Toni broke eye contact and leaned back in her chair. “Been feeling kind of irritated by all this shit. Thought I’d share.”
The corner of Megan’s mouth turned up. “Honey, I have three teenagers. If you think I’m not wise to multiple levels of manipulation, you got another think coming.”
“Both of you need to calm down, and I need to think.” Katherine rubbed her temple. “Toni, the spreading irritation didn’t just hit Megan, and I have fewer natural shields. Please stop.”
“Oh.” Toni sat up. “Sorry, Katherine.”
“And Megan, I don’t think we can treat any of our… gifts as more powerful or important than the others. Toni has an extraordinary gift, but so do you. Telekinesis is arguably the most useful gift of the three.”
Megan shrugged. “It just seems weird to me.”
“How?”
“I mean…” She cocked her head. “I don’t want this to come across the wrong way, but of the three of us, my emotional intelligence is probably on the higher end.”
“Are you calling me unemotional?” Toni’s voice rose. Then she sat back and crossed her arms. “No, that’s probably fair.”
“I just think it’s strange.” Megan continued without answering Toni. “Don’t you think it’s strange? Why does Toni have super empathy and I have telekinesis? I mean, of all the things to feel like a party trick—”
“Telekinesis is—at its core—a connection to energy,” Katherine said. “That’s extraordinary. Isn’t that what you’ve been tapping into when you practice?”
Megan frowned. “I’m honestly not sure. It’s mostly trial and error. I guess, yeah, I have to feel a connection to things if I want to move them.” She ran a thumb over the moonstone. “Like this stone here? I bet I could make it fly across the room if I wanted to. It feels like another part of my hand now.”
Toni still had her arms crossed, but she looked slightly envious. “That would be so damn useful when I’m working.”
“Kinda complicated to explain to your guys though, right? Doesn’t matter.” Megan shrugged. “Like my mama said, you can wish in one hand and piss in the other and see which one fills up faster. Wishing doesn’t change a thing.”
Toni pursed her lips. “I feel like I’d like your mother.”
“If you want to put up with the lecture she’d give you about dressing” —Megan pulled out her air quotes— “‘like a man’ because your hair is short, and not having any babies by forty, I’m sure you’d get along great.”
“Wow. Really?”
Megan just shook her head and closed her eyes. “There’s a lot going on with that one. She’s an opinionated woman, that’s for sure.”
Katherine did not think she’d like Megan’s mother. She had her own opinionated matriarch to deal with and she didn’t need another. “Getting back to Justin, what do you think we could find out about the gun? Toni, do you think your cousin at the police department would know where it came from? They have numbers, right?”
“Guns?” The corner of Toni’s mouth twitched. “Yes. They have registration numbers. It’s a good question. I’ll ask him.”
“Do y’all think I need to be worried about my kids?” Megan asked. “I mean, we don’t know if there are more students out there like Justin. There could be loaded guns all over Moonstone Cove. I’ve been having Trina drive her brother and sister all over town, thinking it’s safe as houses, but if there could be random violence—”
“It’s probably as safe as it’s ever been.” Katherine sipped her coffee. “Random violence is, by definition, random. Not that random violence is truly random.”
Toni and Megan exchanged a look.
“There’s probably some math equation that explains it,” Toni said. “Do we want to ask?”
“You know we probably won’t understand it. I’m just going to tell my daughter to be extra careful.” Megan turned back to Katherine. “You ready to go?”
“I’m socially awkward,” Katherine said. “Not hearing impaired.”
“Mmmm.” Megan grabbed her purse and rose to her feet. “Sometimes it’s a little of both.”
“Pretty sure you completely tuned out that conversation we were having about football,” Toni said.
Katherine nodded. “Okay, you have me there.”
* * *
Katherine dropped Megan off at her house in Ferraro Hills before she made her way through the narrow, twisty streets of the village on her way to North Beach. Noticing the lack of lights in the entryway when she pulled into the driveway, she checked the time.
That was strange; Baxter should have been home hours ago.
The front door was unlocked when she tried it. “Baxter?”
She could hear the ocean through french doors. She saw Baxter sitting on the back deck, looking out over the sea. She set her purse down and walked out to the deck. “Baxter?”
He turned and held his hand to her. “Darling.”
She’d known her husband for twenty-two years and could read every single expression. “What happened?”
He took a deep breath and waited for Katherine to sit next to him. “Do you remember Abigail Chung?”
“Your grad student from last year? Yes, of course.” She and Baxter usually had at least one nice dinner a year and invited all their graduate students to the house to eat, drink wine, and relax. Abigail was a brilliant mathematician from the Seattle area who had stuck in Katherine’s memory for her wonderful sense of humor and being a fellow Star Wars enthusiast. “What happened to Abby?”
Whatever it was, it wasn’t good. She could tell by the weariness in Baxter’s expression.
“She and Margaret’s grad student Shauna were sharing an apartment until just a few months ago. Abby moved in with her boyfriend after that. Very nice young man; I met him months ago.” Baxter rubbed his face and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Shauna called Margaret today to tell us that Abby is in the hospital and Mario is too. That Abby… attacked Mario with a knife.”
Katherine felt her stomach drop. “No.”
“He’s alive, but he is quite injured. Apparently, after she attacked Mario, she turned the knife on herself.”
No, no, no, no, no. Katherine shook her head. The girl she knew was
