“Yes. Especially when you feel like there’s nothing you can do.”
Monica nodded. “Exactly! Remember when I first called you?”
“I told you that, in theory, trying to prevent a specific outcome could lead to the exact result you were trying to avoid.”
Monica smiled sadly. “And yet…”
“It’s impossible to do nothing,” Katherine said. “I see that now. If I hadn’t interrupted Justin McCabe—”
“People would have died. But you did something, and they didn’t.” Monica scooted closer. “Which is great. Hold on to that feeling, because there will be other times when you can’t do anything. Times when you can see what will happen but it doesn’t matter. It’s just impossible to change the outcome. And times when you could change the outcome, but you know that things have to happen exactly the way you foresee them.”
“How can you tell the difference?” Katherine got out the notebook she’d tucked in her purse and took a pencil from her organizer. “Are some visions different in some way? Do you have a process for—”
“I wish I could give you a rule.” Monica shook her head. “I can’t. It’s more a sense of intuition.”
Katherine put her pencil down. “That could be a problem. You may not have realized this, but I’m not the best at reading into things.”
“I did sense that,” Monica said. “But I also know you’re a good observer. You’ve already got a good handle on reading Megan and Toni.”
“Do you think so?”
“Sure!” Monica smiled, and it lifted Katherine’s mood. “It’s really obvious that you’re getting close. I think it’s admirable how the three of you have bonded over this. It’s important that the people closest to you know that something in your life is different.”
“They’re the only ones who know.” Katherine sipped her decaf iced coffee. If she had anything stronger at this time of day, she’d be awake all night. “Just Toni and Megan.”
“You haven’t told your husband or any other friends?”
I don’t have any other friends.
“I told you.” Katherine nodded. “As for Baxter… I think it would be better if I didn’t tell him. He’d probably insist on a full neural evaluation.”
Monica’s eyes went wide. “He’d think you were mentally ill?”
“No, I think his first thought would be that there was a physical reason for the delusion.” Katherine nodded. “A tumor or mild stroke maybe?”
“Wow.”
“Well…” She shrugged. “You remember what I thought before. I would be skeptical too. Even though my mind is very open about neurological abilities we don’t understand, seeing into the future just seems…”
Monica smiled. “Magical?”
“Too magical.” Katherine offered a strained laugh. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve nearly convinced myself that I’m imagining all this. But strange things keep happening, and now whatever is going on with the students and this violence… I don’t know what to think, but I can’t ignore it. And I have to do something—anything I can—to prevent another tragedy.”
Katherine’s mind was full of the call Baxter had made to Abby’s former roommate that morning. Whatever qualms he’d had about intruding on a colleague’s experimental study were gone. He’d grilled Abby’s former roommate about Abby’s habits, her medications, and anything she knew about Abby’s participation in the Shaver study, which wasn’t much.
“My husband knows that something is wrong,” Katherine said. “He knows something strange is going on with the students and he wants to help. I think that’s enough for now, don’t you think?”
“It’s up to you.” Monica sipped her iced tea. “But please know I completely sympathize. My boyfriend” —she broke into a smile— “I still feel weird calling him a boyfriend. Is he still a boyfriend when he’s pushing fifty and you’re forty-eight? Anyway, he was a skeptic until he saw evidence. So I get it.”
Katherine smiled at the clear happiness on Monica’s face. “You know, sometimes I still refer to Baxter as my boyfriend, so I don’t know why not.”
“All I’m going to tell you is that it’s obvious you’re a good judge of character, so at some point, you’re going to have to trust your instincts. Don’t doubt your read on people so much. I think you probably know more than you realize.” She reached for her tea. “You’re obviously well matched with Baxter; I don’t know why you think he’d doubt you.”
“He’d doubt me because he’s like me.” Katherine looked out the window at the passing cars. “We like facts. Observable data. And if we don’t understand a thing, we’re relentless in trying to make sense of it.”
“Is that what you’re really afraid of? Your husband digging in and trying to make sense of you?”
Oh.
Hmmm.
“Maybe,” Katherine said softly. “I’m going to have to think about that. The last thing I want is to become a problem Baxter has to solve.”
“He adores you,” Monica said. “It’s completely obvious just from the few minutes I saw you together.”
“I know my husband loves me.” She tried to put her tangled thoughts into words. “I also know that he thinks he knows me. And I think he would be bothered if there was something about me he didn’t understand. Does that make sense?”
“Yes.” Monica nodded. “But do you really think he understands you completely? Do we ever really understand every part of a person? Do we need to?”
“That’s the most important question,” Katherine said. “The one at the end. Do we need to?” She tapped her fingers on her glass. “I don’t know. You’re a widow; I heard Robin mention it.”
“I am.”
“How long were you married?”
“A little over twenty-five years.”
“Wow.” Katherine’s heart hurt for her. “I don’t even like thinking about it.”
Monica’s eyes got shiny. “Yeah, it’s not great. I’m not going to say I moved past it because you can’t be married to someone for twenty-five years and get over losing them. But Gabe—my boyfriend—he gets that. What I feel for him? It’s so different than what Gilbert and I had.”
“Do you think you knew everything about Gilbert?”
“After twenty-five years?” She shook her head. “Not even a little. People are too
