By reason of insanity

92

Back in her cell, Catherine wrestled with her emotions. Concealing the information about Chi Ying just seemed so wrong. She wanted to call Quinn collect and talk with him alone, but she didn't have phone privileges in solitary confinement.

She knew Quinn and Bo cared about her. But she also knew that in their minds she had killed two people and kidnapped three kids. Technically, they might consider her not guilty by reason of insanity. But on a deeper level, they believed she was guilty as sin.

The incredible thing was that for a while she had even doubted herself. She still did, at times. But something about this newest piece of information seemed to shake her out of a fog. I didn't do that. The doubts weren't entirely gone, but they no longer dominated.

Cat couldn't shake the image of little Chi Ying from her mind. Should he have to stay with a family that would buy a baby on the black market just because Cat's lawyers thought it was a good legal strategy? And then a thought hit her that chilled her to the bone. What if the real kidnapper, the real Avenger of Blood, realized that the baby had been discovered? Would he or she contact the people who ran the black-market agency? Would those people find a way to eliminate the evidence if they thought they might get caught? Would the Avenger do it first?

Stirred to action, Cat pulled out a piece of paper and a pen. She had to do this. Maybe her lawyers would resign, maybe this would lead to a smoking gun against her, but how could she just sit back and do nothing?

Jamarcus,

I have protected your confidences on occasions too numerous to count. I have gone to jail for you rather than breach that confidence. You have trusted me and, despite some of the allegedly incriminating information that is coming out in this trial, you need to know that your trust was not misplaced.

With this letter, I'm placing my trust in you. I'm begging you to look into a matter but not to talk to anyone else about it.

It has come to my attention that my private investigator, a man named Billy Long, has located a baby in Los Angeles that he believes is Chi Ying. I do not know how Mr. Long located Chi. Perhaps you could privately question Mr. Long and find out the details. My concern is for the baby. If certain persons find out that Chi has been located, what would keep them from "eliminating" that problem?

I am completely innocent of these crimes, and I am trusting you to handle this with discretion so it won't come back to haunt me.

Yours,

Catherine

She read the letter twice, placed it in a sealed envelope, and addressed it to Jamarcus Webb. She would deliver it tomorrow morning in court.

Assuming she didn't lose her nerve first.

The courtroom seemed larger, but the players were all the same. Judge Rosencrance scowling from the bench. Jamarcus Webb frowning in the front row. Just in front of him, at the counsel table, sat a sneering Boyd Gates, his bald pate reflecting the harsh courtroom lights. Cat's lawyers were there, of course, as was her family. In the back, standing against the wall, quoting Scripture and damning Cat to hell, was the Reverend Harold Pryor.

"Do you have a verdict?" Rosencrance asked, raising her voice to be heard over the rantings of Pryor.

A woman stood in the middle of the jury box. At first Cat didn't recognize her, but then it sunk in. The refined looks. The sorrow etched into the worried face. Marcia Carver! The jury foreperson was Marcia Carver!

"We've reached a verdict," Marcia said.

Pryor stopped talking, and the courtroom fell silent.

"Will the accused please stand?" Rosencrance asked.

Trembling and weak-kneed, Cat stood, Marc Boland on one side, Quinn on the other. An eternity of silence followed while all eyes turned toward Catherine as if the spectators expected a spontaneous confession. Catherine glanced toward Marcia but couldn't hold the woman's severe stare.

"What is your verdict?" Rosencrance asked.

"Guilty," Marcia Carver said, "of murder in the first degree."

Shaking uncontrollably now, Cat nearly collapsed to the floor. How could this have happened?

"So say you all?" Rosencrance asked.

The other jurors nodded their heads. Cat tried to get her bearings.

"I hereby find the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree," Rosencrance pronounced, her words ripping at Cat's heart. "We will begin the sentencing phase tomorrow morning."

"Amen," said the voice of Pryor.

But Marcia Carver did not sit down. "Not the defendant," she said, her voice trembling as the other jurors nodded along. She extended a long, accusatory finger.

"Him!"