Toni blinked. “Wow.”
“Yeah. I can be very clueless. So the idea that I just inferred this man’s intentions from minute body language clues is wildly off base. Maybe it wouldn’t be for someone else, but for me? Completely improbable.”
Megan looked up from her phone. “What did you think he was doing?”
“Justin McCabe?
“No, your husband. You said it was four months before you realized he was asking you out.”
“Oh that.” Katherine took a long drink of wine. “I just thought he was being nice and offering to get food for me. I didn’t realize he wanted me to go with him to the restaurants.”
Toni smiled. “So did he?”
“What?”
“Get food for you?”
“He did!” Katherine laughed. “Wonderful man. For four full months he’d bring the most delicious takeout back to my office. I had no idea.”
“What finally tipped you off?” Megan looked delighted.
“My officemate told me that I was ignoring that sexy math professor from London and if I wasn’t interested in him, I should let Baxter know so she could ask him out.”
Toni asked, “And he never said anything?”
“Oh no. Neither of us is very outspoken. We probably would have gone on like that for a year or more if that girl hadn’t lost patience with me.”
Megan and Toni both laughed, but Katherine could tell it was from amusement and not meanness.
“I think it would be great if we invited them here,” Megan said. “Your three friends from Glimmer Lake, I mean. We could probably learn a lot from them even though our powers aren’t exactly the same.”
Toni shrugged. “Maybe you and the telekinetic have something in common. And Katherine and this other lady who sees the future obviously could learn from each other. But empathy? Influencing someone with my emotions?” She shook her head. “I just don’t see how any of them could teach me anything useful.”
“If nothing else, those three women seem to have figured out a few mysteries in their own community,” Katherine said. “And I’d dearly like to figure out why Justin McCabe tried to kill strangers at the gym.” She turned to Toni. “Did your cousin tell you anything about Justin’s toxicology report?”
“They did a regular drug panel when they arrested him,” Toni said. “But my cousin said they didn’t find anything except what his doctor had prescribed for him. And they thought they definitely would the way they took him into custody.”
“How do you mean?” Megan asked.
“He was just kind of out of it,” Toni said. “Like… drained. He didn’t put up any fight. He seemed really confused. At least according to my cousin.”
“So strange.”
“Ordinary medications can still be dangerous if they’re taken improperly,” Katherine murmured. “Do you know what his prescription medication was?”
“Some kind of antianxiety medication, but I think it’s the same one my mom takes,” Toni said. “It’s super-mild.”
Megan turned to Toni. “How did you manage to get your mother on medication? My mother won’t even talk about it.”
“It was a knock-down, drag-out fight with her and my older sister, but she finally gave in. She’s a lot happier now and she doesn’t freak out about flying.”
“Good to know.” Megan was concentrating on a wooden coaster on the table; her fingers were reaching for it. “I feel something,” she said. “But it’s like I don’t know what kind of muscle to stretch.”
Katherine couldn’t even imagine trying to bring on a vision. Then again, telekinesis would be far handier in day-to-day life if you could control it. “What do you remember about what happened in the gym?”
“Me?” Megan looked up. “Not much. It all happened so fast.”
“Same with me,” Toni said. “I know you think I influenced this kid somehow, but I don’t know how I did it. Is it really a psychic skill if I can’t control it? Maybe it was a fluke. Maybe fate knew we just needed that one burst of psychic-ness to prevent this kid from killing people.”
“That’s possible,” Megan said. “Like those mamas who manage to lift a car off their kid and stuff like that. It’s not permanent.”
“So why do I keep having visions?” Katherine asked. “Why is Toni crying at inconvenient times? Why can you make that coaster move—look, you’re doing it right now when you’re not paying attention.”
The coaster had scooted halfway across the table while they weren’t looking at it.
“Holy cow, look at that!” Megan was delighted.
Toni’s eyes were glued to the coaster. “Okay, I agree, that’s kind of magic-like.”
“Kind of?”
“I think that’s why we need to call the women from Glimmer Lake,” Katherine said. “If anyone knows what we’re going through right now, it would be them.”
“Fine.” Toni took a long drink of wine. “But there is something weird going on. So far, we have two totally normal students who all of a sudden committed—or tried to commit—violent crimes. With no cause or reason anyone can find.”
“There could be a connection,” Megan said. “Could this girl Sarah and our guy at the gym have been in the same clinical study at the school?”
“That’s a thought.” Another one she couldn’t confirm. Not legally. “It’s possible. Her… incident happened after the study concluded, from what I heard.”
Megan lowered her voice. “Do you think the professor running it—”
“Professors. Plural. There were four attached to this study; my colleague was the point person.”
“Could he have done something to those kids on purpose? To their brains?”
Toni stared at Megan. “Kind of conspiracy theory, don’t you think?”
“Do you have a better explanation?”
Katherine quickly jumped in. “Ansel Shaver is not the friendliest, but I hardly think he and his partners would be experimenting on student brains.”
“Too ethical?” Megan asked.
“Too impossible.” Katherine corrected her. “There are layers of protections built into maintaining student safety and confidentiality in university studies. Manipulating that system would get him nothing except a ruined career. He would never publish again. No one would be willing to work with him.”
“Maybe he had another motive,” Megan said. “Something not about university stuff.”
“I want to point out,” Katherine said, “that two
