“I can’t even recall if she had the necklace with her on the trip.” Judge Bonnet stroked his chin as he thought. “I wouldn’t have wanted her to lose it. The girl can barely keep track of her own head half the time, and that’s attached. All I needed was for her to leave a thousand-dollar pendant in some Italian hotel bathroom.”
There was an awkward pause, and he flushed, the red creeping up from the collar of his starched shirt. I wanted to wag my finger in his face. Tacky, tacky, criticizing your missing kid. “I have no idea if she had the necklace with her or not, just that an image of Italy comes through when I touch it.” I said. “I sense the trip was important to her.” Let them come up with some reason the items were linked. All they would remember is that I knew about the fountain accident. The fact I didn’t know about the necklace would be forgotten. I cocked my head to the side like a dog hearing one of those supersonic whistles. “She felt connected to Italy. She wanted to live there.”
That was the final straw. Ms. Bonnet began crying. “She did! She always said that.” The judge reached over and took her hand into his giant fleshy grip. “We always teased her about it, how she must have lived there in another life. And after that murder case last year, that high school girl who everyone thought killed her best friend? She was obsessed with going again.”
Judge Bonnet was pale. He didn’t want to believe me, but he didn’t know how to explain what I knew.
“Are you connected to her now?” Ms. Bonnet asked, leaning forward. “Have they hurt her?” She swallowed hard.
Judge Bonnet squeezed her hand again and then covered his face. “She must be so very scared. She tries to be brave, but she’s actually a very sensitive young woman.”
Ms. Bonnet was now the one to comfort him, placing her arm around his shoulder. “Paige was always a daddy’s girl. Neither of us has been able to sleep not knowing if she’s okay.”
I shook my head. “I’m certain she’s alive. Scared and frightened, but she’s okay.” I had to turn away from her mom. I couldn’t face how upset she looked. The back wall of the dining room was full of framed pictures of the family. Paige stared back at me from one of the photos as if judging my performance. My throat tightened.
“Oh, thank god she’s safe.” She wrapped her arms around herself as if it was cold.
“Why did they take her?” Detective Chan asked.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I have no sense of the kidnappers. Why they did it, or even where they are now, is a big blank.” I wanted to end the meeting, but I needed to put the final nail in the coffin. Something that would make the judge certain he couldn’t afford to ignore me. I turned to him. “I have this image of Paige worrying about you. Her giving you a hard time about something. Smoking, I think.”
His already pale face turned a whiter shade.
“But Donald doesn’t smoke.” Ms. Bonnet looked confused. “He hasn’t for years. Paige would have been a toddler when he gave it up.”
His Adam’s apple bounced up and down in his throat. Busted. Detective Chan noticed it too. He glanced down at the judge’s hands.
“It probably doesn’t mean anything.” I let him off the hook. He’d know it was accurate, that’s all that mattered. He was the one I needed to convince.
“We’re going to need you to come back to the station to look at the list we asked you to draw up of anyone who might have cause to do you harm,” Detective Chan said. “We’ve pulled the records of people you’ve sentenced over the years.”
“Oh god,” Ms. Bonnet mumbled. “If one of those monsters has our baby—”
The judge sniffed. “I know my work has a cost, but I never dreamed my family would pay the price for my service. If something happens to my baby girl . . .” He shook his head rapidly, like a dog shaking off after a bath.
“I wish someone would just ask for money, then we could just pay it and get our little girl back.” Ms. Bonnet started crying again.
I blinked, watching her fall apart, but it felt like it was happening at a distance. My skin prickled, each nerve twitching. Of course there was a ransom request. That was part of the plan—?heck, it was the entire point of the plan. Pluto would have asked for the money by now. Yesterday at the latest. If he didn’t, he would have reached out to me. This was supposed to be ending soon. I’d assumed part of the reason the cops had brought me in today was to try and figure out if Paige was still alive before the cash was handed over, but I was pretty sure they weren’t playacting for my benefit—?they had no idea that there was a ransom.
Judge Bonnet didn’t meet my eyes. My internal antennae went on alert as I studied his face. If he knew about the ransom request, why hadn’t he told his wife or the cops? Why would he keep it a secret? The hair on the back of my neck stood up.
Jay leaned forward. “Don’t worry. We’ve got the full support of the FBI on this case. We can pull them in if needed, but the most important thing is Paige’s safety. Everyone in the department has her as the top priority.”
“It’s also possible that some other random nutjob will ask for money to take advantage of the situation,” the judge pointed out. “Someone could see the story on TV and try and figure out what they could gain.”
Ms. Bonnet shook her head sadly. “Who would do something that sick?”
“Lots of sick people out there.” Detective Chan tapped his pen on the blank pad of paper he’d brought with him. The faint thwack, thwack, thwack was driving me crazy.
I wanted to tell them that the ransom was legit. I could have a vision about it. I realized I was sitting at the edge of my seat and forced myself to ease back. I shouldn’t look too invested in the money. Getting the payout wasn’t my responsibility. That was Pluto’s job.
“I’ll do whatever it takes to bring my girl home.” The judge surveyed the table as if he expected one of us to argue with him. “Anything. I’ll have my people arrange a few more media opportunities. We need to make sure we keep this front and center in the news, in case someone knows something. You never know when someone might choose to come forward with information if their memory is jogged. I want to meet again with the FBI reps; if we need more federal support, I want it brought in as soon as possible, but I also don’t want this to be a case of too many cooks in the kitchen and no one running the show.”
I mentally scrambled to figure out if there was any way I could bring up ransom. He had to know about it. Maybe he was afraid that if he told the police or his family, they would somehow screw it up. He was the kind of guy who thought he was the only real genius in the room. Maybe he wanted to handle the situation by himself.