Runaway Fate: Moonstone Cove Book One

by Hunter, Elizabeth

  Katherine laughed through her tears. “Yeah, you should see how big my knee is right now. It’s like the size of a melon.”

  Baxter stood abruptly and walked into the house without a word.

  Everything in Katherine’s body felt like it collapsed in on itself. She sat back in her chair and her shoulders sank. Her chest felt like someone had punched it.

  Megan grabbed her hand. “We’ll tell him about us. My thing is way more visible, and he won’t be able to deny—”

  “Do you want me to make him more receptive to the idea?” Toni asked. “I think I can do that. I’m not saying I’d manipulate his brain or anything, but I could make him just a little less… stubborn maybe? Shit, that’s probably manipulating his brain, isn’t it?”

  “Just let me move something,” Megan said. “I’m getting pretty good, and he can’t deny…”

  Their voices fell away, blending into the sound of waves crashing against the stone-strewn beach. They were white noise. Part of the grey.

  Please, my love…

  The doors to the house swung open again, and Baxter was there, holding something wrapped in a towel. He walked over and knelt next to Katherine.

  “I kept wondering why you were limping when you got home, but I didn’t want to ask in front of your friends.” He nudged her leg over and lifted it. “My God, Katherine, you should have iced this hours ago.” He looked at Megan. “Can I borrow your chair, my dear? She really needs to elevate this.”

  Megan quickly scooted away. “Of course!”

  Katherine’s heart had started beating as soon as he opened the door. “Baxter.”

  He looked up. “I’m processing. Let’s focus on this right now. Is your ankle hurt too?”

  “Yes. I pulled it.”

  “Of course you did.” He stood and walked back into the house, returning a moment later with another ice pack wrapped in a towel. He lifted her ankle, set it on the ice pack, and stood with his hands on his hips.

  All four of them were silent for a few minutes.

  Baxter looked at Toni, then at Megan. “The gym.”

  All three of them exchanged glances.

  Baxter nodded at Toni. “You?”

  “I’m empathic, I guess,” Toni muttered. “I can, like, make people calm down. Or get pissed off. I’m kind of a combination of an emotional sponge and—”

  “A nuclear reactor, I imagine.” Baxter turned to Megan. “And you?”

  Megan picked up a pistachio with her fingers and, with a flick of her wrist, floated it to hover in front of Baxter’s nose. “Pistachio?”

  “Well…” He swallowed hard. “How about that?”

  Chapter 21

  “I just want to thank you both for sticking around for my husband’s low-key meltdown.” Katherine peeked through the glass doors to the living room. Baxter was still pacing.

  Toni asked Megan, “Hey, Katherine thought you might have contacted Justin McCabe’s family. Did you?”

  “I did! I was able to get in touch with them through Justin’s attorney. They’re being real protective right now, but they agreed to talk to me next week. He’s not in jail anymore, but he is in an in-patient psychiatric facility. It was the only way a judge would let him out before the trial.”

  “I don’t find that surprising. And he probably needs the help right now.”

  “His lawyer says he’s devastated. So are his parents. They only agreed to talk with me because I told them that I thought he was in an altered state. I’m sure they probably think I’ll be good for his defense.”

  “Altered state? Is that what they’d call it legally?”

  “I don’t know. His lawyer used that phrase; I’m just repeating it.”

  “Gotcha.” Toni switched her focus. “Katherine?”

  “Yes?” Baxter was still pacing and she was still watching. He’d made thirteen loops around the living room by her count.

  Thirteen and counting.

  “You know, I think Baxter’s actually doing real well,” Megan said. “It’s a lot to take in.”

  “Maybe dangling a nut in front of his nose wasn’t the best way to go,” Toni said. “Just putting that out there.”

  “Why not? He’s a scientist. He needed evidence.”

  Katherine chewed on the inside of her lip. “He’s a mathematician. This was never going to be an easy adjustment for him. You might as well tell him two plus two equals five.” Actually, that was probably a bad example. Nothing was as straightforward in advanced mathematics as it seemed. “Let’s just give him some time.”

  She said that just as Baxter was marching toward the door. All three women stepped back and leaned against the deck railing, pretending they hadn’t been staring at the pacing man.

  Baxter pointed at Megan. “Manipulation of electromagnetic fields. Theoretical, but not out of the realm of possibility.” He looked at Katherine. “You’ve spoken about this in the past.”

  “I have. And you laughed at me, but you also admitted that vestigial brain function could theoretically appear to modern humans as parapsychological phenomena.”

  Megan just shook her head. “None of that made sense to me. I love y’all, but you’re kinda aliens sometimes.”

  Toni muttered, “I can’t disagree with that.”

  Baxter pointed to Toni. “Emotions are brain chemistry influenced by complex hormonal changes that could theoretically be manipulated, even unconsciously, if a person had a hormone imbalance themselves.”

  Toni nodded. “Why not? Most days I’m pretty sure this is all just an early sign of menopause.”

  Baxter opened his mouth, frowned, then closed it. He turned to Katherine. “Precognition…”

  She sighed. “Isn’t possible.”

  “Wrong.” He walked toward her and put his hands on her shoulders. “There is a researcher at Cornell who recently published a study where participants exhibited a demonstrated precognitive ability. They were able to predict when they would see a cat instead of a dog fifty-three percent of the time in a randomized study.”

  “Fifty-three percent?” Toni said. “That seems more like chance than—”

  Megan elbowed her in the ribs. “That seems very significant.” She spoke over Toni. “Tell us more, Baxter.”

  “It is significant, because what it shows is that all these traits that you’re exhibiting—while they could seem magical to some—have a firm basis in demonstrable science. You have simply had a traumatic experience that spurred your minds to rapid development in these areas.”

  Katherine felt like Baxter was grasping at straws, but she didn’t care. “You believe us.”

  His eyes locked with hers. “How could you think I’d doubt you?”

  She blinked back tears. “I thought you’d think I had a brain tumor or something.”

  “A brain tumor would in no way explain a floating pistachio.”

  “See,” Megan said. “I told you the nut thing was a good idea.”

  “Oh, just shut it,” Toni muttered. “Let’s go inside. It’s freezing out here.”

  Katherine heard the french doors open and close, leaving her and Baxter alone on the deck. It was dark, and evening fog misted over the water.

  Baxter wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. “You’ve been worried about this for weeks. I knew there was something bothering you, but I thought it was residual stress from the incident at the gym.”

  “I’ve been stressed about a lot of things, but mostly I had no idea how to tell you.”

  “I understand that.” He turned his head and pressed a long kiss to her temple. “Darling, you are my world. If you told me the sky was red, I’d simply assume that I had something wrong with my eyes for the past fifty years. I would never doubt the most honest, loving, and brilliant woman I know.”

  Katherine turned her face and kissed him, pressing her chilled hands against his warm cheeks. He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her closer, diving into the kiss, subsuming himself into the union of their mout
hs and breath.

  She didn’t know how long they stayed wrapped in each other on the deck, but her hair was damp, and the house was silent when she was able to think again.

  “I think Megan and Toni left,” she said.

  “We should go to bed.” He tapped her right hip. “And you need to elevate that leg and your ankle. I can’t believe you ran that hard.”

  “The other option wasn’t an option.”

  “I know.” He put his arm around her and guided her inside. “If I were a large, muscle-bound man, I’d carry you.”

  “Please don’t throw out your back trying to do that. I can walk.”

  “I just want you to know that the sentiment is there even if the physical ability is not.”

  “So noted, Professor Pang.”

  * * *

  The next morning, Katherine hobbled out to the breakfast table with a new sense of freedom, a deepened love for her husband, and two incredibly sore joints.

  She sat at the table and put her legs up. “I don’t know how I’m going to walk across campus today.”

  Baxter looked up from the electric kettle, his eyes still bleary and his hair sticking up slightly at the crown. “You need to stay off your feet today. You have to call in sick.”

  “Sydney could cover my lecture and I’ll have to make up office hours, but I think you’re right.” She sighed. “It’s probably for the best.”

  “Rumors will likely be swirling,” he said. “I’ll try to put them off.”

  “How?”

  “Acting distracted and muttering a lot,” he said. “That’s generally a good way to keep people from talking to me.”

  This admission confirmed a sneaking suspicion Katherine had harbored for some time, but she let it go. “Keisha and Sydney were with me. They saw me space out and then take off running.”

  He dunked a tea bag in a cup of hot water at the same time he poured boiling water into a small french press for her coffee. “Do you think they’ll put two and two together with what happened with Kaylee?”

  “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 lo
wered. “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. Then she got out a notebook and started making a map of her thoughts. There was too much going on. Too much in her head.

  She really needed a large white dry-erase board in her kitchen, but since that wasn’t an option, she reached for paper.

  First she wrote down Justin McCabe’s name on a blank piece of printer paper. Then she wrote down Sarah Jordan’s name. Then Abigail Chung, and finally Kaylee Ivers.

  She taped the four pages together and started writing connections. Who did they all know? How were they connected? She drew line after line. Were there more victims out there?

  She’d spent two hours detailing everything she knew about the four different cases when her phone rang.

  “Hello?” She was staring at the papers and answered without looking.

  “Katherine?”

  “Monica!” She smiled and focused her attention on the call. “How are you?”

  “How are you? I had this feeling I should call you.”

  “Good instincts.” Maybe Monica was more than just a seer. “I had a vision yesterday, and I was able to keep myself in it long enough to stretch the time.”

  “Wow! Tell me about it, will you? How did you do it?”

  Katherine explained how she’d used her senses, used the tricks Monica had taught her, to expand the vision and give herself a little longer to rescue Kaylee from the roof.

  “It sounds almost like you’re stretching time,” Monica said. “Just a little bit. Like time passes quickly in the visions and if you can stretch it there—”

  “Then I can stretch it in reality?” The idea was so mind-bending Katherine almost didn’t want to contemplate it. “I don’t know how to process that right now. I have too much going on.”