Whitney was late for our 8 a.m. pre-Abnormal Psych coffee, but I’d already ordered her drink for her. She made a beeline for me through the crowd when she walked in, looking like a zombie in the clothes I was fairly sure she’d worn yesterday, her long brown hair up in a very messy bun.

“I just want you to know that your text made me sleep with my volume on, and my great-aunt who doesn’t understand time zones called me at six,” she announced, upon arriving.

“I’m sorry, I assumed you were coming home last night,” I said, handing over her triple-shot.

“I did too,” she said, giving me a sheepish look that turned into a wolfish grin—the MANEATER once again. “But I had fun.”

“And yet he didn’t make you coffee in the morning?” I teased.

“Fun and classy aren’t always in the same package, Elle, sheesh.” She hopped up onto the stool I’d saved for her and took a long sip. “Okay, so, fess up—what was his name, how late were you out, and how hot was he?”

I ignored her. “Hmmm. So did you do the pre-reading for today?”

Whitney’s eyes narrowed. “No. No way. You do not call a bad decision alert and then get to deflect me.”

“Do you know the four Ds of Abnormal Psych, Whitney?” I forged on.

“I do!” Chance said, coming up in jeans and a t-shirt for a band I’d never heard of. He had a closet full of them—sometimes I suspected he was buying them in bulk online.

I gave Whitney a look, so she’d change conversation—she knew how Chance felt about me, and how I felt about that. I didn’t want to throw some maybe-murderer in his face.

“Deviance,” he began slowly, like a choir singer hoping Whitney knew the words. “Dysfunction,” he went on.

“Distress,” I chimed in.

“And bad D-ecisions?” she offered, glaring at me, then rolling her eyes with love.

“Danger,” Chance corrected her, oblivious to our prior topic.

“Uh huh. That one,” I said, taking his side. Four interesting words that comprised most of abnormal psych theory, in one way or another—and that I’d read some form of over people’s heads plenty of times before, and had then had the good sense to avoid.

Unlike the word KILLER, for some reason.

The barista called out Chance’s drink and he ditched us to go get it, while Whitney looked at me. “Was he really that hot?” she whispered.

I’d had the three block walk home to our apartment from Mr. Z’s and then the hour before I could calm down enough to go to sleep to think things through—and then this morning when I’d gotten up, I’d scanned every local news website and crime blotter while I got ready for class. Nothing strange had happened, no one had died. It’d been just another normal night—a few break-ins, some stolen cars, but no grisly murders.

Which meant that I had potentially saved somebody’s life!

Or…Byron was really good at murdering, as befit his unapprehended status, and no one had found the victim yet.

It was like there was a good angel on my one shoulder that had watched every episode of Dateline and who utterly believed in my powers…and then a little devil on my other shoulder that quite clearly remembered the solid way it’d felt when he’d grabbed me—in the act of saving my life!—that kept whispering, what if?

I chose to believe it wanted to know, what if for the first time ever, my powers were wrong? as opposed to the far more awkward, what if he had a good reason to grab me again—would that be so bad?

“Oh my God, Elle, spill,” Whitney complained, as she took my arm and started pulling me to the door, where Chance was waving for us.

“We’re going out tonight.” I was going to tell her anyways, for girl-safety reasons, and I needed to borrow her mace.

Whitney’s eyes widened and we paused in the morning crowd. She knew what a big deal me going out was. For all the people that I’d helped hook up, reading their identities above them, and pairing them together accurately, I’d never managed to make it work for myself.

And I still hadn’t.

I was just going to go out to dinner with an attractive murderer like some kind of wannabe Nancy Drew…who didn’t get laid very often.

“So I take it he really was hot, then?” Whitney pressed.

I gave her a grin. Please, Lord, may my fellow white women not dedicate future podcasts to me. “Deviantly, dysfunctionally, distressingly, and dangerously so.”

Whitney groaned like I’d shot her—but I hadn’t lied.

“Come on,” I said, my turn to pull her. “You know Mr. Lambert likes to call on people. I just want you to pass.”