I KNEW CLARA WAS WAITING for me in the casino lobby at the end of my shift, but I needed a drink first, some cold blunting gin, the familiar rattle of ice cubes in my glass. I made my way to the bar on the casino floor, the one near the penny slots. I was still rattled from making the phone call earlier that afternoon and kept replaying the conversation with Julie Zale’s aunt in my head. What did it mean that Clara was right? I told myself that all she really knew was the colors of Julie’s room. A few details. Maybe Clara hadn’t even really intuited them. I found the website that Julie’s family had made, asking for tips, and scrolled through to see if any of them showed a shot of her bedroom—maybe Clara had already seen it subconsciously, and what she was calling a vision was really just submerged memory, something sifted from the millions of images and impressions we’re bombarded with every day. I squinted at the background of every shot, but nothing seemed to match what she and Julie’s aunt had described.

I finished my gin and tonic too quickly, ordered a second anyway. I couldn’t bring myself to meet with Clara, to face what she thought her visions meant or to confront her about those burns. Was it worse if she’d done it to herself? Or if it had been someone else? I was so tired of living in a world that abused women. I kept picturing Steffanie’s face, the bruise already tender around her eye, when I found her in that bathroom, rag dolled around the base of the toilet. Didn’t anything ever change?

Someone put their hand on my shoulder, and I nearly dropped my drink. But it was only Clara.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“What are you doing here? This isn’t where we were supposed to meet.”

“I just needed a second to … think …” Clara pulled out the stool next to mine. “Maybe we should go somewhere else. You could get in trouble here.”

“Don’t worry about that,” she said. Sure enough, the bartender came over without a word and poured her a rum and coke.

“You a regular?” I asked.

“I come here from time to time.”

I sighed. “I don’t think I want to know any more about that.” I had a chance to study her fingers. She had put on fresh bandages. She noticed me looking at them and dropped her hands into her lap. “So. What are we doing? You really think that something has happened to Julie, and to the woman who came to your shop?”

“I do.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I only know that these visions … they break the rules. This isn’t how things work for me. And I think it has to mean something. It’s not random.”