By reason of insanity

89

One thing about solitary confinement-it gave a person time to think. And to read. On Friday night, her third consecutive night in solitary, Cat did a lot of both.

She might have been the only one, but she still believed in her own innocence. Most of the time. Not just innocence by reason of insanity, a game that lawyers played, but total and complete exoneration. She wasn't the Avenger of Blood. She hadn't killed Paul Donaldson. And she certainly hadn't killed those babies. Why wouldn't anyone believe her?

Cat was convinced that her visions were the key to solving this case. A few weeks ago, when she had embraced this conclusion, she'd decided to explore every possible explanation for the visions. If she knew what caused them, maybe she could figure out why she stopped having them. And, more importantly, the identity of the real killer.

She'd read the biblical book of Daniel at least three times. In Cat's visions, there was handwriting on the wall. Belshazzar, king of Babylon, had seen handwriting on the wall. Daniel had interpreted what that handwriting meant. All throughout the book of Daniel, kings had dreams or visions, and Daniel interpreted them. All the dreams and visions were messages from God. His finger literally wrote the words on the wall.

Dr. Mancini had seemed to embrace this spiritual explanation, at least in the early days before she had proffered her report about Cat's insanity. "God communicates through His written Word," she had told Cat. "And He showed us what love was like when He sent His Son to live among us. But occasionally, He also communicates through dreams and visions. Treat it as a gift, Catherine. Embrace these visions as God working through you."

But Cat was sitting in prison as a result of the visions. They certainly didn't feel like a gift.

She explored other explanations as well, scientific theories, but few of these seemed very plausible. Cat had read two books about science and the paranormal cover to cover. One book, Spook, dealt with scientific explanations of various aspects of the afterlife. It was, according to the author, "spirituality treated like crop science." The other book, Ghost Hunters, was about William James and a group of scientists called the Society for Physical Research, detailing their search for scientific proof of life after death.

Cat thought the scientists were every bit as confused as she was. They did, however, provide a few theories that made Cat think. Some members of the Society for Physical Research believed that telepathy could be viewed as a unique way that certain gifted humans communicated. Perhaps, in addition to the audible waves generated by voice patterns, humans also communicated through invisible and inaudible waves much like electromagnetic waves. Maybe some humans, like Catherine, were exceptionally tuned in to such waves, more so than the normal person.

This could mean that Cat's visions were the result of receiving information subliminally from another person who knew about these crimes. The most likely suspect was her confidential source, Jamarcus Webb. Maybe she had received subliminal information from Jamarcus and stored it away until it came out during the visions. Such an explanation would also account for why Cat hadn't received any more visions recently, since she had stopped meeting with Jamarcus.

Other scientists believed that dying persons sometimes gave off strong invisible signals-they called them "crisis apparitions"-which explained why many times people reported having an uneasy feeling at the precise moment of a relative's death, even if the dying relative lived quite a distance away. But Cat wasn't related to any of these folks. And her first two visions had occurred well after the actual kidnappings.

There was a final explanation, one so troubling that Cat rejected it out of hand. Demonic forces were sometimes responsible for dreams and visions, especially if someone had dabbled in the occult. Surely this couldn't be the case in Cat's life. She wasn't exactly a nun, but she hadn't been flirting with the dark side either. Not even in her childhood could she remember being part of a seance or even having her palm read by an amusement park gypsy.

On Friday night, Cat fell asleep still reading her books. She awoke, as usual, at 4:30 a.m. to the annoying sound of a guard scraping a flashlight over the prison bars. It had been another dreamless night. Wherever this power was coming from-whether it was spiritual or telepathic or something else-it had apparently deserted Cat during her hour of greatest need. Frustrated, she picked up her books and started reading again. Maybe she was missing something.