Sense of Deception Read Online Free PDF Page B

meet the boys, but now I could see that she had withdrawn again. I couldn’t tell why, but maybe it’s just what happens when you spend a decade in prison on death row. Pretty soon, I would imagine, mentally you just fold in on yourself, and it becomes hard to interact with people or even to show a spark of personality.
    Skylar closed her eyes as if she were tired, but I had the impression that it was more of a meditative posture than anything else. I crossed my legs on the bunk and nibbled at the crackers, watching my cellmate studiously. “Hey, Skylar?” I said.
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œWill you tell me about your son?”
    She didn’t answer me for a long time, and I was beginning to think she wasn’t going to when she said, “He was my whole world. He was my sun and my moon and everything I lived for. Now that he’s gone, I have nothing left and I just wish the state would hurry up and get it over with.”
    I scanned her energy for the second time and I didn’t like the signals I was picking up. Skylar’s energy indicated that her life would come to an abrupt end—soon. And what really, really bothered me was the specific energy surrounding her death, because there was no justice to it. In fact, it felt like a murder. I should know—I’ve been around enough murder investigations to sense exactly when a death goes from something that feels energetically “justified” to something much darker.
    Now, I have my own views on capital punishment. I’m definitely not a member of the “Let ’em all burn in hell!” camp, but there are instances when I’m not wholly against the idea of sticking a needle in the arm of a serial killer either. Some crimes are just so heinous, so cruel, so unspeakable, and the people who commit them so inherently evil that when it comes to snuffing out their lives, I think, “Yep.” And I can tell you that there’s a feeling in the ether—the spiritual energy—surrounding these particularly evil doers when they are put to death that reads, to my intuitive mind at least, that justice has been served. And yet, I’ve also come across instances when someone has been convicted of a capital crime and put to death and the ether surrounding that capital sentence felt somewhat unfair, if not quite unjust.
    Capital punishment is not a black-and-white issue, even spiritually, it seems.
    With Skylar, however, when I focused on her impending death, it felt like she was about to actually be murdered unjustly by the state, and that really bothered me.
    â€œHow old was Noah when he . . . passed?” I asked her.
    Skylar’s chest lifted with a deep breath and she sighed out her reply. “Nine.”
    My mind flashed back to the photo and I felt that pang in my heart again. “That’s a great age,” I said. I knew I was probably being a pest, but I wanted to keep her talking. I felt the strongest urge to figure out her story and see if I could help her. Why, I couldn’t quite put into words, but it was there, that feeling that I was somehow mingled with her future—that I might even be her last hope. “So tell me what happened,” I said softly.
    She opened her eyes and turned her head a little to look at me. “What do you see?”
    â€œAbout what happened to your son?”
    She nodded.
    I concentrated, focusing my gaze on the opposite wall away from her face. “It’s a little murky, but I keep seeing a knife.”
    I heard a tiny gasp escape her lips. “That’s true.”
    â€œAs for who was wielding it, I swear it’s someone you know.”
    My gaze traveled back to Skylar. She sat up and looked me level in the eyes, but all I saw there was confusion.
    â€œMiller!” my favorite guard yelled. Skylar and I both jumped as the CO appeared at the bars again. “Stand up, grab your personal items, come to the bars, and put your