Chapter Ten
Leo
I’d woken, strapped to the gurney, the minister peering over me, my brain heavy with confusion. If this was heaven, it was shitty.
“Roman?” The warden’s voice came disjointed, my head throbbed.
“Leo,” I breathed, my voice hoarse.
“Leo, do you know where are you, son? Are you back with us?”
“Huh?”
“You were given a stay, the execution was halted. You’ll be taken back to death row once you’ve recovered from the sedatives.”
The straps were loosened. Three men dragged me towards the Huntsville Unit medical bay, my ankles and wrists bound with heavy chains. I couldn't focus let alone attempt anything close to running. I was secured to a bed, a nurse checked my vital signs every hour. One hand and one leg chained to the bed, a guard standing over me.
“I have to see my mother,” I pleaded.
“Once you’re back where you’re supposed to be.”
“You don’t understand,” I begged.
“Roman, you are still a death row prisoner. The rules still apply.”
The news that the investigation into the Mexican who’d confessed wouldn’t go anywhere almost broke me. I’d have to face this again. My mother would once again have to prepare herself for the impending death of her son. Dani would drink herself into a stupor.
“I don’t think I can do this again,” I told Theo a few days later, back in visiting box.
“Leo, plead for clemency, please.”
“I can’t. I can’t live like for decades. I’d rather die.”
The date is set again. In twenty-eight days, I’ll be taken to Livingston a second time. Strapped to the gurney, cold, nauseous and terrified. It made it no better, knowing exactly what would happen. There’d be no more second chances
The letters flooded in again, churchgoers, evangelists, all pleading for my soul, all begging me to confess my sins, place my soul in God’s grace. They didn’t get it. I had nothing to confess. If I did, I’d happily take my place on the gurney, commit myself to the Devil himself, I’d deserve it. My memory of that night still evaded me but I knew, deep in my heart, I was innocent. I wasn’t capable of the things they accused me of.
Those letters didn’t bother me half as much as the sickening fan mail. Desperate single women begging for my attention. The media had fawned over my case. Young, successful, attractive middle-class white men don’t end up on death row. I was dubbed the sexiest death row prisoner. People started petitions, claiming it was a crime to execute someone so attractive. My crimes didn’t matter to them half as much as my green eye did. None of that would save me.
I rested on my metal shelf, my stomach growling. A tray of unsweetened grit and dry whole wheat bread laid on the metal shelf protruding from the wall, inches away from the stainless steel toilet.
Commissary, the fan mail came useful there. After Theo publicised my JPay details, the donations came flooding in. I’d lived mainly on potato chips and chocolate ever since. My hoard had been dished out between the few inmates I’d grown close to over the years. My fellow death row inmates. The men from the adjoining boxes we exercised in. I was left with only prison food until this month's order came from commissary, by which time I’d be days away from death again.
I admitted defeat, grabbing the tray filled with what the State of Texas called breakfast. The sickly vitamin enhanced pineapple juice washed the bread down. Strangely bitter, the grit went down harder. I forced each mouthful down, washing away the bitter taste with the lukewarm black coffee.
At seven, I’ll exercise as best I can in my box. Routine is how I kept myself sane over the years. I’m woken at 6 am for breakfast. At seven I exercise, the same routine of pushups off my metal bunk, prison style burpees, squats and shadow boxing. There’s not really space for anything else. Eight until ten I read. If it’s a weekday, 10 until 12 is outdoor exercise time. We walk the length of outdoor cages, chatting about our cases, sports news that has been told to us through letters from home, update each other on life back home, a life we’ll never again be part of. I get two hours a day access to the law library. I’ve given up on my own case, but I offer my help to fellow inmates, it gives me something to aim for. My whole day is planned for me, each long, boring day planned to the last second by prison officials.
I watch the minutes tick by on my prison issue wrist watch. Forty minutes until I exercise. My leg muscles twitch. I stretched out, trying to ease the cramps running through my limbs. My gut twisted.
The twitching worsened. Before I could react, cry for help, I was tossed from my bunk, my body seized with violent spasms. A guard radioed for backup. Agony ripped through me. The cold, damp concrete of the floor burned into my skin.
“Call an ambulance,” someone cried. My lungs wouldn’t fill. Foam poured from my lips.
Guards rushed into my cell, dragging me into the corridor outside. Inmates all raced to the front of their cell, calling my name, demanding to know what’s happening. Time twisted. I floated between agonising consciousness and fitful bursts of blackness.
An ambulance crew stood over me, arguing as the guards tried to chain me, my body writhing on the floor. Needles pierced my skin. A mask covered my mouth. I was strapped to a stretcher, begging for something to end my pain.
I’m dying. Whoever framed me refused to wait for the state to finish their dirty work.
The next time awareness hit, I was in an ambulance, the sirens blaring. My mouth won’t work. I long to scream at them to turn the blasting sirens off. The noise ripped through me, jolting like electricity through my limbs. My entire body stiffened, my muscles contract, curling my limbs unnaturally. The pain consumed my common sense, I wanted to beg for death. Two armed guards stood over me. They won the argument over the chains, the cuffs holding my shaking arms threatened to snap my bones in two as my arms flailed helplessly.
“What did you take?” A paramedic screamed at me. All I can do is widen my eyes, let the seizure take hold until my brain gives out and sweet darkness folds in.
The ambulance swerving into a ditch pulled me back to agonising reality. A bullet flew over my head.
“You fucking asshole,” one of the guards hissed. I’m gripped with terror and agony, strapped down, my muscles firing wildly, unable to help myself or protest my innocence. “You won’t get away with this, Roman. I’ll hunt you down like a rabid dog.”
The paramedic threw himself behind my stretcher, begging for his life. Bullets tore through the ambulance. Masked men stormed the tiny space. A rifle is pressed to the forehead of the guard.
“Don’t be a hero,” A thick, Mexican accent warned.
I’m torn from the safety of the ambulance, my oxygen bottle dragging behind me, bundled into the back of a van. Darkness pulls me in again.
“I wanted you to hospitalize the bastard, not kill him.”
I know that voice. The seizures gripping me are as violent as ever. Someone is working at the chains on my wrists.
“He’ll recover within twelve to twenty-four hours. He needs to be kept somewhere dark and quiet. Stimuli will exacerbate his condition.”
Twelve hours? I’ll die before then. No man could survive the pain ripping my body apart. A needle sinks into my arm.
“Keep him sedated, keep him on oxygen. Give him these as per the instructions.”
“Do I look like a fucking doctor to you?” The Mexican growled. “You’re staying with him. He dies, you die.”
I was taken to a dark, silent room. My suffering went on for what felt like months before my body gave into sheer exhaustion.
◆◆◆
“You’re awake?” A young American leant over me, grinning nervously at me.
“Where am I? What happened to me?”
“Mexico. You were poisoned. Can you tell me who you are, I need to make sure you’re not brain damaged? It was touch and go for a while then. The cook gave you twice as much Strychnine as I asked him to.”
“Gave me what? You poisoned me?”
“You lived then?”
I raised my head towards the voice that came from the doorway. My muscles burned. I felt like I’d run a thousand marathons and finished my day with a few boxing matches. A huge Mexican with slick oiled hair grinned at me.
“Angel?”
“The one and only, asshole, and don’t think I’ve forgotten what you did. Me and you have unfinished business.”
“Later, Angel,” another voice came, “we didn’t break him out of prison for you to kill him.”
“Yes, boss.”
Boss? Dani’s dad. But why would he help me? He was behind my incarceration? Nothing made sense. I was too exhausted to attempt to make sense of it.
They released the American promising to hunt, torture and kill his entire family if he spoke a word to anyone about the last twenty-four hours. He raced from the room, his face as white as virgin snow.
“You need to get dressed,” Dani’s dad snapped, tossing me a bag, “I broke you out, my part is done. I want you outta my house. You’re on your own now. I didn’t go straight to end up in jail for saving your sorry ass.”
Every move I made threatened to grip my body with seizures again, each step burned like hot coals on my skin. I pulled the clothes on, the rough denim fabric of the jeans brushed my skin like sandpaper. My vision blurred, the thin slither of sunlight streaming through the gap in the heavy, blackout blinds burned my retina. They had to give me more time to recover. If they threw me onto the streets in this state, I’d collapse, end up rushed to hospital before being transferred to death row.
I tiptoed from the room. Pictures of Dani in her younger years filled every inch of the hallway. Her smile faint and faked, her eyes dull, missing the sparkle they’d blessed me with when we’d laid under the stars on that beach.
“Door’s that way,” Angel hissed when I found them in a lavish sitting room.
“I’m staying here the night,” I declared, easing myself into a cushioned chair.
“The hell you are,” Dani’s dad growled, reaching into his pants.
“Kill me if you like,” I smiled, “I’m dead anyway if you don’t give me time to rest. I’ll end up back on death row where I’ll tell them everything. Dani’ll be my first call, I’ll tell her who to look for if anything happens to my family. She’ll never forgive you.”
He leant back his chair, his narrowed on me, his fingers gripping the hilt of the shotgun tucked in his pants.
“Why wouldn’t I just kill you right now? I did this for Danielle, so she didn’t have to watch the man she loves die in prison. Far as she’ll know, you ran, you lived happily ever after on the run and forgot her. It’ll hurt her for a while and then she’ll move on.”
“But she won’t. She’ll never stop searching for me. You kill me, you condemn her to a life of hopeless searching, never finding the answers that’ll bring her peace. One night, Sir, that’s all I ask of you. A bed, a decent meal and help getting back to Texas in the morning.”
He loosened his grip on his gun. Angel towered over me, his fists balled. My heart pounded, sweat laced my skin.
“Fine,” Dani’s dad relented. “One night. I get you over the border in the morning and I never hear from you again.”
“I need a phone.”
“No chance.”
“I have to let my family know I’m safe.”
“Not happening. You make a single call, this place'll be crawling with cops before the call connects.”
I was locked into Dani’s old room. It didn’t appear to have changed at all since the day she was snatched from her life, cast into her own personal nightmare. It was nothing like a normal eighteen year old’s room. No pictures of friends hung from her walls, no posters of boy bands adorned the walls, there wasn’t a thing out of place. Her wardrobe resembled that of a woman three times her age. It was easy to see why she’d turned her back on her old life. There was more going wrong than her father’s criminal career. The heavy lock on the door, the thick bars blocking the window, turned the softly furnished room into a gilded cage.
My eyes landed on the bed, it’s thick, fleece lined comforters and mountain of pillows called my name. It’s strange, the things you miss in prison. If you’d asked me six years ago what I’d miss most being locked up away from my life, my friends and my family, I’d have answered family, freedom, the ability to manage my own life, the obvious stuff. But that’s not what you miss. It’s the small things that get to you most, the unexpected. Fresh veg, fruit and salad, I missed those, my mouth watered just thinking about them. A proper bed, pillows and thick blankets, a mattress, a view of something more than the three-inch strip of sky I could see from my cell. Those are the things I’d missed the most.
I sank into the thick, soft mattress, tugging the thick, heavy blankets over me.
“Hola,” a female voice called through the door.
“I’m decent,” I yelled back. The volume of my own voice tore through my brain, sending fresh waves of agony rushing through my head. I sank back to the pillows, my eyes closed.
“I’m here to ask what you eat for lunch?”
Oh, God. Where do I start?
“What do you have?”
“You are the man who tried to save our sweet Danielle? For you, I make anything, anything you want.”
“Steamed lobster on a bed of lightly chargrilled veg.”
“Lobster will take time, Sir.”
“I was joking,” I laughed, “anything, really. I’m starving, It’s been so long since I ate real food. If you have something fresh and green that’ll be good. You must be Maria? Danielle told me about you. She misses you.”
“I’ll make you chicken quesadilla, tomato salsa and creamed corn? They were Danielle’s favourite.”
“That’ll be perfect, Maria, thank you.”
I’d died and gone to heaven, the poison worked. The thick, pillow topped mattress cupped my aching limbs as I sank into it. Exhaustion took hold before I could savour the treats Maria promised me.
She woke me gently, thrusting a tray of fresh Mexican delights onto my lap. The food piled high, quesadillas sat on a mountain of cherry red tomato salsa, cream corn spilled from the sides of a soup bowl, a dish of bananas coated in some kind of rum-scented syrup sat on the edge of the tray along with a glass of orange juice, two mugs one of tea and one of coffee and a bottle of ice cold beer, beads of condensation dripped teasingly down the green glass holding the golden amber liquid. If I didn't think her psychopathic new lover would shoot me, I’d have kissed her there and then.
I shovelled the food in like my life depended on it and oh, God, I’ve never tasted anything as welcome and delicious as that Mexican feast was. All the flavour, the fresh wet crunch of the tomatoes, the citrus tang of the lime in the quesadillas, the warming rum soaked stickiness of the bananas. I forced down every last mouthful, my stomach groaning, washing it all down with the ice cold beer.
“The doctor left these for you,” Maria told me, handing me two light blue pills. “They’ll help you sleep.”
“I don’t think I’ll have a problem sleeping,” I laughed. I took them anyway, washing them down with the remains of the sweet, super fresh orange juice. If it was caught tomorrow, it would all be worth it, just for that meal.
Maria took the tray, promising another feast for breakfast. I knew now, how Angel got so big, A few more days with this woman’s cooking and I’d be bursting at the seams.
◆◆◆
I slept soundly, encased in comfortable silence. No-one slid open the metal slot on my door, shone torch light in my face. Fellow inmates didn’t spend the night sobbing, crying out for their children, begging in their sleep for forgiveness. Nightmares of Stacey’s and Maia’s last moments didn’t haunt my dreams. Iron gates didn’t scream in the darkness.
I woke with the hot Mexican sun on my face. Maria had left a tray of fresh fruit, juice, water and flask of strong black coffee by my bed. I guzzled down the coffee and devoured the fruit, savouring the fresh crunchiness.
There were two doors, one locked tight, the other I figured must lead to a bathroom. I grabbed a towel from Dani’s wardrobe, pausing to enjoy its thick, warm softness and freshly laundered scent. Prison towels are thin and crunchy, perfumed with bleach and the funk of the men who used them before me.
Steam filled the bathroom as I turned the shower as hot as I could bear. I stood under that shower until my skin wrinkled, dousing myself in Dani’s luxurious shower gels and shampoos. That right there, that was freedom. Those little things that you take for granted.
Angel waited on Dani’s bed when I emerged from the steam filled bathroom, wrapped in swathes of fluffy white towels.
“I’m here to take you for breakfast,” he growled.
“That wasn’t breakfast?” I asked nodding towards the tray of devoured fruit and the empty flask.
“That was snacks. Maria cooks breakfast.”
“Lead the way, Gorilla dude.”
While there was any chance of my return to death row, I was making the most of what comforts life on the run offered and Maria’s cooking was more than comfortable.
“You dress first,” Angel growled, snatching the jeans they’d given me from the floor. I caught them before they smacked into my face. He stayed on the bed, his arms folded over his wide chest, his eyes set in an unamused glower.
“You gonna watch?” I asked, pulling my towels tighter.
“You have nothing I’m interested in,” he huffed, turning his back to me.
“That’s a relief, dude, I made it out of prison without becoming someone’s bitch, I don’t wanna ruin my streak.”
“Dress.”
“Sir, yes, Sir.”
“Do you think you’re amusing?”
Clearly not. I pulled on the clothes they’d given and followed Angel through the house. Maria and Dani’s dad were at the long dining table. It groaned under the weight of bowls full of fruit, cold cut meats, eggs, bread rolls and lobster.
Maria jumped up instantly, pulling out a chair for me. I was plied with hot, black coffee, my plate piled high with eggs and lobster. By the time I’d cleared my plate, I was stuffed so full I could barely move. Angel scoffed copious amounts of food, more food than any human should be able to manage.
“Your transport to Texas leaves in an hour,” Dani’s dad told me. “Maria will pack you a lunch. We’ll give some cash to start you out. There’s no point advising you take the money and run is there?”
“I’m innocent, Sir. I intend to prove that.”
“I had a feeling you’d say that,” he sighed. “We’ll offer you as much help as we can, but honestly, Leo, we have as much idea as you do who did this to you. I can promise you, despite what Danielle believes that we were not involved, nor were the men who took her.”
“What about the men they sold her to?”
“We have yet to locate them. If we find anything on them we’ll let Danielle know.”
“Sir, can I ask why the change of heart? Last night you were ready to throw me onto the street.”
“Maria, my wife, is more forgiving than I am. She asked me to help you. I do have one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“Danielle. Look after her, love her, keep her safe. Maria thinks you can make her happy.”
“I promise you, Sir, I will.”
◆◆◆
Angel waited with me in a crowded diner at a truck stop. They planned on smuggling me back into Texas hidden in an eighteen wheeler. My heart raced, sweat dripped from my skin. The eyes of everyone in there scoured my skin, I could hear them whispering. My face flashed on the American news channel the Tv blasted out. They knew, everyone knew. The police would turn up any second, their guns all trained on me. One false move, I’d end up another statistic of overzealous, trigger happy Police.
On the TV my mother opened the door, her shoulders slumped, tears staining her cheeks, glittering under the harsh camera lights, broken and defeated. Fuck, what I had done? Reporters screamed questions at her. Where is he? Is he dangerous? Will he come home?
“My son is not dangerous,” she sobbed. “He is a good man. He did not plan this, he did not do this alone, my Leo doesn’t know the kind of people of who could do this, he was kidnapped. He’s a good boy. You have to believe me.”
Theo grabbed her, yanking her inside, slamming the door. Minutes later a garden hose snaked from an upstairs window, showering the expensive camera equipment below.
Angel shovelled a cheeseburger into his mouth. Grease dripped down his chin.
“Relax,” he growled.
Relax? How did he expect me to do that? My face was being broadcast on every channel. Strangers, news anchors, politicians were all discussing me, warning the public to steer clear. I was considered dangerous, a violent, volatile criminal, ready to kill the first person who crossed me. Detective Schilling spoke, asking the public to remain vigilant.
“We don’t believe Leopold Roman to be armed or dangerous at this point but we do need to find him.”
He must be the only person in the world to believe me not dangerous.
“Truck’s here,” Angel barked, grabbing my arm, dragging me from the diner.
I was bundled into the back, warned to stay quiet. Border officials had been paid off. I’d be dropped off at a truck stop on the edge of Houston, after that I was on my own.
The driver threw a tarpaulin over me. I hugged the bag Maria had packed. The engine roared to life, speeding me towards my homeland, towards the manhunt that would end only with my death or incarceration. Every time the truck slowed, my heart stopped, my breath faltered. I gripped the bag tighter. Maria had packed water, sandwiches, a throwaway cell phone, anything a man on the run could need.
Hours passed like days, minutes seemed to tick by in hours. Police sirens raced past us. The air grew hot and stuffy. My skin prickled, soaked in sweat, my shirt clung to my damp skin. My head thumped.
The truck slowed to a stop. Someone pulled up the back, stepping onto the truck. I bit my lip, hugging Maria’s carefully packed bag for dear life. This was it. I was caught. I held my breath.
“We’re here, you go now,” the Mexican truck driver snapped.
My heart didn’t stop hammering uncontrollably in my chest, squeezing the air from my lungs. I took shaking steps, numbly making my way off the truck, into the open.
“GO!” The driver barked, shoving me from his truck.
Fuck. I wanted to run. I had nowhere to run to. No-one to call. The Police and the world’s media camped at my parent's house. They’d be watching Carly and Laura too. Anyone I’d had contact with in prison was off limits. Angel had given me a checklist of what not to do. He hadn’t told me what I should do. Where I should go.
There’s only one person I could call. One person who might turn me in as quick as they’d help me. I had to risk it. My sticky, sweaty fingers tapped at the disposable cell phone, typing in her number.
“Hello?”
“Mrs Charles?”
“Leo? Oh my God, Leo, you’re safe. There’s a manhunt for you. The Police say you’re armed and dangerous.”
“I don’t know where to go.”
“Where are you?”
I gave her the name to the truck stop, she promised to be there within the hour.
Well, this really was it. Either Stacey’s mom would turn up, willing to help me or the Police would. I sank to the ground, resting against a tree, my back to the road.