By reason of insanity

110

For Cat, it felt strange being on the outside going in. She registered as a visitor and passed through a metal detector, palms sweaty just from being surrounded by prison walls again. The guards in Vegas had the same I'm-just-doing-my-job approach as the deputies in Virginia Beach. Depersonalizing. Their attitude reminded Cat of how depressing jail had been-how much it had toyed with her sense of dignity and worth.

Ironically, Vegas was not as technologically advanced as Virginia Beach. For that, Cat was grateful. Instead of closed-circuit TV, where Cat wouldn't even be in the same room as Quinn, she would instead be sitting on the opposite side of three-inch glass, face-to-face, a mirror image of the way they had conducted their attorney-client conferences in Virginia Beach.

Cat arrived in the interview booth first and mentally steeled herself for the fact that the Quinn Newberg she was about to meet would not seem like the same person as the dapper attorney who had stood up for her in court. Even though he had been in jail only a few days, the place had a way of changing you-reducing you to the ugly core of who you were.

A few minutes later, the door opened on the other side of the glass and Quinn slid into the booth. He wore an orange jumpsuit, his hair was disheveled, and his face was still swollen from the nasty cut to his cheekbone. He smiled immediately. "What's a gorgeous woman like you doing in a place like this?"

Surprisingly, he sounded upbeat. His smile brought back the old Quinn, except for the swollen eye and the gash on his cheekbone, and for a moment it was Catherine who was incarcerated and this handsome Vegas lawyer who had ridden into town to save the day.

She was glad that she came.

"They said you needed some coaching," Catherine said. "How to survive in jail."

"Yeah. That would be good. Things like how to stay out of fights and how not to confess to my cellmate. Maybe you could teach me how to file my toothbrush into a shank."

"Shut up," Cat said, and they both laughed.

"Actually," Cat went on, "the best thing I did in jail was to convince the world's best lawyer to handle my case." As she said it, she stayed locked on his eyes, sensing that the chemistry was still there, that things hadn't changed between them. "I never got a chance to properly thank you, Quinn Newberg. You saved my life."

"You made it easy," Quinn said. "You happened to be innocent." His halfhearted attempt to shrug it off couldn't mask how much her words meant to him-especially now, alone in prison, where the full weight of abandonment and loneliness hit.

There was an awkward silence, and Cat remembered how hard it was to communicate-not just talk but really get down to heart issues-when separated by glass, wondering if every word was being monitored. "Are you doing okay?" Cat asked. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Are you kidding? I love this place. Plenty of crazy folks for clients. Card games galore. You should see the pile of cigarettes I've already won."

Cat decided not to let him off the hook so easy-always the sarcastic charmer, deflecting the tough questions. "Seriously, Quinn. How are you doing?"

He shrugged again. "It helps being a lawyer, even one about to have his license pulled. I'm representing three of the toughest thugs already, preparing paperwork for their outside lawyers-the inmates love it. You don't have to worry about me being attacked. I'm trading legal brains for protection and pretty much have my own Secret Service escort."

Cat couldn't resist a small smile. Quinn had been in jail less than a week, and it already sounded like he was running the place.

Quinn's eyes softened, and his voice became quieter. "The hardest thing is that you only see the sun for about an hour each day-and then you're on a scalding concrete pad with a basketball goal on each end, and it's about a hundred and ten degrees. Three years is going to be a long stretch."

Quinn seemed to catch himself, throw a switch in his demeanor, and turned from melancholy to superlawyer again. "Enough about me, though that is my favorite subject. How's my number one client doing?"

"She's fine. She's also free, thanks to you."

"Does she still have nightmares? Did she get her old job back?"

Catherine shifted in her seat. This was the opening she had been waiting for. It was time to get serious and push the point. "I had another vision, Quinn. This time, I saw Hofstetter's murder." She watched closely for a reaction. "You weren't even there when it happened."

Quinn didn't flinch-not a single facial muscle changed. The man had practiced bluffing for years at the poker table and in the courtroom.

"As for my job," Cat continued, "I've got a friend at the Las Vegas Review-Journal who thinks he can get me in. I'm moving out here, Quinn. I'm going to come by every day."

Catherine waited when Quinn didn't respond immediately. He glanced down, seemingly trying to figure out what to say. When he spoke, his voice was steady and sad. "You aren't going to mention this last vision to anyone, are you?"

"Nobody else needs to know."

This seemed to relax him a little, though his face was still troubled. "You can't move out here, Catherine. You're twenty-eight years old-smart, beautiful, full of life. There are a million guys who would swallow broken glass just for a chance to take you out. You can't waste your life waiting for me." He hesitated, looking as though he had to convince himself to continue. "Three years is forever. We'll both be different people by the time I get out."

She leaned forward and felt her throat tighten as emotions too complex for words welled up in her. She knew he didn't mean this. He had brushed her off once before, right after her case was dismissed, supposedly for her own good. Not this time. Catherine O'Rourke could be very determined when she knew what she wanted. And she also knew what Quinn needed, despite his protests to the contrary. "I would have been in jail the rest of my life if it wasn't for you-"

"That can't be the reason-"

Catherine held up a palm. "Please let me finish," she said. Quinn nodded.

"That's not the only reason I'm here. I want this, Quinn. I want us. We're made for each other. I know it, and you know it." Her words came out thick with emotion. And they were having an impact. Quinn's poker face turned soft. "Jail taught me that life is too short to play games," Catherine continued. "You can't stop me from coming by, Quinn. You can't stop me from caring."

"You know I've got a pretty strict curfew."

Cat grinned. "At least you won't be running around with other women."

"It's not the women I'm worried about."

There was another awkward silence, and Cat waited him out again. She needed a serious response. "You really want to try this?" he asked.

Cat nodded. "If you do."

"More than anything in the world," Quinn said, looking down. When he raised his eyes to look at her again, Cat could have sworn she felt the warmth spread through her entire body.

"We're going to make this work," Cat said. It was barely a whisper, not loud enough for Quinn to hear but surely he could read her lips. "You're worth waiting for, Quinn. I can be very persistent."

They sat there for a long moment, Quinn staring at her, the same way he had the first time they met, when he was trying to figure out what was happening inside her head. This time, it felt like he was looking straight into her soul. Maybe he could tell she was heading down a different spiritual path, the Revealer of Mysteries at work in her life. Whatever he saw made him smile-that million-dollar smile of Quinn Newberg, legal magician and Vegas heartthrob. Prison couldn't take it away, not even the orange jumpsuit and bruised face could lessen the irresistible pull of Quinn's impish charm.

"I always thought you were a little crazy," he said.