“Good.”
“OK.” She stared down into her coffee as she chose her words. “Last night, you made some guesses about me. You pretty much nailed every one. I do come from near Boston and yes, I’m an artist. I also make theater costumes and masks—that’s how I got started at Bounce.”
“That fits.”
What did he think it fit? His calm expression gave away nothing.
“Anyway, I used to have a much more lucrative job with a company called GodsEye Biometrics. My boss, Dex Boyd, bought a small firm that did everyday biometric security—you know, retinal scans, iris scans, voice recognition, even fingerprints. Old school stuff.”
“If you say so.”
“Dex developed a brain-based system and hired me to train new clients in its interface. So that’s how I started. I loved the work. But all that’s gone. GodsEye can’t exist without my boss, Dex Boyd. He was murdered eight months ago.”
His eyebrows went up. “So then. Security. Biometrics. Don’t tell me, let me guess. Somebody wants you to open a vault for them. Right?”
She gave him a startled look. “Ah . . . how did you figure that out?”
“It’s not much of a leap,” he said. “What’s in the vault?”
“Don’t know,” she said. “Not my business to know. It belonged to this woman named Lydia Bachmann. The CEO of a weapons manufacturing firm. I was her coach.”
He frowned in perplexity. “Coach? For what?”
“I didn’t explain the system yet,” she said. “Dex Boyd developed biometrics for vaults and safes using brain waves patterns generated while visualizing a sequence of images. Clients who weren’t good at visualization struggled with it. Dex was always looking for staff to demonstrate the interface and work on it too, make it more user friendly.”
“How did he find you? Is he an art school alum?”
“No,” she said. “We connected through a mutual friend.” She looked at him warily. “I was in a mental institution at the time.”
He didn’t answer for a several seconds. His voice was gentle when he finally spoke. “Huh. That came out of nowhere.”
“Yeah.” She looked down at her clasped fingers. “All my life, I’ve had this thing. I used to call it a problem, but I’ve trained myself not to. If I imagine something, I actually see it. As if it were real and solid. Right in front of me.”
She looked up at him. He said nothing, but his eyes urged her on.
“It was odd, but nobody really noticed it until after my mom died,” she continued. “I saw her everywhere. I freaked everyone out. It took me a while to sort out what was real and what wasn’t.”
“Can’t have been easy.”
“No. But I—well, anyway, my Aunt Linda took me after Mom died. Nice lady, but not very imaginative or open minded. I got older, and when it kept happening, I scared her a couple times. Ended up in the psych ward more than once. Antipsychotic drugs stopped my visions, along with everything else. They have a lot of side effects.”
She tried to read him. His expression was neutral, but she sensed how intently he was listening. That focused amber glow in his eyes made her catch her breath.
She wouldn’t react like that if he were judging her. She hoped.
“How did this GodsEye guy find you?” Noah asked.
“A friend that I’d met in the psych ward had heard about Dex,” she said. “She thought it could be an opportunity for me. ‘Put your crazy to work for you,’ she said, or something like that. Made sense to me, so I contacted him. Dex invited me to come in. He’d designed a new test to measure the capacity of the visual center of the brain, and I placed in the top one percent. He offered me a job on the spot. I worked for him ever since. Software development, research, coaching.”
Noah nodded thoughtfully. Her slight smile in return faded as a wave of grief clutched at her throat. It took her by surprise. She wasn’t used to feeling much of anything besides fear lately.
Noah slid his hand beneath hers on the table, fingers open, as if he hardly dared to squeeze. Just warm, gentle contact. No words.
She didn’t dare speak. Starting to cry would mess her up.
“You miss him,” he said finally.
She gave him a tight nod. “We trusted each other,” she said. “I was lucky to have him in my life. We were very close.”
Noah didn’t ask the question, but she could feel it hanging in the air.
“Not like that,” she clarified. “He was thirty years older than me, and in a wheelchair with degenerative arthritis. Plus, I think he was gay, though it never really came up.”
“Ah.” She sensed him relax. “More like an uncle, then.”
“Exactly,” she murmured. “A benevolent uncle.”
There was an awkward silence.