“I’m so sorry,” Clarissa said. “I’m going to have to take her.”

Betsy refused, tears running down her cheeks and onto the baby’s face, through the black hair that grew soft around her gentle features. “No, no, I am begging you. Let me hold her.” She started to get hysterical. The baby never cried as she stared into her mother’s eyes, the same as hers.

The doctor ran a shaking hand over his bald head as Betsy begged for her baby.

Dr. Rothney wearily nodded at Clarissa. The nurse went to a cabinet and got a shot ready. The shot was administered when Betsy was staring into the soft eyes of her daughter with such love. “I’ll always be with you, Rose,” she whispered. “I love you.”

Within seconds, Betsy was asleep, her arms slack, and Clarissa took the baby away and gave her to her new parents, who were so happy they cried, too.

* * *

Later that night, Dr. Rothney and Clarissa, both emotionally wrung out, checked on Betsy together. Betsy was restrapped to the bed, wrists and ankles, with another strap around her waist.

Betsy had woken up from being drugged and had leaped into hysteria. She screamed, fought to get out of her restraints, and pleaded to see her daughter. She had sobbed, right from the heart, a wrenching, pathetic sound. Clarissa had tried to calm her, but of course it hadn’t worked.

Betsy glared at them with a ferocity that took both of them back. Still, they were used to it here. Patients often looked at them with hatred. They had taken her baby from her; there was no other way for her to look at them.

“You,” she said to the doctor, “are going to die in two years. Your liver is like a pickle. Your girlfriend is going to leave you soon. She’s going to take your guitar collection.”

The doctor swallowed hard. How did she know about his liver problem? How did she know he had a girlfriend? How did she know about the guitar collection?

“And you,” she said to the nurse, “are pregnant. It’s a boy.”

The nurse knew that wasn’t true. Her husband had a vasectomy three months ago. He’d told her so.

“Your husband lied to you,” Betsy said. “Also, your oldest daughter is going to overdose on drugs.” Then she softened, some of her anger gone. “She’ll be wearing a red dress and knee-high black boots when it happens, so look for that outfit.”

That was ridiculous, Clarissa thought with a healthy dose of anger. She had even had sympathy for this girl! Well, that was all gone now. “Don’t say that. Don’t you dare talk about my daughter like that!”

But the doctor and nurse were both stricken. They knew, even though the trial had not started yet, that Betsy said she had committed murder because she’d had a “premonition” about the man she’d killed. The man was going to kill his son, Johnny Kandinsky, her boyfriend, the father of the baby. The press had had a field day, calling her Premonition Betsy. And Betsy the Beautiful Fortune-Teller. And Crystal Ball Betsy.