“Sydney might. She and Kaylee have worked with each other in the Fred lab.”
“Maybe you need to call Kaylee this morning and work out some kind of story that makes sense.”
“And tell Kaylee that I had a vision of her walking off the architecture building?”
He frowned. “I need tea for this conversation.”
“I need coffee.” She started to get up.
“You’d better not.” Baxter’s voice was a growl. “Sit. Stay. I’ll get your ice and your coffee, but you need to sit.”
She grabbed her phone from her robe pocket and called Sydney.
“Hey, Katherine! What’s up? You kind of booked it out of the office yesterday. Everything okay?”
“I…” Think think think! “You know, I had a meeting with a student, and I forgot about it. Someone who’d gone to extra effort to make time for me. I felt awful about forgetting, so I ran to catch her. I’m sorry if you or Keisha were worried.”
“No problem.”
“Unfortunately, I overextended my knee a bit—the one that always gives me problems—and it’s the size of a melon today. I need to stay off it. Can you handle the cosmology lecture today?”
“Sure! The notes on your desk?”
“Yes.” Katherine went over a few points she’d been meaning to emphasize for the freshman class while Baxter lifted her knee and her ankle to put ice on them. Then he handed her a cup of coffee, and Katherine nearly wept from gratitude.
“Thank you, Sydney. If you could just post about office hours…” She tried to think. “I’ll do Friday afternoon next week. How’s that?”
“I’ll put it on the calendar and put a sign up.”
“There were a couple of students coming to talk to me today about extensions. If they can’t wait until Monday, call me and I’ll do a phone conference.”
“Sounds good.”
“Tell everyone they can get me on my mobile today. I’ll be home. I just can’t walk much.”
“I hope your knee feels better soon!”
“Me too. Thanks, Sydney.” Katherine hung up the phone and immediately downed two large gulps of coffee. “Ahhhhhhh.”
Baxter was sitting across from her, eating an oatmeal cookie with his tea. “Sydney can cover?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to call Anita Mehdi again today. And I think you should call Kaylee.”
“I was thinking that, and then I realized I don’t have her phone number, but I gave her mine. I’m hoping she’ll call me.”
“Can’t you get it from someone at the Fred lab?”
“Do I want them to know I’m talking to Ansel’s grad student?”
“Hmm.” He took another drink of tea. “Point taken. Hopefully she’ll call.”
* * *
Kaylee did call, but not until the afternoon when Baxter was gone and Katherine was trying to hobble around the house and cursing whoever decided they should buy a house on a hill that had so many steps.
Her. It had been her.
Her phone rang in the bedroom just as she’d managed to get to the kitchen. She was reaching for more ice when she heard the telltale buzzing sound on her side table.
“You know…” Of all the times to have a vision, that would have actually been a convenient one. Don’t bother going to the kitchen right now, Katherine, because your phone is going to ring in two minutes. Why couldn’t she have useful visions like that instead of seeing violence?
“Hello?” She was a little breathless when she answered. And her knee felt like it was on fire.
“Professor Bassi?”
“Yes?” She didn’t place the voice at first. Then it hit her. “Kaylee! I’m so glad you called. And please, after everything, please call me Katherine.”
“Okay. I’m not going to lie, I’m a little freaked out.”
“I completely understand that, and I want to assure you that I do not want you to violate any ethical boundaries having to do with the study. I’m working on getting the information another way so I can warn people.”
Kaylee was silent for a long time. “I’m more freaked out about what happened on the roof, but thank you.”
“I don’t want to take advantage of you or any knowledge you might have. It’s not fair when you’ve already—”
“Professor Shaver and Greg have been talking about something in his office a lot lately. I can’t tell you what it is, but I can tell you Professor Shaver isn’t very happy about something and I think Greg is sneaky as shit.”
“Okay.” Katherine spoke slowly. “Have you considered filing something with the IRB?”
“I have. But… Professor Shaver is my thesis advisor.”
“I understand completely,” Katherine said. “Don’t do anything right now, okay?”
“Okay, but I’m still kind of freaked out. How did you know I was on that roof yesterday?”
She took a long breath. “I can’t tell you that. Not right now. Maybe not ever.”
“Okay.” Kaylee didn’t question it. “However you knew, I’m really, really grateful. I wasn’t lying—I’m terrified of that roof. I’m kind of afraid of heights anyway, but something about it just stuck in my head. I had visions of how easy it would be to just trip and fall off, you know? The railing isn’t nearly high enough.”
“I’m glad I was there.” Just thinking about someone putting this bright young woman in danger made Katherine angry all over again. “Kaylee, I’m going to go now, okay? I need to get some work done. Can I save your number though?”
“Yeah, for sure. And you can text me if you want.”
“Sometimes…” She deliberated on how to frame this. “I know it’s sometimes tempting to put everything into text or into email. I personally like being able to check over what I say to people before I communicate with them. But for right now, let’s remember that phone calls are a great way to communicate without a written record.”
“Ohhh right.” Her voice lowered. “I hadn’t even thought about that.”
“I’m just extending some old-chick, pre-texting and -email wisdom here.”
Kaylee laughed. “Dude, Professor B, you’re so not old.”
“Katherine, remember? And I’m going to tell my husband you said that. Thank you.”
They hung up, and Katherine carefully created a new contact entry for Kaylee in her phone.
