The Cat, The Devil, The Last Escape Read Online Free PDF Page A

Morgan hadn’t committed the murder he was charged with, he had suffered with Sammie when her daddy was jailed. He didn’t doubt this trial would herald a painful time in the lives of the Blake family; he didn’t like to think what life would be like if Morgan was found guilty and sent to federal prison on a life sentence. Bank robbery and murder weren’t looked upon kindly in rural Georgia. Morgan was just a young man, a clean-living, hardworking man who did not deserve thebad luck, the cold and deliberate evil that now surrounded him and his family.
    The ghost cat, vanishing and reappearing as he pleased, visited Sammie often. He would snuggle into her dreams at night and into her arms to comfort her. Though he remained unseen, Sammie stroked and cuddled him, put out a finger to feel his soft paw or gently scratched his ragged ears the way she’d done when he was alive. She didn’t question that he was a ghost, she loved and needed him. But when, deep in the night, Sammie slept soundly, at peace again, Misto would return to Lee.
    Often at night Misto was filled with Lee’s sickness; he could feel within his own body Lee’s struggle for breath, his fear of what lay ahead, his desperate bouts of depression. And often at night Misto puzzled mightily over the connection between Mae and Sammie. Always the future blurred, as undefined as if the dark spirit himself had stepped between the ghost cat and whatever beckoned, whatever waited for Lee.

4
    L ATE AFTERNOON SUNLIGHT shone in through the Blakes’ living room windows, brightening the white wicker furniture and flowered cushions, the potted red geraniums on the sill, the hooked rug Becky’s mother had made. Slanting sunlight heightened the carved details of the antique pie safe that had belonged to a great-aunt Becky had never known. All her treasures gathering the afternoon glow would normally comfort her, warm and welcoming; but now, at this moment, Becky’s beloved retreat seemed close and constricting, the colors too bright, the sunlight brassy. She sat stiffly on the edge of a chair like a stranger in her own house, holding her white purse awkwardly on her knees, her dark hair damp with perspiration. She had no idea how long she had sat there. Thinking too much and then not thinking at all, just sitting, numb and unfeeling, incapable of thought.
    The trial was over. After a long and shattering three days in the hot, crowded courtroom, Morgan had been found guilty on one count of murder, three counts of assault andattempted murder, and one count of armed robbery, sentence to be pronounced after an extended noon break.
    During the trial she hadn’t slept much at night, had lain awake staring into the dark, unable to deal with the concept of a death sentence. Praying, praying it would at least be a life sentence, but then wondering what that would do to Morgan. Wondering if all the rest of his life spent in prison was better than death, when he had done nothing? When he had not killed that man?
    In court this afternoon waiting for the judge to pronounce sentence she had been so shaky and so terribly cold. She had attended all of the trial alone, unwilling to bring Sammie into the courtroom, make the child listen to the ugly accusations. Alone, she had listened as Morgan received sentence. Life plus twenty-five years.
    She didn’t remember leaving the building. The last formalities of the trial had swirled around her without meaning. She had been allowed to embrace Morgan and kiss him awkwardly as he stood handcuffed and desolate between the two guards. He had been taken away to a cell, shackled and helpless. He would be driven to Atlanta tomorrow morning, in a U.S. marshal’s car. She and Sammie must be there by eight if they were to say good-bye. A few minutes with him at the jail before he was taken away. After that she and Sammie would see him only when they drove down to Atlanta to visit with him like a stranger