Suddenly Psychic (Glimmer Lake #1)(38)

“I had a dream that my car battery went dead this morning.” Monica turned right on Robin’s road. “And it was true. I got up and my battery was dead. Jake had to give me a jump start.”

Robin waited. “And…?”

“And nothing. That’s the kind of stuff I’m seeing. And you think you’re boring. I get a premonition that the casserole is going to burn. Or the car battery is dead.” She stopped the car abruptly. “A deer is gonna cross the street right in front of the Millers’ house.”

Seconds later, a deer bounded across the road and into the brush along the road.

“See?”

Robin stared at the dark space where the deer had disappeared. “Okay, but the deer thing is really useful.”

“I’m not denying that. But the rest of it is just kind of annoying. Also, I live in terror of seeing something really bad. I don’t know what I’d do, Robin. Would I call the police? Would they believe me? Of course they wouldn’t.”

“Probably not.” Robin stared at her house, which was lit with glowing gold lights. “You want to get rid of it?”

“The visions? Yes! Don’t you?” Monica parked in the driveway. “I don’t want to know what the future holds. Not little boring things or big scary things. Do you want to keep seeing ghosts everywhere? That sounds scary as hell.”

“It’s not bad so far,” Robin said. “Though, admittedly, I’ve only met nice ghosts.”

“And you know they can’t all be nice. Assholes are everywhere. Even on the… spiritual plane or whatever you call it.”

“So your solution to this is to call Sylvia?”

“She does brain research! If she doesn’t know about psychic stuff, maybe she can find out. Maybe there are studies. I heard the military uses psychics. Maybe there are research papers.”

“Maybe?” Robin still felt skeptical. “Our kids don’t take us seriously, Monica. Sylvia’s going to think we’re nuts.”

“My daughter loves me.”

“Yes, and she’s also a twenty-two-year-old grad student. She thinks she knows everything.”

Monica’s lip curled up. “I want to say you’re wrong, but you’re probably not. I still think we should ask. She’ll probably suggest we get our heads examined, but we can ask.”

Robin opened her car door. “Fine. But if we get kidnapped, put in an isolated government bubble house, and our brains get experimented on, I’m blaming you.”

“Go have sex with your husband!” Monica shouted. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Say that a little louder maybe?”

“Go—!”

Robin slammed the car door and spun toward the porch. Go have sex with your husband… Monica was so full of it. She and Mark had sex. Sometimes.

Okay, it had been a while.

She opened the front door and toed off her shoes. It wasn’t snowy or muddy yet, but her shoes were covered in dirt from the lake.

“Emma!” She unwound her scarf. “Mark?”

“In the kitchen, Mom!”

She walked back and found Mark and Emma cooking dinner together. Mark was pressing meat loaf into a pan while Emma dumped some frozen green beans in a glass bowl.

Her daughter looked up. “Hey, Mamacita.”

Robin walked over and pressed a kiss to Emma’s cheek. “How’s my favorite girl?”

“Good.” Emma flashed her dimples. “I got an A on my history project.”

“Oh, sweetie! That’s so awesome!”

School didn’t come easy to her daughter like it did for her son. Emma worked twice as hard to get half the GPA Austin got without trying.

Mark looked up with a smile. “She called me from school, so I swung by the store and got her a chocolate pie.”

“Yessss.” Emma danced across the kitchen to put the glass bowl in the microwave. “And I get half.”

“Half?” Robin laughed. “No one needs that much sugar.”

“I do.”

Robin hadn’t even said hello to Mark. He was humming along to a song under his breath. Something upbeat. He was cooking dinner. He’d bought their sweet daughter her favorite pie.

She walked over and stood on her toes, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “How’s my favorite guy?”

He turned his head, surprised. A smile flirted at the corner of his mouth. “I’m good.”

“Cool.” Robin felt suddenly shy. Why? She kissed Mark all the time, didn’t she? Maybe she didn’t.

“Did you find the bracelet?”

“The what?”

He frowned. “Monica’s bracelet? The one you were going to the lake to—”

“Oh! Right.” She shrugged. “We could hardly see. But we ended up having a good talk about some stuff she’s been dealing with, so it’s all good.”

“I’m glad.” He turned to the sink to wash his hands. “Bummer about the bracelet though.”

“Yeah.” Robin opened the oven door and slid the meat loaf inside.

“She needs to call a psychic,” Emma said. “You know, like those people on the TV.”

“Right,” Mark said. “’Cause those are so real. I think a metal detector might be more useful.”