"Wait a minute. You didn't disappear?"

~ Laurie McQuary, self-proclaimed psychic, video interview, Inside Edition, March 2011, upon mistaking a photograph of the interviewing journalist for a missing girl (clip available on YouTube)

The stadium-grade lights keep the shooting range lit like daytime even though the sun's been down for 30 minutes. At Carter's insistence, the guard joins Zandra, Sunglasses, and Carter at one of the rifle shooting stations. He also demands to use a firearm of his choice: a single-shot shotgun. Carter's ammunition of choice is a 20-gauge slug, a single projectile. Smooth bore. Open sights.

In less technical terms, it is much more difficult to be accurate with a 20-gauge slug at 300 yards using a shotgun that handles like a cranky mule than it is with the guard's more elegant .308 scout rifle, especially when unaided by a scope. Zandra knows this, because everyone in Wisconsin knows this; the state is one of the white-tailed deer hunting capitals of the world.

The four are alone on the range, unless you also count Carter's to-go cocktail. The staff cleared everyone else out for his sake. No green-light-red-light toggling required.

"Don't let her get near nothing," Carter says to the guard as they slip on their eyes and ears. "And watch her hands. She's a snake."

Sunglasses can barely contain the scribbling in his notepad. He leans against one of the wooden supports of the shooting station, keeping the video on his smartphone rolling the whole time.

Soak it up.

"I'll be using my own coin, too, thank you very much," Carter says. He means that literally. The coin he produces, about twice the size of a quarter, bears a relief of his own face looking left. The opposite side shows his face looking right.

You should've spent more money on your fake coin. The art looks like JFK melted in the sun.

"May I?" Zandra says and stretches her hand out.

"Fuck no," Carter says with a boozy laugh that bites Zandra on the nose. "In fact, you're going to stand here with your hands in your pockets while I go tape this to the target."

Zandra slips her hands inside her purple gown. "Suit yourself."

Carter doesn't like that.

"No bullshit, Zandra, not this time. Keep your hands where I can see them," Carter says. Then, to the guard, "If she so much as blinks while I'm out at the target, fucking shoot her. I am not joking. I'll pay for your defense. It's no problem. The judge here is my uncle."

The guard takes a step closer to Zandra.

"No one is shooting anyone," Sunglasses says, looking up from his notepad.

Carter will be shooting himself, though. Figuratively, of course.

Carter grabs a roll of tape and the spotting scope. He hops into the golf cart to drive out to the 300-yard target. Zandra eyes the loaded shotgun on the bench, its barrel pointed downrange.

"Don't even think about it," the guard says.

"Think about what?" Zandra says. She resists the temptation to let her eyes drift toward the revolver concealed in Sunglasses's pocket.

"You know what I mean," the guard says. "Besides, I need someone to prove to me I'm not going crazy. I saw what I saw, but if what you did with me was real, I need to see it again."

"Careful, child. If I do it again, you might actually go crazy," Zandra says in her signature dramatic croak.

The sound of something slamming into wood makes all three in the shooting station jump. Zandra looks down at the shotgun on the bench. It remains in place.

"Sorry about that," Sunglasses says as he positions his smartphone upright. It must've fallen over on the shelf while recording video. "I asked the General Services Administration for a stand for this phone, but it hasn't arrived yet."

Prop that thing up, Sunglasses. You're going to get us shot.

Carter, meanwhile, is having trouble remembering whether the 300-yard target really is the 300-yard target. He drives the golf cart in circles between the 200- and 300-yard bullseyes. The guard guides him to the correct distance over the walkie-talkie linked to a panel in the golf cart.

"Tell the staff to fucking mark the targets next time," Zandra hears Carter say over the walkie-talkie. "The fuck am I paying fees for if they won't even mark the fucking targets right?"

Zandra noticed earlier there's a logical progression to the distances. Simple stuff. Fifty yards comes first, followed by 100, 200, 300, 500, and 1,000, the latter of which is out of view with the naked eye and mentioned only in references on signage along the range.

Math. Logic. Who needs them. Right, Carter?

When the golf cart finally returns, Carter is out of breath and cocktails.

"May I confirm the target?" Zandra says and points to the spotting scope still in the golf cart.

"Why, you need to make sure your little parlor trick is still set up? You're all woo-woo psychic and shit, so it's fuck-all to me. Let's do this," Carter says. He takes a seat at the bench and shoulders the shotgun. "Now do your little witchcraft magic trick. I'm late for my blowjob."

Just the worst. The absolute worst.

Zandra repeats the same routine she did with the guard, although slightly abridged. She can't bring herself to touch him, not on the back or anywhere else. For the sake of the video recording on Sunglasses's phone, she plays it off as technique.

"Some call this reiki, others remote healing. It's a touch on a metaphysical level. Do you feel that, child? It feels warm on your back, doesn't it?" Zandra says, doing her best to not throw up on her mark.

"Actually, it feels warm somewhere else," Carter says with a smile so wide it nearly falls off his face. The barrel of the shotgun stuffed into his shoulder wobbles.

"Focus, child, really focus. Find the heat on your back. Bring all your attention to that spot," Zandra says. She makes sure her back is to the camera on Sunglasses's smartphone. This is important for later.

For all its virtues, the human brain can only focus on one thing at a time. Assuming Carter has one at all, this should work. Even if it doesn't, I'm not out anything. It's all going to end the same way. I'm never not in control, Carter. Only fools think otherwise.

And I just love fools.

"This is stupid," Carter says.

"You're making it stupid," Zandra says. "I'm trying to unlock something deep inside of you."

"That's what the blowjob is for," Carter says.

Zandra grits her teeth. "Tuck your broke dick back in and follow the directions."

Sunglasses intervenes with, "Let's keep this moving. I only have so much space left to record on my phone."

Did you forget you're being recorded, Carter? Who am I kidding, you don't care. This is how you behave when you know you're on tape. Good luck to anyone stuck with you out of view.

"Visualize the coin on the target as a ball of light that draws in everything around it. Make it the brightest it can be in your mind's eye. It's inescapable," Zandra says.

"Done."

"Now imagine the slug exiting the barrel of your shotgun in slow motion. It travels to the target and gets sucked into the...," Zandra says.

An explosion cuts her off before she can finish the sentence. A jolt of surprise fires through Zandra, Sunglasses, and the guard.

Carter sets the shotgun down and looks up from the shooting bench. A wisp of smoke dissipates at the end of the shotgun's barrel.

"I wasn't finished," Zandra says.

"It wouldn't be the first time I shot early and left a woman disappointed," Carter says. He slips off his eyes and ears.

Gross.

"You're not paying us to laugh at your jokes, so we're not. You're probably not used to that," Zandra says. She watches the confidence in Carter's elevated eyebrows deflate just a bit.

Right there. I got him.

The guard strips his eyes and ears off, too, and says, "Cool it."

"Cool? It's all cool, child," Zandra says. She lights a cigarette, pausing to let her lungs fill, and then exhales through her words. "Maybe a little walk is what we need then. It's getting cramped in here."

Carter snaps to his feet from the shooting bench and says, "A nice, 300-yard walk. Yeah, you go do that. I'll take the golf cart."

"No, we're all walking out there together, like one, big, happy family," Zandra says. "You can keep a better eye on me that way."

Sunglasses doesn't wait for the others to get started. He grabs the smartphone off the shelf and heads out. Zandra follows a moment later, dragging her bad ankle behind along and quietly cursing each painful step. Carter and the guard settle for the middle ground of nipping at her heels with the golf cart.

"Honk the horn, honk the horn," Carter says, laughing to the guard in the driver's seat.

You'll do a lot more than that soon.

Sunglasses leads the way out to the target, tapping on the smartphone with his right hand, capturing every step. He's the first to see it. Or, rather, not see it.

"I don't see it," Sunglasses says, hands cupped around his mouth as he calls out to the others. The flood lights provide plenty of illumination. A reflection should make it obvious where the coin lays.

"It was on the ground last time," Zandra says.

"I'm looking at the ground."

"Maybe it was a direct hit," the guard says from the golf cart.

Optimistic. You're a true believer.

Sunglasses paces the area near the target, smartphone stretched out over his feet. When the other three arrive, he's still looking.

"It's got to be here somewhere," the guard says. He clicks on a mini flashlight that he swoops across the ground. "Even a direct hit would leave something behind. Watch for a reflection."

"It could've sent the pieces flying, too," Sunglasses says. "We might never find those shards."

Carter doesn't seem at all interested in searching for the coin's remains. He runs up and slaps the guard in the ass. "Lighten up, sweetie. Tie goes to me."

After several more minutes, the trio remains empty handed. With the sun down and the evening settling in, the air cools quickly. The sweat of the day that worked its way into Zandra's purple gown now sends a chill down her back.

They looked long enough. Time to end this thing.

"Everyone, stop looking," Zandra says to the others.

"You found it?" the guard says.

Zandra reaches into a pocket of her purple gown. She pulls out a coin with Carter's likeness on both sides, turning it back and forth so that it reflects in floodlights. The coin is unscathed.

"Allow me to explain," she says.