He stood there, his breath nauseating her, while his frat brothers watched in what seemed like stunned horror, as if even they couldn't believe what Kenny was about to do. He reached out with his index finger and placed it on Cat's lip-
She screamed.
Heart pounding, Cat's eyes popped open, and she focused on the face in front of her, inches away. The insidious smile of Holly.
Cat screamed again, sitting straight up. "Get away from me, you pervert!" she yelled. "What are you doing?"
"Watching you."
Before Cat could respond, Tasha jumped down from the top bunk. She shoved Holly, knocking her over from a kneeling position, pushing her into the wall. "You are a perv," Tasha said.
Cat's heart pounded against her chest. She scooted back against the bars at the end of the cell, wide-eyed.
Holly just stared at Cat, smiling. "You talk in your sleep," she said. "You're crazy."
" You're crazy. Now get back to bed," Tasha growled.
Holly stood up and retreated to her bed, watching Cat the entire time. "Good night, beautiful," she said. "Pleasant dreams."
"She's harmless," Tasha mumbled, climbing back into the top bunk.
But Cat didn't believe her.
Shuddering, Cat crawled back onto her mattress. This time, she sat up with her back to the wall, her blanket pulled around her shoulders.
She caught only fleeting moments of sleep that night, even after Holly had turned over on her mattress and faced the wall, snoring again. When morning came, Cat was beyond exhaustion.
39
The next day, as Cat finished her lunch at one of the bolted-down picnic tables, she heard an argument break out on the other side of the pod. Apparently a young Hispanic woman named Eva had accused a larger African-American woman of cheating at cards. They stood up and pushed each other a few times while the inmates gathered around, shielding the women from the guard station.
Cat stood to get a better look and watched in horror as the larger woman grabbed Eva and threw her against the bars of a cell, holding her upright while she banged Eva's head against the steel. Eva screamed in pain, her eyes going glassy, but somehow managed to grab a hunk of the other woman's hair and pull with all her might.
She released it when the African-American inmate brought an elbow smashing into Eva's face, causing blood to spurt from the smaller woman's nose. Cat, her sight blocked by the other inmates, couldn't see exactly what happened next, but she heard the fist of the larger woman slamming into bone. The sickening thud was audible even as the inmates cheered and the woman cursed at Eva.
Cat glanced at the guard station- Do something! She pushed her way into the inmates who had formed a semicircle around the combatants.
"Stop them!" Cat shouted, repulsed by the bloody face and limp body of the smaller woman. "She's killing her!"
When nobody moved, Cat stepped in to try to stop the beating. But somebody bear-hugged her from behind and pulled her away from the brawlers.
"It's not your fight," Tasha said, speaking into Cat's ear.
Over her shoulder, Cat saw the larger inmate scrape her fingernails across Eva's face, spit on her, and then toss her prey to the floor. By now, six deputies had entered the cell. "Break it up," one of them ordered, shoving a few of the gawking inmates out of the way. "Fun's over."
The deputies helped Eva to her feet and took the woman, barely conscious, to receive medical treatment. They handcuffed the other inmate, presumably to move her into isolation. Then another deputy appeared with a mop and bucket and pointed to Cat, the newest fish. "Mop up the blood, O'Rourke."
While Cat cleaned the blood, the other inmates went back to their card games and lunches, as if they had witnessed nothing more than a verbal spat between friends. Cat trembled at the brutality of what she had just witnessed, amazed at how long the deputies had let the fight proceed before they broke it up. Cat kept her head down and mopped every inch of the concrete floor where the women had been fighting.
When things returned to normal, Tasha pulled Cat aside and gave her some advice. "Trouble will find you soon enough," she said, her jaw barely moving. "Stay out of other people's business."
Cat wanted to protest. She knew Tasha and this other woman were part of a gang that included most of the African-American inmates, though they were closed-lipped about it. But everyone couldn't be in that gang. How could the others just stand around and watch a fellow human being get beaten to a pulp?
Cat already knew the answer.
This is jail, she reminded herself. Civilized societies had complex moral codes to restrain behavior. But in here, things were basic. Raw. People were treated like animals. And, like animals, they were governed by one overriding principle.
Survival of the fittest.
40
Before his scheduled phone call with Catherine O'Rourke on Tuesday, Quinn called Dr. Rosemarie Mancini. She was driving her convertible, and the noise from the wind blowing into the phone made it hard to hear.
Quinn explained his potential involvement in Catherine's case and asked Rosemarie about the visions. To Quinn's surprise, his favorite shrink was a lot less skeptical than he was.
"There's a substantial body of research on this type of thing," she said, speaking loudly over the sound of wind and traffic. "Both the University of Arizona and the University of Virginia have psychology professors investigating the paranormal. I hear the guy at Arizona has a government grant from the National Institute for Health for nearly two million."
"Maybe I should apply for a grant," Quinn muttered. "Most of my clients certainly qualify as paranormal."
Rosemarie ignored him. "You know that NBC show called Medium?"
"I've seen the advertisements."
"That's based on a real person. Allison DuBois. I'll give you her entire story some other time, but she's helped resolve lots of actual cases. She's part of a study at Arizona called the Asking Questions Study-basically an attempt to communicate with dead people through mediums and ask questions that dead people never seem to answer. Stuff like, 'What do you do every day?' and 'What type of body or container for the soul do you have?' and 'Do you eat? Do you engage in sex?' That kind of stuff."
Quinn shook his head. You could apparently get a government grant for anything. "What's the answer to that last question?"
"Seems like all the mediums have their own take on things," Rosemarie said. "They're probably projecting their own biases."
Quinn knew that Rosemarie had both feet firmly anchored in the present dimension, so he decided to get her take. "What about you, doc? Do you think some people actually have this ability to communicate through some other dimension-dreams, premonitions, that type of thing?"
Quinn heard horns honking and, knowing Rosemarie Mancini, assumed she had just cut somebody off. "You asking me as an expert witness or as an individual?"
"As an individual, based on your psychiatric training."
Uncharacteristically, Rosemarie hesitated. "There are some interesting studies on phenomena called 'crisis apparitions,'" she said after a few seconds. "That's when somebody has a strange sense of foreboding or a dark premonition about a relative or someone else just before they die. It's basically what your potential client is saying happened to her."
This surprised Quinn. "You believe that stuff?" For Quinn, if you couldn't touch it, then it wasn't real.
"I'm not saying I buy it. I'm just saying there is some statistical data. Personally, my take focuses more on the spiritual angles."