjust. I could tell I was in a hallway, but I couldn’t see anything else around me.”

  “Where was the defendant at the time?”

  “He was on the floor. When I hit him, he fell, and it caused his body to fall against the door across the hall from mine, causing it to open.”

  “And that’s where you found Miss Haines?” Ms. Howard asked, and Lee nodded. “Was she alone?”

  “No,” she said, clenching her eyes tighter. “Tom was in there with her.”

  “That would be Thomas Reed, the defendant’s brother. Correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he say to you?”

  “He told me to go, to take the others and leave—all except for Emma. I had to leave Emma behind.”

  Lee started to shake, and I began hoping that Ms. Howard would call a recess or something, but she just kept pushing.

  “And what was your response to that?”

  “I said no. I could never leave any of them behind.”

  “Is that when Tom attacked you?”

  “Objection,” the defense attorney yelled. “Leading.”

  I wasn’t sure Lee heard anything after that. When she opened her eyes, she turned toward Mr. Williams, and unfortunately toward Reed. He was staring at her and smiling, as if he was having the time of his life. His eyes were fixed on her and all I could think about was beating the shit out of him. He had no right to look at her ever again. I forced my attention back to Lee, who nearly jumped out of her seat when Ms. Howard touched her arm.

  “Do you need me to repeat the question, Miss Locke?” she asked, giving Lee a reassuring smile.

  Lee nodded and ran her hand through her hair. “Please.”

  “What happened after you told Thomas you wouldn’t leave without Ms. Haines?”

  “He came after me. He . . .” She paused and took a deep breath. “He tried to kill me.”

  “How did you get away?”

  “I gouged his eyes and then, when he rolled off of me, I hit him with the plaque.” Lee bit her lip and rubbed her fingers over her forehead. “He didn’t get up after that.”

  Ms. Howard read Lee’s police statement to the jury, recounting the incident and how Lee found each of the girls in their rooms, before asking her next question.

  “After you realized that you couldn’t free any of the girls, and had moved the defendant’s body into your room, what did you do?”

  “I used the keys that Tom had to open the metal door at the end of the hallway. Then I walked up the stairs until I came to an open hatch.”

  “What did you see then?”

  “When I climbed out, I found myself in some kind of broken-down cabin. The roof was falling in, and there were pieces of broken wood and trash everywhere. I looked for a phone, but I didn’t find anything except a locked box and a stereo.”

  “Was there a door? Were you locked in?” Ms. Howard asked.

  Lee shook her head. “No, there was no door. I was able to walk right out.”

  I wanted her to look over at me at that moment. To look into my eyes so that she could see the happin
ess in mine at the memory of how she’d walked out into the moonlight and found me waiting for her, but she didn’t. She kept her head down while she finished her story, up until the point she was shot—after that she couldn’t remember anything.

  “Thank you, Miss Locke,” Ms. Howard said. “No further questions.”

  Lee sat in silence, keeping her eyes to the floor, as the judge asked the defense if they had any questions for the witness. And, of course, the asshole did. My heart sped when Williams stood from his chair and made his way toward Lee.

  “What a fucking asshole,” Emma yelled from the kitchen later that night.

  “Which one?” Luke chuckled, taking a swig of his beer. “They were all assholes, in my opinion.”

  “The defense attorney,” Emma said. “How does he even sleep at night?”

  Williams was a first-rate asshole, and had spent several minutes badgering Lee after the prosecution had finished with her. Fortunately, Judge Cooper put a stop to it and court was adjourned for the day.

  After we’d left the courthouse, Emma, Luke, and Adam had followed Lee and I back to our apartment. As soon as we’d walked through the door, Lee went straight to her room and fell asleep. I was so worried about her. I wanted so badly to hold her in my arms, caress her hair and tell her how much I loved her, but I knew she needed her space. We hadn’t told anyone about the engagement yet, knowing she wanted to wait until after the trial, but it still didn’t stop me from reminding her every chance I could. It was always in simple ways—rubbing my thumb over her ring finger, telling her how I couldn’t wait to spend the rest of my life with her, and when I was lucky, sharing another heated kiss.

  “All I’m saying is that the guy better get the death penalty,” Emma hissed, walking back into the room and pulling me out of my thoughts.

  She passed out another round of beers and perched herself on Adam’s lap. I couldn’t help but feel a slight twinge of jealousy seeing how Emma and Adam were with each other. I missed the way Lee would fall into my lap every chance she got. She used to say it was the best seat in the house.

  “Colorado may have the death penalty, but they’ve only executed one person on death row since 1977,” Adam said.

  Yeah, we’d looked that shit up. Both of us had wanted to know how that fucker would die if he did get it. After researching the shit out of ‘Capital punishment in Colorado’ on the Internet, what we found astonished us.

  “So what are you saying? You don’t think he’ll get it?” Luke asked.

  “How much do you know about this shit, Luke?” I asked. “Have you ever looked it up?”

  “Oh yeah, every day, man.” He smirked.

  I ran my hand through my hair and sighed. “No, he’s not going to die, not by the state anyway.”

  “How do you know?” Emma asked. “I mean, look what he—”

  “Because all he has to do is plead guilty before the trial is over, and the state will just turn around and give him life in prison, but that’s if he pleads guilty,” I said. “Look it up.”

  “Damn.” Luke sighed. “And if he did get it, how would he die?”

  “Lethal injection.”

  “That’s it? I thought they would at least have the chair here.”

  “He deserves worse,” Emma whispered.

  I looked up at her and our eyes met. I nodded in agreement, then looked over at the clock and noticed that three hours had gone by and still no Lee.

  “Hey, do you think you guys could scatter?” I asked. “Give me a few hours alone with Lee?”

  “Sure.” Emma nodded, standing and taking Adam’s hand in hers before gesturing to Luke to get up.

  After the door closed behind them, I moved around the room, picking up the empty beer bottles and random crap, and threw them away in the kitchen trash. Once everything was back to how it should be, I walked quietly into Lee’s dark room.

  I sat in a chair and watched her sleep. She looked so peaceful, so . . . I couldn’t explain it. For a second it was as if the last six months hadn’t happened. It was as if I was looking at the old Lee. Old Lee. I shook my head in annoyance. I couldn’t help but remember the last time Lee and I had been intimate. I had memorized every touch, every kiss, every soft word that escaped her lips. I prayed for the day that I would be able to make her feel that way again—to make her feel beautiful, cherished, and safe.

  I felt the faint vibration of my phone in my pocket, and slipped out of Lee’s room before answering it. It was Noah.

  “I’m outside,” he said simply.

  I tossed my phone on the kitchen counter as I made my way to the front door.

  “Were you able to get the cabin?” I asked, letting him in.

  “Yeah, I got it,” he answered in a mild tone. I walked over to the patio door and opened it to have a smoke. “It’s pretty secluded and you two shouldn’t have a problem with privacy. Just make sure you put chains on the tires before heading up.” Noah paused and looked down for a moment before looking back up. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

  “Noah, she needs this. You always said she loved going up there, that she loved the peace of the forest.”

  “I know,” Noah said. “I just think it might be too soon.”

  “Please just trust me on this, okay?”

  I decided the minute the judge said guilty, I was going to take Lee away for a while; she needed space and comfort. Noah said a buddy of his on the force had a cabin up in the mountains that we could use for as long as we needed it. I couldn’t wait until the morning to tell Lee, but Noah was still a little reluctant.

  “Fine, but the second something feels off, you bring her back. If she says she doesn’t want to go, you accept it. Understand?”

  Just then a soft whimper echoed throughout the apartment, followed by the stumbling of feet, and the bathroom door shutting. I winced when I heard Lee coughing over the toilet.

  “I understand, but I think it’s the best idea I’ve ever had.”

  Chapter 19

  —Richard

  “Mr. Reed, what was life like for you and your brother growing up?” Williams asked.

  For some reason Reed looked over at me, and I took the time to lift Lee’s hand to my mouth and kiss it, smiling as I watched the fire burn in his eyes. The fucker could kiss my ass.

  “Tough,” he replied. “We moved around a lot, and didn’t have a real father figure in our lives.”

  Boo-fucking-hoo.

  “And who raised you and your brother?”

  “Our mother.”

  Williams walked over to the defendant’s table and grabbed a folder. He opened it up and started reading. “Your mother is Wendi Reed, alias Wendi Tusk, alias Wendi Moore, alias Wendi Davis, alias Wendi Firn, alias Wendi Nichols. All these aliases were from marriages she had before you turned eighteen, correct?”

  “Yes,” Reed said firmly. “That’s correct.”

  “That must have been hard, growing up watching your mother bounce from man to man like that.”

  Reed just shrugged. “They each had a purpose for my mom, nothing more. None of them lasted more than a few years.”

  “What do you mean by purpose?” Williams asked.

  “One man paid for her boob job, another paid for her liposuction. Face lifts, new cars, houses. The last one you named was old enough to be her grandfather, and when he died he left her everything. So like I said, they all had a purpose.”

  I didn’t get what the point to all of this was. So his mom was an old whore? Big deal.

  “Were any of these men abusive to you or your brother?”

  “No,” Reed replied. “None of them had anything to do with us.”

  “That must have hurt,” Williams said, looking at the jury with sympathy in his eyes. I wanted to gag.

  “That’s how my mother wanted it.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  Reed leaned back in his chair and sighed. “My mother didn’t want us to grow attached to people who wouldn’t be in our lives
for long, and vice versa. They were hers, and only hers. My brother and I were to just wait until it was time to leave.”

  “And during the times when your mother wasn’t married, what was that like for you and your brother?”

  “It was rough. My mom would be out trying to find a new john, so it was just my brother and I.”

  “So at a young age, you were forced to be an adult, and raise your brother,” Williams said, looking over at the jury.

  “That’s right,” Reed said proudly.

  “David, do you think that due to your lack of a mother and father figure in you and your brother’s lives, this must have been why your brother stalked and kidnapped these young ladies?”

  If I wasn’t sitting down, I would have fallen over. This was the defense attorney’s strategy? They were going to try and pin it all on Tom? Fucking pathetic.

  “I believe so, yes.”

  “Objection,” the prosecuting attorney yelled. “How can the defendant possibly assume why Thomas Reed kidnapped any of these victims, unless the defendant was the one who told him to do it?”

  “Unfortunately, due to Miss Locke’s actions, we’ll never know exactly why,” Williams replied. “But I think we can all agree that his brother, the defendant, would be the best person to ask. No one here, including his mother, knew the deceased better than my client.”

  I noticed that Reed glanced toward the back of the room, and I looked over my shoulder to see an older woman wearing large dark glasses. She was fair skinned with bright blond hair, and was wearing a dark blue suit. She almost looked asleep with the way she just stared ahead, body stiff like a statue, but I noticed how her fists flexed every few seconds. Then it hit me, this was Reed’s mother. A part of me wished she’d take her glasses off so I could get a better look at her, and the other part wanted to walk over to her and ask if she was proud of the pieces of shit she’d made.

  “I’ll allow it,” the judge said with a nod.

  “I have no further questions,” Williams said, smiling at Ms. Howard.

  Before the judge could tell Ms. Howard it was her turn, she was in front of Reed.

  “So you’re telling us that your brother, on his own, was the one who stalked and kidnapped all the victims? Is that correct?”