14
The courtroom was packed as usual, for this last day of hearing. Rose shifted as Jim strode down the aisle with his wife, Erica, by his side. They slid into the same row they’d always occupied.
For the first time, Rose wanted to reach out and tell her brother that everything was going to be okay. During their drive to court, she had wanted to tell him someone had come to her with detailed information, but the lady had pleaded with her to be silent to her family, unsure how they would react. So Rose couldn’t speak to Jim. Not yet. Everything had been planned. But not blurting the words out took all her inner strength. She chose to recite, “Be still and know that I am God,” throughout the car ride, ignoring her lawyer’s curious glances.
Had four hours truly passed since her mysterious visitor showed at her doorstep? A flurry of activity arose after that. Rose had called her lawyer, who called Theo, who then called David. They’d put together a plan that only four of them were a part of.
One that, if the lady’s words were proved true, might work even if Rose couldn’t recall what had happened the night of the murder. All she knew now was, she was grateful to have a potentially exonerating lead. Grateful she didn’t have blood on her hands. Grateful to God for making a possible way of escape. For answering her desperate prayers. For fishing out the one person in seven billion who knew what happened. But they still had to corroborate the tale. And only one person could do so.
Theo had sounded shaken when he heard the story. The things the woman revealed astonished them, sounded like a tall tale, and left only one way to find out. Except time was running out for Rose.
Lord Jesus, please let this work. Please, Rose pleaded as the judge entered.
“All rise. The court is now in session,” someone announced.
This was it. Both sides would make their arguments later, and then leave it to the jury. If they said she was guilty, then that would be her fate. Which was likely—unless the miracle they were hoping for came true. And only God could make it happen. Only God.
Rose barely listened as they readied for closing arguments. David stood and along with the dark-haired woman, who had shown up at Rose’s doorstep, approached the judge. She’d described the lady to her lawyer who relayed it to David so he had no problem identifying her in the courtroom. Theo was still being expected.
They discussed things with the judge in hushed tones, who didn’t seem too pleased with what they had asked, but Rose prayed in her heart like her life depended on it—which it did.
Moments later, he hit his gavel on the platform. “Attention. Now, this is unusual, but since both legal teams are apparently in agreement, I would allow you to proceed with your request under one condition. If your experiment proves false, you will both bear any legal fallout from it. Understood?” The legal counsels and David nodded.
“Proceed.” The judge leaned back, glanced at Rose, and waited.
Rose prayed harder as both David and the woman took up seats far from the center aisle. The legal counsels sat down as well. The courtroom grew so silent, you could hear a pin drop. Only a handful knew what was being waited on.
Her heart pounded the moment she heard noise approaching the door. This was it. Lord, please. Please.
Be still.
The courtroom doors flew open. Theo, in uniform, eyes puffy like he’d been crying—and Rose wouldn’t blame him, considering the news the stranger had brought. If her claim proved true, Theo would be devastated. If it proved false, Rose would be in jail for a long time.
Either way, someone was leaving the courtroom in tears. Rose prayed it wasn’t her, but she also prayed for Theo.
“Ma, you need to watch your step.”
His mom stormed into the courtroom and lurched toward the front. But she stumbled, gripped a nearby seatback, and wobbled. Her body heaving more with each apparently drunken step, she staggered forward as the judge frowned.
“Isn’t she a member of the jury?” The judge arched a brow.
Theo nodded silently.
The defense counsel stepped forward and whispered, “Ms. Rose. Please take the witness stand.”
Rose did as asked and settled into the cold vinyl, next to the judge.
“Can you tell me what happened? How you killed Mr. Kings Sr.?” the State’s attorney began.
“I didn’t kill him, sir. I intended to go to his office, but I didn’t kill him.”
“Lock her up. Why are you still asking questions? You’re wasting time!” Theo’s mom yelled and staggered forward, eyes glaring at Rose.
“If you didn’t kill him, then who did?” the lawyer ignored her and asked again.
The judge tapped an irritated finger against his platform, his lips twisted tight as he glanced at the clock. His hand inched toward the gavel. Voices began rising in the courtroom. They didn’t understand what was going on.
“I don’t remember,” Rose hurriedly responded. “I wasn’t there.” She hoped what Theo had told her to say was correct. Because if not...
“Of course, you were there!” Theo’s mom lurched forward. “You said, don’t—”
Her last word was like a shot in Rose’s arm. Like a brain injection that made one come alive. Rose jumped to her feet as memory flooded her. “Yes, now I remember! I said ‘don’t’.”
She cast her eyes at Theo’s mom directly and leaned over. “Don’t use me as a decoy! That’s what I said. Oh, Jesus.”
“A decoy, huh?” the judge repeated, curling his fingers around the gavel with a scowl aimed at Theo’s mom.
The courtroom erupted, and Theo’s mom realized what she had said. She placed a hand over her mouth and sunk to the floor.
But Rose was remembering more now, like a gushing stream. “You’d killed Mr. Kings before I entered. You tied me up, drugged me, and planted the bleach. I noticed you were framing me for the crime and told you, ‘Don’t use me as a decoy.’ But you cut me off after the first word. You killed David’s father.”
She spun as Jim fainted and Erica shouted for water. The judge called for a medic. But Rose wasn’t done. She shut her eyes and relived everything.
The memory washed over Rose like freshly opened floodgates. It drew her, like a movie, back to the night of the Medieval Dance, to the minute she’d entered the hallway en route to the founder’s office to show her gratitude.
Rose opened the door to David Kings Sr.’s office and blinked as she shut the door behind her. The light was a little bright, and spotting David’s dad took a few seconds. She gasped at his slumped form on a seat. She rushed forward. Then the door slammed shut with force, and the lock clicked behind her.
She spun, and her gaze settled on a familiar set of eyes.
“Sorry, kid. You weren’t meant to see this.” A hard slam against the back of her head sent Rose sinking to the ground.
When she came to, a woman stood over her, setting down something wrapped in a piece of cloth. She wasn’t sure what it was. But it began dawning on Rose that David’s father was dead as his face grayed in color an arm’s length away.
Her eyes widened. “What—?”
Masking tape stretched roughly across her lips and burned back Rose’s unspoken words. Hot tears brimmed in her eyes as the smell of candle wax filled her nostrils from the nearness of the woman looking into her eyes now. Rose thought she knew her. Yes, she’d known her for many years, even thought her somewhat friendly.
But the woman’s actions now were far from kindness. Her actions tonight lodged stacks of heavy-duty burden on Rose’s already-fragile emotions. She choked at the sight of David’s dad’s neck still slumped sideways on the headrest of his chair. If only she could’ve come earlier and helped him. Maybe performed CPR to save his life.
Anger burned within her toward the woman capable of such a heinous crime. She struggled against her restraints to no avail. She was stuck tied to wrought iron legs of an oak desk.
Rose shivered with a mixture of fear and wonder about the attacker’s intentions. Clearly, one person was already dead. Was she next? She twisted, landed on the ground, and fought to unchain her restraints. Tears tumbled down her face, and she bowed her head. She deserved this. Yes, she probably did. Maybe God was punishing her for her past mistakes. If He was, like she now suspected, then she’d rather take it from Him than anyone else. After all, at some point, just like to King David, His mercy would overcome anger.
The lady got in Rose’s face and peered as she curled her feet under the long dress. But the lower rung of the desk leg stopped her. Rose stared into eyes that spun hate—was this the same person from whose hand she had eaten? If not for her tape-covered mouth, she would’ve asked her. “What happened to you?” “Who have you become?” “I could’ve trusted you with my life.”
Instead, she glanced at one of her mentors, whose neck still lay slumped. “He could’ve trusted you, more than even I.” She would have added.
The woman, as if sensing Rose’s thoughts, pushed the end of the cotton-scarf-turned-rope rope around her hands, tightening them. It bit into Rose’s skin, and she hoped, prayed she’d remember every bit of what she saw. If nothing else, to put the woman away for a very long time for what she’d done to Mr. Kings.
The red, evening party dress, whose fancy lace trimmings had caught beneath the desk when the woman initially attacked Rose, stared at her as a sad reminder of the good time she’d hoped this evening, this party would have been. That was her intention. Not...this.
Clinks of glasses echoed just down the hall, at the party hall where guests had a good time, oblivious that she was tied up a couple of rooms down the hall from everyone at the party. Nor did they know David’s father was dead. Nor that she was sitting twenty feet away from his killer, face to face, eyeball to eyeball, looking into her dead-set eyes.
Lord, please... Please what? What was she going to pray? It was too late for David’s father, unfortunately. What else? Lord, let this person fall down and die too? She bit her lip behind the tape, pressing them forcefully together. She’d never wished anyone dead, and she wouldn’t start now. Not even this killer whom she’d known since childhood.
Lord, please, don’t let David see this. It would break his heart.
Standing askance, the woman placed her forefinger on her lips indicating silence. A cut on that finger sparkled red and dripped onto Rose’s dress. Then she jammed a needle to the side of Rose’s arm. Rose’s head swam as she felt her hands then her feet loosening.
Her vision blurred as the woman drew closer. She tore the tape off Rose’s mouth, taking some little hairs with it. Rose pressed a feeble hand on her hurting lips and stared at the blurry image of her attacker. It dawned on her what the woman was up to, but she had no strength to fight.
“Don’t...” Rose began.
Too late. She slumped lower, and then her world went dark.
Rose, still seated in the witness box, opened her eyes to see Jim was awake again. A paramedic hovered over him while the judge stared at her like an apparition. The courtroom was drawing calmer as Theo’s mom wiped her face and drew a defiant stance. Theo paced.
Theo’s mom’s arms trembled, and she slumped into a nearby chair. “You can’t prove it.” She coolly pinned her gaze on Rose.
“No, she can’t. But I can.” A lady’s voice rang clear from where she was seated next to David. The visitor lady.
As soon as her eyes met Theo’s mom’s, the woman stiffened. “No, you won’t. You’ve got too much to lose.”
“Not anymore.” The woman kept moving forward until she stood in front of the courtroom. “The past thirty years have been a living hell for me. I tried so hard to forget what we did.”
She looked at Theo’s mom. “What you made me do. Every day it gave me nightmares. I was a successful practicing nurse at Detroit General Hospital maternity ward. You made me steal a baby from its mother for a payment of twenty thousand dollars and tell the right mother that she’d had a stillbirth.”
The lady bent her head and wiped a tear. “I left my job to run from you. I moved across the country, but you followed me. Then I ran back here. Theo, I’m guessing, is that child.”
Theo broke down, sobbing loudly in the middle of the aisle. Heartbroken.
“You came to me again when you felt David’s dad was about to expose Theo not being your biological son after a background check on him yielded funny results, and his birth certificate contained unsettling discrepancies. That was the trigger. Just because he was about to be appointed a mentor to the school’s graduating class boys. Mr. Kings decided to do some paperwork on him to set a good example for the boys. Then you called me and asked me to steal medicine for you at the hospital where I worked.”
The woman covered her mouth and cried. “I lacked the courage to say no. I had a good husband and twin girls. I didn’t want to lose my family. But last night, I couldn’t stomach the guilt. I realized as I lay awake that two wrongs certainly didn’t make a right. I couldn’t allow you to ruin another life like you ruined mine.”
She pointed to Rose. “This woman is innocent. And you and me are responsible for Mr. Kings’ death.”
The entire courtroom was reeling at this point.
The lady spun to the judge whose gavel hung midair while he gaped. “I know where the murder weapon is, your honor. And I’ll lead the cops to it.”
David collapsed and passed out.