Page 20 of The Diamond in the Rough

“No,” Raj agreed. “We’ll find somewhere else.”

I liked Cassandra Rheinhertz.Although a little over the average height for a woman, she was several inches shorter than me, with thick auburn waves and a dark sense of humor. We were sitting in a small conference room on the groundfloor of the hotel that we’d requisitioned after Raj agreed that I could sit somewhere that wasn’t the crime scene. Cass, once she arrived, had concurred that trying to block out the crime scene wasn’t going to do either of us any favors in terms of concentration as we worked on pushing my psychic abilities.

I had no idea what Hart and Raj were doing while we were in the conference room.

“Okay,” she said, her voice pitched low and even. “When I have a vision, I try to think about slowing things down, really paying attention to as many details as I can. Almost like playing a video at half speed.” She shrugged. “I kind of imagine a little dial in my head, trying to slow things down.”

I frowned. “But youseethem. Your visions?”

She nodded. “Yeah. You don’t?”

“No. It’s more like… thoughts. Inner monologue, kind of. But abstract. Almost like there’s a voice in my head narrating.”

She looked thoughtful, tapping one long finger against her lips. “Huh. Can you… go deeper? I think about zooming in, although if you’re experiencing your visions in language, that’s probably not the right way to think about it, exactly. But a way to get at more detail? More nuance?”

“I don’t know,” I told her. “I’ve never tried.”

“Well,” she said, brightly. “No time like the present.” She reached into a pocket and pulled out a smooth stone. “I brought this for practice.” She held it out.

I hesitated.

“It’s mine,” she said. “I’ve had it for years. A worry stone. That way you can ask me if things are accurate—and I’ll know if you’re actually getting anywhere with your attempt to target specifics.”

I stared at the stone. It was white and pearlescent, quartzor something similar, probably. There was a smooth depression in the center of it, as though her thumb had rubbed over it again and again.

I swallowed, steeling myself, and held out my hand.

She put the stone in it.

She worriedat the stone every time she felt anxious—her mom had called it a ‘worry stone,’ after all. That’s what it was for. She’d kept it in a pocket for years, rubbing at it when she approached Sharon Wright to ask her on a date, and kept rubbing at it when Sharon had turned her down with an ‘ew.’ And kept rubbing at it for the next four months every time she had to pass Sharon and her friends in the hall and they all burst into fits of giggles, making her cheeks heat.

She worried at it while lying in a hospital bed, trying to breathe through the thick congestion in her chest, wondering whether or not she was going to come out of the disease with fangs or horns or some other drastic change.

She worried at it after her visions took over her mind and body, leaving her bruised from the falls she kept experiencing when the visions took over her consciousness.

She worried at it while studying her criminal justice textbooks, an absent motion that helped to keep her body distracted so that her mind could focus.

She worried at it while waiting her turn to get her firearm certification. And recertifications.

She worried at it while interviewing for her first job with the FBI, and on her first day, when she’d walked up to a faun named John Kurtzweil and asked him where she was supposed to go to be part of A-Branch.

She’d stopped worrying at it regularly after that, althoughshe carried it around whenever she knew she was going to have a particularly stressful day. Just in case.

I gaspedas I came out of the memories, then put the stone on the conference table in front of me, resting my head in my hands as my vision swam a bit.

I’d never tried to use my psychic abilities this many times in one day, and I was starting to understand what Ward meant when he said he’d overextended himself talking to the dead.

“You okay?” Cass asked.

“I—I think I’ve just done this too much today,” I admitted. “I feel dizzy.”

“What have you eaten today?” she asked.

I frowned, even though she couldn’t see the expression through either my fingers or my mask. “I had a sandwich at lunch.”

“What kind?”

I didn’t see why that mattered. “Peanut butter and jelly.”