She knew what he was going to say. She’d heard it from Tyler and Katrina, and when Brendan spoke he sounded as young as they were, lost and groping.
“Did it really happen? I … don’t know what’s real anymore.”
“I have no idea,” she said simply.
He nodded, looking faintly ill.
“There was nothing left,” she said. “The hidden cameras in the great room and system in the attic—they burned. Electrical fire, the police said.” Only the electricity had been off for a day. “Completely destroyed.”
Brendan closed his eyes … then opened them and looked at her.
“Why did you even bother to take me out? Why not just leave me? It was what I deserved.”
She looked away from him and said slowly, “I know what it is to be out of your mind. I’ve spent some time there myself.” She looked out the window, and found with faint surprise that the thought of Matt didn’t cut her heart open anymore.
“I was lost for a long time. I came out of it.” She looked at him briefly. “I believe people can change.”
He bowed his head. “I swear. I …” He looked up, and there was real pain in his face. “It was never supposed to be about hurting you.”
She nodded, abstractly. “The thing is, I knew. I knew about—someone else, and I knew about you.” She stopped. “I need to trust when I know.”
“Mickey.” Brendan said softly, and despite everything, she felt it in her heart. “What will you do now?”
“I have no idea,” she said again. “I doubt either of us will have a job by the end of the week, but …” She thought of Uncle Morgan. “Somehow that doesn’t seem so important anymore. There are other things I need to do.”
He looked at her probingly. And then she smiled, with a tremor, and quoted softly. “ ‘How can we not devote our lives to pursuing that question—of whether a thing like this could happen, and how?’ ”
And she looked away from him, out the window at the sun, the sky, and the rolling hills.
AFTERWORD
The Unseen was inspired by the work of parapsychologist Dr. Joseph Banks Rhine at Duke University from 1927 to 1965. The history of Rhine’s ESP experiments has always fascinated me; I can still get a thrill just from seeing the Zener card symbols on a page. As the daughter of scientists and educators, I am drawn to the idea that such an elusive thing as ESP could be scientifically proven. And as a thriller writer I know a good story when I see one.
Though The Unseen contains some factual circumstances, I have of course embellished the real-life history in all kinds of ways, and will take a brief moment here to delineate the facts from the wild ravings of my imagination.
Dr. J. B. Rhine (1895–1980) began his scientific career studying botany, earning advanced degrees at the University of Chicago, but after a brief stint of teaching he switched fields to study psychology at Harvard under Professor William McDougall, a colleague of celebrated philosopher and psychologist William James. In 1927 McDougall was named the head of the new Duke University psychology department in Durham, North Carolina, and Rhine and his wife and colleague, Dr. Louisa Rhine, moved to Duke with him.
In the psychology department at Duke, Dr. Rhine began his soon-to-be world-famous ESP experiments using Zener cards, and psychokinesis experiments using automated dice-throwing machines. Rhine’s intention was to use rigorous scientific methodology to test and prove the existence of ESP, and Rhine and McDougall coined the term parapsychology to describe the study of paranormal psychological phenomena such as telepathy, clairvoyance, and psychokinesis.
Rhine’s work led to the establishment of a dedicated parapsychology laboratory at Duke, headed by Rhine, in 1935. Over his thirty-eight years at Duke, Rhine tested thousands of students for ESP ability, using the Zener card method depicted in The Unseen, and employing the new science of statistics and probability to analyze the results. Dr. Rhine identified test subjects who were able to predict the cards with an accuracy far higher than statistical chance, which led him to conclude that ESP really does occur.
In 1934 Rhine published his findings in his monograph, Extra Sensory Perception, which was published in several editions in many countries, and which made Rhine internationally famous. He is now credited with almost single-handedly developing a methodology for parapsychology as a form of experimental psychology.
In the late 1940’s Dr. Louisa Rhine began to collect reports