Yet she was also strong enough to have survived this long, sane and able to function even believing something inside her was wrong, and that said a lot about her character.

So she was strong, strong enough to handle her abilities if she only knew how to do that. And she was here. Fate had brought her here, now. Brought her to The Lodge, this particular place, at this particular time.

Even more, she had come up to the observation tower at the crack of dawn, her own muttered words an indication that she hadn't even been sure why she was climbing the stairs rather than seeking out a far more likely place to find coffee.

"Gotta be a reason," Quentin heard himself murmur. "There are no coincidences. And some things have to happen just the way they happen."

It wasn't what he'd come here to do, help a troubled psychic. But Quentin, though not a complete fatalist, had been convinced for some time that certain encounters and events in one's life were mapped out in advance, predetermined and virtually set in stone.

Crossroads, intersections where key decisions or choices had to be made.

And he thought this might be one of them, for him. What he did or didn't do now could determine his path from this point onward, perhaps even his ultimate fate.

"The universe puts you where you need to be," he reminded himself, repeating something Bishop and his wife, Miranda, often told their team of investigators. "Take advantage of it."

The question was... how?

Ellie Weeks knew she was going to get fired. She knew it. And the reasons why she would get fired made up a long list, at the top of which was the secret, passionate affair she'd had with one of the guests a few weeks back.