by Trisha Wolfe
I’m not allowed access to him; can only talk to him through the bars. That same cold iron that filled my father’s basement.
“You weren’t there today.”
I stuff my hands into my jacket pockets. “No.” That’s a lie. I stood outside the courtroom doors, my back pressed to the brick as I listened to the trial unfold. But Grayson already knows I’m a liar.
He stares at me from the other side of the cell, those watchful eyes sussing out the truth. “My lawyer thinks I can beat the capital punishment wrap.”
I suck in a breath. “Are you truly afraid to die?”
The corner of his mouth kicks up. “Doesn’t everybody fear death?”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I’m no longer on the clock, doc.”
I stay silent and wait him out. There should be a pressing urgency to this discussion, as we’re running out of time. But there’s a strange calmness surrounding us.
“I don’t fear death,” he finally says. “Not in the way most people do. I was of the mindset that once they killed me, my life, my purpose…it would be done. Finished. There’s nothing to fear in that. I almost welcomed it, the chance to rest the relentless compulsions.” His gaze follows me, predatory and invasive. “And then there was you.”
“I fail to see how I have anything at all to do with it.”
He cocks his head. “You can’t fear losing what you never knew existed. You changed everything, London. Now I can’t simply cease—because I want you too badly. I want what we could mean together.”
“That’s delusional. Even if you live—”
“If?”
I swallow. “Grayson, we’ll never be together. You’re a serial killer behind bars. For life.” The echo of my voice carries, reflecting the truth of that statement back to me. “Besides, as I’ve stated before, you’re experiencing transference. Your feelings for me aren’t real.”
“Because I’m incapable of feeling.”
“Yes. You’re a manipulator. You manipulate emotions, and you’re confusing the two.”
He bounds off the cot. “Disempathetic,” he pronounces slowly. “I’ve done my research. Why didn’t you cite it in your evaluation? Why haven’t you mentioned it once when it’s fucking clear as crystal?”
I mock laugh. “Disempathetic type is a myth. It’s the dream of wives and girlfriends of psychopaths everywhere—a way to cope. Convincing themselves that the men they love actually love them in return.”
His face hardens. “Admit that it’s possible for me.”
“I will not ever.”
His stare becomes calculated as he watches my features. Reading on my face what I won’t voice. “Then what about you, Dr. Noble? If you feel nothing for me, why are you here?”
“I don’t know,” I admit.
But then that’s another lie.
His crooked smile reveals that wicked dimple in his cheek. “I do. You’ve come to find out if I’m going to tell the world your secret.”
I wet my lips. “I’m tired of this dance, Grayson.”
He moves closer, places his hands on the bars. “Tell me the truth of what happened, and no one will ever know.”
I can feel his excitement. The way his pale gaze shines with anticipation. He’s eager to witness me relive the past, to experience my kill through me.
“How did you find out?” he asks.
I press my hand to my forehead, squeeze my eyes closed, mentally willing the pain in my head away. “I’d be a fool to trust you.”
“But that’s part of therapy,” he says. “Trust. Patient and doctor. Trusting each other.”
A weak laugh falls from my lips. The details are insignificant. I recite them off like I’m reading from a grocery list. Removing any trace of emotion from my voice that he can glean pleasure from.
“I went into the basement and there was a girl,” I say. “She was my age, too dehydrated to cry, trembling and covered in angry, red lashes, her skin blistered and bruised.” I look up at him, embracing the memory. “She was beautiful.”
“I tried to set her free,” I whisper. “I knew it was the right thing to do. But I didn’t have the key. I never thought of calling the police, or running to a neighbor…”
“Because your father was the sheriff,” he provides.
“That, and I didn’t want anyone to know. No one would’ve believed me, anyway. Probably.” I shake my head. “I didn’t really believe it until I saw her. By then, it was too late to go back.”
I’ve inched closer to the bars, and Grayson’s hand now covers mine. His finger stroking mine. His touch my anchor. “You knew you were going to kill him.”
“Yes,” I say. “I’d been fantasizing about it during those months. Obsessing about the different ways…how it would feel—” I cut myself off. “I didn’t sneak down there. I knew he was aware, that he’d follow me to the basement. I brought him down there on purpose.” I turn my head away.
Grayson reaches through the bars and forces my face toward his. “How did you plan to kill him, London?”
“I was going to throw him down the steps.”
His finger trails my jaw. “But you failed the first time.”
“He was bigger. Stronger. And I saw it in his eyes. That gleam. Like he’d been waiting for me.”
Shame blankets me. I don’t have to say it aloud; he doesn’t make me. I was sixteen. The age of the girl in the cage. My father had been waiting for me.
“He strangled her,” I power on. “He didn’t kill her right away. He toyed with her. His eyes watched me while he choked her. My punishment for threatening him, I suppose. I would be next,” I say, the cool room suddenly scented with the same dank smell of that basement. “I just knew. Somehow I understood. He was going to kill me. So I took his life instead.”
His thumb traces the contour of my cheek before he touches the scar along my palm. “But not before he took something from you.”
My humanity.
I glance at the scarred skin, stained with black ink and makeup. “He wanted me to be a part of it. I thought at the time he was trying to salvage…” I look up and curse. “I wanted to believe he loved me. In his own sick way, he wanted to make me a part of his secret so that we could share it. Or that I wouldn’t be a threat to him. Reflection over the years has clarified the moment he put that knife in my hand and used me to end that girl’s life. Years of studying mental illness and disorders revealed that it excited him. That’s all. Nothing more.”
His gaze flicks over my face. “Were you excited?”
I bite my lip until the metallic tang of blood fills my mouth. “In that moment, experiencing the raw power of taking a life…yes. I wasn’t just a voyeur,” I admit. “I felt every stab of the blade. The way the knife sliced through flesh, the vibration when it hit bone. I was lost in the sensation before I willed myself back—ripping my hand free of his. The blade cut through my hand here.” I turn my palm over, revealing the healed over scar.
“He let me kill him.” I pull my hand back. “Maybe he was shattered that I refused him, or maybe in the end he was tired of his sickness…but I never should’ve been able to overpower him.”
“But you did.”
“He came after me. He’d left the knife behind. He had no weapon. I let him wrap his hands around my throat. Get close enough…before I grabbed the key and drove it into the one spot that would give me time. I went for the knife, but it wasn’t needed. I’d torn through his jugular. He bled out quickly.”
I glance at my hands, recalling the blood.
“Then you hid the kill.”
I shake my head. “No. I didn’t stage the accident to hide my crime. I had planned to die in that wreck. To end the deviant legacy, but when I awoke in the hospital, injured but alive, it was…a rebirth. A new life. A new chance.” I look into his eyes. “I’m not that girl anymore. She died, Grayson. I killed her, too. And there’s nothing you can say or do to bring her back. My own father failed, and so there’s no ho
pe for you. My will is stronger than my sickness.”
He pulls away, breaking the connection. “Your pain didn’t die with your father, and neither did your compulsion to kill. You’ve been able to channel that need through your patients, but it’s getting harder, isn’t it?”
I wipe at my face. “I’ve told you what you wanted to know. Now I need to know that it goes no further than here.”
His smile long gone, he looks down and traces the design of a puzzle piece along his inner forearm. “You might be justified. You might even be considered a hero for what you did. But you still took the law into your own hands, which inherently in this justice system is wrong. You’re no better than any of the murderers you’ve treated. You’re a hypocrite and a narcissist. You loathe me, but you despise yourself more.”
“Swear it to me!” I shout.
His heated gaze flicks up. “I could never share you with another, London. I’m too selfish.”
Chin lifted, I straighten my jacket, smoothing my hands over the pleats. “Then this is goodbye, Grayson. I’ll see you in court tomorrow for the last time.”
I walk away from the cell and from him, leaving behind a piece of myself. He has my secret, that dark and frightening monster I keep hidden from not just the world but myself. Whether or not he’ll keep it, I can’t know. He suffers from sadistic symphorophilia, he’s a psychopath who loves to stage and watch disasters.
And destroying me? That would be the ultimate disaster for a sadist like Grayson.
16
Perjury
London
Nestled between a row of red oaks, one lone pine stands amid downtown New Castle’s courthouse district. I sit on the courthouse steps, watching the pine’s thin branches flutter in the light breeze.
It doesn’t belong. Not sure how the tree got here, how it sprouted up in the middle of so much civilization, and it will most likely be cut down soon. Replaced with another red oak or birch to perfectly line the street.
But it’s here.
I used to stare out the bay window of my house at the pines. We had tall, tightly packed skinny ones that would creek and bow in storms. And I would stare, just stare into the dense blankness of it all—the way the pines would sway back and forth, rocking themselves to some melody. As if they were self-soothing in the midst of all the violence.
That sight should’ve been a comfort. It shouldn’t have frightened me.
But because there is comfort, there is turbulence. You fear it more acutely when the threat of it is pending, when it’s near—the anticipation of our worst fears is more paralyzing than the impact.
There is no shelter from the storm.
I pick up my coffee cup and briefcase, and head into the courthouse, where I wait to be called. My suit feels warm on my skin from the sun, the air-conditioned room causing me to shiver. I drain and toss my cup as the bailiff calls my name.
I sense his eyes on me the moment I enter the courtroom. I aim my gaze ahead as I follow the bailiff to the front. He holds the gate open for me, and I give a curt nod before I’m standing next to the judge.
“Raise your right hand.”
I’m sworn in and take my seat at the stand. I’ve done this same action so many times it’s habit. Formulaic. Yet everything about it this time is different. I can sense the judgment from the prosecution in a way I’ve never felt before. I’m tethered to the defendant, tied to him with a connection that screams to be severed.
The lights are amplified. The sounds too loud. The air too thick.
“Hello, Dr. Noble.”
The defense attorney blocks my line of sight to Grayson before I’m tempted to look.
“How are you today?” he asks.
“I’m fine, thank you.”
“Good. Glad to hear.” After a brief rundown of my credentials, he asks, “Can you tell us how long you evaluated Mr. Sullivan?”
The lawyer is youthful and attractive. I notice the way the jury leans forward, attentive to him. His fresh face and amusing mannerisms are a welcome distraction to the heaviness of this trial.
“Nearly three months,” I respond.
“And is this a sufficient amount of time to diagnose a patient?”
“Yes. Generally, I’m able to provide a full diagnosis and treatment plan for patients within a two-week period.”
“Then why did Mr. Sullivan require a longer evaluation period?”
I straighten my back. “Midway through my initial evaluation, I noticed signs of severe delusion that I felt needed a closer assessment.”
I’m going off script. Mr. Young stares at me curiously, then walks to the defense table and grabs the folder that contains Grayson’s evaluation.
“What is Mr. Sullivan’s official diagnosis?” he asks.
“Mr. Sullivan exhibits antisocial personality disorder. He scored on the extreme high end of the spectrum for this personality disorder, which classifies him as a dangerous personality. He suffers from sadistic symphorophilia, which means he derives sexual gratification from staging and watching brutal disasters. As a sadist, Mr. Sullivan gleans pleasure from the suffering of others, and his particular psychopathy allows him to be a highly skilled manipulator.”
The attorney blinks, looks at the prosecution, as if he’s awaiting an objection. There will be no objection from that side of the courtroom during my testimony.
Mr. Young starts again, trying to find a thread of our original correspondence. “Dr. Noble, did you not verbally state that Mr. Sullivan is a model inmate. That despite his disorder, he was not a threat to anyone in prison, as it lacked the chaos to feed his particular psychopathy?”
I smile. He has a good memory, recalling what I relayed to him of my conversation with the Attorney General. “Yes, that’s correct. I did say those words to the prosecution. But that was in the middle of my final evaluation. As I’ve stated, Mr. Sullivan is an expert manipulator, and thus more time is needed to effectively diagnose him and determine the level of danger he presents.”
The lawyer flips through the evaluation I retyped only the night before. He was so confident in my verbal assessment that he never asked to receive the report prior to the trial.
“The treatment plan you originally thought best tailored for Mr. Sullivan was to be medicated under your care, to receive continued therapy sessions, and to slowly integrate him into general population where he can be a productive member of the correctional society.” He glares at me, a threat in his eyes. “Do you still feel that Mr. Sullivan can benefit from this treatment?”
“Let me put it as simply as possible,” I say, bolstering myself. “Mr. Sullivan’s victims were, as he believed, guilty of crimes. Crimes he felt were deserving of extreme and disturbing vigilante justice. Does assimilating him into a population full of criminals sound like a good idea to you, Mr. Young?”
The shock on the lawyer’s face is only topped by the collective wave of agreement that rolls through the room.
“Order,” the judge demands.
I make eye contact with Grayson then. There’s no malice on his face, only the hint of a smirk. Those knowing eyes drill into me.
I roll my shoulders. “Furthermore, I discovered that Mr. Sullivan suffers an uncharacterized delusional disorder in connection to his psychopathy. He believes he has grandiose connections with his victims, which develops into a fixation on them where his delusion creates an alternate reality. In other words, the manipulation tactics he deploys on his victims serves to influence his own delusions, resulting in his belief of his own lies. This gives him the conviction to punish, maim, and kill without guilt or remorse.” I take a breath before I push through. I have to push through. “Anyone Grayson Sullivan comes into contact with is at risk for becoming a part of his delusions and thereby suffering either physical or mental harm. He is one of the most dangerous individuals I’ve come into contact with and feel I’m unable to continue his treatment. I do not feel rehabilitation is a prospect for Mr. Sullivan.”
Silence falls
over the court, and Mr. Young clears his throat. “Thank you, Dr. Noble. Nothing more, Your Honor.”
After a charged moment, the judge looks to the Attorney General. “Would you like to cross examine, Mr. Shafer?”
The lawyer stands briefly. “No, Your Honor. The prosecution rests.”
“Please escort Dr. Noble off the stand,” the judge instructs the bailiff. “Court is adjourned for an hour recess, then we’ll hear closing arguments.”
I flinch at the commotion rising around the room as people stand. The finality of it rocks through me, and I grab the edge of the stand to help me rise. I pass Grayson on unsteady legs, the need to look into his eyes an unbearable, painful demand. The string tethering me to him snaps taut.
When I give in to the desire and our eyes meet, no words are needed. I see it there on his face, the understanding of what I’ve done. I’ve secured my lie by misdiagnosing a patient in open court. No one will hear or believe his claims about me.
I have sabotaged not only my career to do so, but any chance he had.
I’ve just sentenced Grayson to death.
My secret will die with him.
17
Execution
Grayson
“All rise.”
I stand along with my lawyer and straighten my tie, giving it a tug to loosen it from around my constricted throat.
“At least there were no videos to defend this time around,” Young whispers my way. “Good luck.”
Luck isn’t on my side. London made sure of that. My lawyer has lost all of that enthusiastic hope he had early on at winning his shot. Her testimony shocked everyone here. Probably every professional in her field. The only person not surprised by her dramatic shift from savior to condemner is me.
I suppress a smile. I loved every second of watching her embrace her killer instinct.
As the jury enters, I look around the room instead of at them. I don’t need to see their hung heads and grave expressions. I knew the outcome of this trial before it started. I’m looking for London. She’s all that matters now.