Twenty-Five

Mr. Lester’s secretary was an easy read. “I’m going to draw another card to see if we can get at the heart of what’s going on.” I tapped the nine of swords—it has an illustration of a woman in bed weeping into her hands, which is only fair, because she has nine sharp blades suspended over her head. It typically means anxiety or worry.

Basically this card is my life.

Ms. Brew admitted she had been feeling stressed lately, which I didn’t have to be psychic to figure out. She had about a million coffee cups on her desk, and there were the wrappers for what looked like an entire pack of Nicorette gum in her trashcan. I flipped another card. Two of cups.

“And that one?” she asked.

“It can mean a change in an existing relationship. Is there anything going on at home?”

She fidgeted in her chair. Maybe it occurred to her that asking a student about her married life wasn’t exactly going to meet the standard of conduct in the employee handbook. “Tom, my husband, wants to start a new business.”

“And you’re worried about the idea,” I finished for her.

She sighed. “He works at a place with a good pension. This economy doesn’t seem like a great time to launch—” She flushed.

I smiled. “It’s fine. You don’t have to tell me about it.” I passed her the rest of the cards. “Shuffle these while you think about all the stuff that’s stressing you out. You can close your eyes if it makes it easier. Then pick a card, and it will give us an idea of what happens next.”

When she was done, I put the deck down in the center of her desk. I tapped the top card and then flipped it. “Three of wands. It means good things are coming, but you may need to wait.” She picked up the card and inspected it more closely.

She nodded, satisfied, and put it back down. “Can you do a reading about my daughter and her new partner, Amy? They’re thinking about adoption.”

I picked up the deck. It was starting to feel like it weighed a thousand pounds. When this was over, I would burn them. Before I could lay out another deal, Mr. Lester rushed back in, and Ms. Brew and I stood.

“They found where Paige was being kept.” He was practically panting with excitement. I made sure I didn’t smile. This was it.

Ms. Brew’s hand covered her heart. “Is the poor girl—” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence, in case the words alone had the power to shape what had happened.

“She wasn’t there.”

The sound of the blood rushing inside my ears blocked out what he said next. There was just a whooshing noise growing louder and louder.

“Sit down.” Mr. Lester pushed me into the closest seat and shoved the back of my head toward my knees. I struggled at first, then realized he was trying to keep me from passing out. “Take a slow, deep breath.”

His arm had me pinned to the chair. I tried to wriggle away from him.

“Stay where you are. Just keep breathing.”

I stared down at the linoleum floor and made myself count the squares to distract my brain until my breathing evened out and I no longer saw black dots around the edges of my vision.

“You okay?” I nodded, and Mr. Lester let me sit up. “Monica, can you grab a glass of water for Skye?”

She looked like she was scared of me. She rushed out to the water cooler and came back a second later with a tiny paper cup.

“They didn’t find Paige?” I finally managed to ask.

“No, they found the cabin you saw in your vision, but it was empty.” Mr. Lester bent down so he was even with my face. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s not your responsibility to find her. What you told them was great. It’s going to give them all kinds of new leads.”

I wanted to grab his shirt collar and tell him I knew it wasn’t my fault. It was Paige’s. She was supposed to be there. Where the hell was she?

I’d gone into Mr. Lester’s office this morning and told him I’d had another vision. He called in the detectives, and I told them what I’d seen. A lot of trees. Maybe a trail. There was a cabin. I knew that could be a thousand places in our town alone, let alone all of Michigan, so I had to narrow it down. I mentioned I saw an owl.

They were all clustered around me like I was telling them the best bedtime story ever, and when I mentioned the owl, they all looked at one another, trying to see if anyone else knew what that meant.

“Do owls have some kind of symbolism?” Detective Jay asked.

“In the Sioux tribe the owl was considered a messenger of evil.” Mr. Lester played with his beard.

I wanted to scream in frustration. I couldn’t be too specific, but I also wasn’t interested in playing twenty questions while they tried to piece it together. Detective Chan looked out the window while Mr. Lester talked about calling someone he knew who was some kind of bird expert and who might know if there was a place owls liked to nest around here. Suddenly, Chan interrupted him.

“The park. Out by the highway. Doesn’t their sign have an owl on it?”

Everyone went silent.

“Comstock Park,” Jay added.

Jesus, finally.

“Isn’t there a ranger cabin out there too? One they don’t use anymore?”

The two detectives stood in unison. Chan pointed at me. “You stay here while we check this out, and don’t anyone say anything until we get back. The last thing we need is the media crawling all over the place.”

Lester and Ms. Brew nodded solemnly, and then we were stuck waiting. Three hours. I’d finally busted out my tarot cards to do a reading for Ms. Brew while Lester sent notes to my teachers giving vague reasons why I couldn’t be in my classes.

Paige was supposed to have been tied up nice and tidy in the corner waiting to be found.

“Were there signs of a struggle?” I asked.

“No. They found some of her clothing and food. There were also some diary pages in her handwriting.”

“She kept a diary?” My stomach twisted. What the hell had she been writing down?

“It looks like she wrote as a way to pass time. Detective Jay says the pages are heartbreaking. You can tell how scared she is, even though she’s trying to be brave.”

Ms. Brew grabbed a Kleenex from her desk and wiped her eyes.

“Once the police have collected evidence, they may have you touch the pages, see if you can get a vibe or something.” He patted me on the shoulder. “We’re getting closer.”

There was a sour knot of bile pushing its way up my throat, keeping any words from coming out. I wanted to kill her. I should have known she was going to screw me when she gave in so easily. We had a plan. Now who was the one who couldn’t follow directions?

Lester smiled. “The good news is that the diary shows that she’s alive.”

Not for much longer if I had anything to do with it.