“How does it work?” Ms. Bonnet leaned forward. “Your visions, I mean.” Her giant emerald-cut diamond engagement ring winked in the sunlight from the window as she twisted it around her finger. She’d lost some weight; the ring was loose.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Sometimes I just know things.” I had to keep things vague. Details could be checked. But it was hard when people kept pushing, wanting answers. I had to fight against the urge to fill the void, to provide answers that could damn me if I wasn’t careful.
“You saw my daughter’s abduction,” Ms. Bonnet said. “Can’t you tell us anything else? Any detail may help.” Her voice shook.
I frowned. “I want to, but it’s not like a TV that I can turn on or off. Sometimes there are clear images, but other times it’s fuzzy.” I shrugged to show how it was all a mystery to me. “The detectives were the ones who put it all together, that the woman was a billboard picture and what the number meant. They should get the real credit.” Praising the cops was important. I needed to keep them on my side. “Sometimes it is easy for me to guess what I’m seeing, and other times it’s just a feeling.”
“So you don’t even know if what you tell us is useful,” Judge Bonnet said.
“No.” I said it simply with no apology. My answer took him off-guard. He’d expected excuses.
Ms. Bonnet reached into a drawer on the base of the china cabinet and pulled out a tiny, formerly white, stuffed bunny. The fabric on its ears was worn to a shiny pale gray texture. She also held a necklace, a tiny sapphire pendant, that swung back and forth above the table on a fine gold chain. “You told us to have a few things of hers for you to look at.”
“Thanks.” I reached for the bunny first. “It might not help, but sometimes having something that belonged to a person is useful.”
Paige’s mom nodded. She gestured to the stuffed animal. “She’s had that thing since—”
“It’s better if you don’t tell me,” I said, cutting her off. “That way anything I say isn’t influenced by information you gave me.”
Her mouth closed quickly. I held the bunny and let my gaze turn soft and unfocused.
I snapped my eyes open. “The bunny has a name—?it starts with a vowel.” I frowned. “An A, I think,” I said. “No wait, an E.”
Her mom gasped. “Elliot. She calls him Elliot.”
I nodded as if I wasn’t surprised, which I wasn’t. Pluto had told me the rabbit’s name. “She was really sick once, when she was young. She was in a hospital, but I don’t have the sense it was an accident.” I cocked my head to the side. “It wasn’t anything serious, nothing like cancer. She had this toy with her.”
Paige’s mom covered her mouth with both hands, her ballerina pink polish glinting in the light from the large windows.
“She had her tonsils out,” Judge Bonnet said. “She was five or six at the time, but she was brave as buttons.” His Superman chin was thrust out like he was grinding his teeth. “Our family knows to stay strong when they’re scared.”
“She’d never been away from family before—?she was just so young,” Ms. Bonnet said, looking around the dining room table at the rest of us. Her lower lip quivered. “We got her the bunny to keep her company. She hasn’t held on to any of her other stuffed animals, but this one’s still on her bed. Her sister teases her about Elliot all the time.”
Detective Jay regarded me, impressed. He should have been, but not because I was psychic, rather because of how many things I had to commit to memory to pull this trick off. Pluto had sent me lists of possible objects Paige’s parents might bring out. I had no idea what they would actually pick, but Elliot the bunny had been one of the first things I’d memorized.
I wasn’t as lucky with the other item. I’d told Paige’s parents to select things Paige kept close to her. I’d counted on them picking some item of jewelry. I’d guessed they would choose the pearl ring Paige had inherited from her grandma, not some pendant that hadn’t even been on the list.
I’d have to go more general. Use other information I had, to distract from the fact I didn’t have a clue about this particular necklace. The room was silent while I let the chain puddle in the palm of my hand, the cool metal links warming to my body temp. There was a chance it was a ringer item. Something that didn’t belong to Paige that was being used to see if they could suss out if I was lying, but I didn’t think so. Her parents were entirely too interested.
“I get the sense that she wore this a lot.” I let the necklace pour from one hand to the other. Now to connect it to something I didn’t have to guess. “There’s an image of all of you traveling. Italy, I think.” I could see the judge wanting to chalk that one up to random chance, but he shifted in his seat with discomfort. It unnerved him that I’d guessed the country correctly.
“I’m not trying to insult you, but she probably told everyone in school about where we went,” he said.
“Was there some kind of accident on that trip?”
Paige’s mom’s face screwed up in confusion. Powder had settled into the fine lines by her eyes, making her look older. “Accident? I don’t think so.” She turned to the judge. “Donald?”
“There wasn’t any accident,” he confirmed. “I think you must be getting crossed signals.” He leaned back.
I stared at the wall with intensity, as if I were trying to look through the plaster at something a long distance away. “There was water, a sense of falling.”
Ms. Bonnet laughed. “Oh my god, I know what you mean. When you said accident, I thought you were talking about with a car or something. Do you remember, Donald? You tripped into that fountain in Rome and came up spitting and spouting water. Everyone was laughing, but you were so mad.”
The judge looked annoyed. “Of course I remember. In case you forgot, it ruined my Nikon camera.”
She wiped the smile off her face, but you could see it hiding there, under the skin.
“Did Paige get the necklace on the trip?” Detective Chan asked.
The Bonnets shook their heads in tandem. “No. It was a gift on her thirteenth birthday. My family always believed a young lady should get her first piece of real jewelry at that age, something you’ll have forever,” Ms. Bonnet said. I nodded like it made sense to me, as if everyone I knew also got expensive keepsakes for birthdays, destined to be treasured for a lifetime.
I can’t even remember what I got for my thirteenth birthday, but if I had to guess, I’d say it was a board game my mom picked up at a garage sale—?it didn’t even have all the pieces.