He knew I didn’t really know her. Anyone who had met either of us for more than five minutes had to know we didn’t hang out. Paige was as likely to be my friend as I was to sprout feathers, fly to New York, and live in the trees in Central Park. “No, we’re not friends, but I’m worried about her.”
He nodded slowly. “That’s understandable. However, there’s no reason for people to jump to any conclusions. Paige has a tendency for . . .” He searched for the right word. “Drama. I suspect she’s fine, just off on an adventure.”
I wondered what Paige would think of the fact that even our school guidance counselor assumed she had taken off on her own. The fact she’d run away last spring break worked against her. She was pretty and privileged. She wasn’t the kind to cause any real damage. But she was trouble.
I even knew exactly what kind of trouble. I’d looked up Paige’s student file. The fact I volunteered in Lester’s office meant that I had a unique opportunity to know more about my classmates than they might imagine.
The first time I’d peeked, I’d done it because I wanted to know what was in my own record. I had to see what had been written about the “dad incident.” But once I’d read about myself, I’d gone back to Lester’s file cabinet to read about other people. I collected tiny details, like the name of someone’s dying grandparent, who had an eating disorder, where they hoped to go to school, and any family drama that they dragged with them to school. All of it made my readings a bit more accurate. I knew Mr. Lester would have been disappointed in me if he knew, but I’d never used the info to hurt anyone. And I figured that since my deep dark secret had come out in a school assembly, it was only fair if I knew a part of what they kept hidden.
When the plan for Paige’s abduction came together, I pawed through her file looking for information. A few incidents of drinking, shoplifting; she’d skipped a class here or there; an inappropriate relationship with her club lacrosse coach; she’d had a fight in the gym with one of her friends. She got caught breaking into the mini-golf fun park on a dare in grade ten. As the news reported, she ran off to Florida last spring. The cops picked her up at a hotel. She’d been drunk and had to have her stomach pumped. That little tidbit never made the hallway gossip rounds. Lester had written he thought she had issues with wanting her parents’ attention and approval. In particular, her dad. Turned out we had that in common. Hers had high expectations; mine was missing in action.
Based on Paige’s history, the idea that she might have taken off without telling her parents where she was going seemed completely reasonable. Pluto had guessed right. No one would take the fact she was missing seriously. They wouldn’t even suspect she’d been abducted.
Pluto insisted I was needed to make the abduction work, but I didn’t see why. There was no reason to believe I was being told the full truth. I certainly wouldn’t have told someone else all the details if it had been my idea. It didn’t really matter. Everyone had a part to play, and this was mine. The sooner I did it, the sooner I could be done with this. Paige could take care of herself. For once I was going to do what I needed for me.
“What if Paige isn’t okay?” I paused. “What if something . . . bad happened to her?”
“Her parents are in touch with the police. I’m certain everything that can be done is being done.” Mr. Lester leaned back, giving his beard another yank. “Sometimes it’s easier to be upset about something happening to someone else than to admit what might be going on in our own lives.” He gave a meaningful pause, complete with another beard pull. It was like his personal whisker safety blanket. “Is it possible that your worry over Paige is because of the uncertainty in your own life? Graduation’s coming. Lots of changes ahead.”
Great, now he was going all Dr. Freud on me.
“The past couple of nights, I’ve had what I’d guess you call a vision.” I looked into his eyes. “About Paige.”
Mr. Lester’s bushy eyebrows drew together, like two ginger caterpillars mating above his nose. “Vision?”
“You know that I have . . . I guess you’d call them hunches.”
He nodded. I noticed he was leaning slightly forward. The hook was in the water, and he was ready to bite. He’d always wanted to ask me more about my tarot card readings, and I usually avoided or changed the topic.
“I’m not really sure how to describe it—?sometimes I just know things.” I shrugged like it was no big deal. “It runs in our family. Both my mom and grandma have the same gift.”
“Some people think that intuitive ability is a genetic trait, like blue eyes or big feet.”
My shoulders relaxed. “So you believe me?” I blinked a few extra times, trying to make sure my eyes were wide and innocent-looking. If I could have worked up a tear, I would have let it hang there for a beat before falling gently to the ground.
“Of course. I think there are a lot of things that we don’t fully understand.” He raised a finger. “However, that doesn’t mean that if you had a hunch about Paige, it portends anything in particular. Maybe she had a fight with her parents, or was upset about something else, and that’s what you sense.”
“In my vision, she’s screaming.”
That shut him up.
“The images are clipped, like a slide show going by too fast.” I shook my head as if to clear it.
Mr. Lester took a deep breath. “What have you seen?”
I lowered my voice as if I were about to tell a ghost story over a campfire. “It’s Paige. She’s crying. I think she’s in a car, but I’m not sure. She’s scared. I’m sure of that. I can feel the terror coming off her. I get the sense someone is making her go somewhere.”
“Let’s not assume it means anything. It could be a projection of your own stress. In this . . . vision . . . can you tell where she’s headed?” His hands were clenched.
I bit my lip. “No. There are flashes of things. Some kind of sign, but I can’t read it, a large red barn or maybe a farm, and I see this woman with long blond hair and a huge smile.”
He yanked on his beard. He was going to have a bald patch at this rate.
“A woman? Is she in the car with Paige? Is she the one in the back seat? Maybe that’s what you’re seeing.” He was no longer talking about hypotheticals. He may not have wanted to, but part of him believed.
“No.” I shook my head. “At least I don’t think that’s what she means.” I grimaced as if trying to force the knowledge out.
Mr. Lester grabbed a pad of paper from the shelf behind him. He tore off the first few sheets until he had a clean page. “Okay, tell me anything you saw or felt. We’ll make a list.”
“Paige doesn’t know what to do. She wants someone to help her, but she’s alone.” I grab my own head to give the scene some action. “They pull her by her hair to make her get out of the car. I think they hit her too. That’s when she screams.”
Mr. Lester let out a breath. His hand shook slightly as he wrote down each thing I told him into a tidy bullet point list.