Don't Lose Her by Jonathon King

to look at a baby and not feel something. But had she been taken by monsters? She rolled back onto the mattress, her eyes open against the black cloth. For some reason, she felt she could think better if her eyes were open, even though her view was of nothing. She lay there for a few minutes, formulating.
    â€œLet me ask you something,” she finally said, keeping her voice as conversational as she could: not antagonistic but not condescending, either. It was her courtroom voice, the neutral one she used when addressing witnesses.
    â€œIt seems you are a compassionate person. Can you at least tell me your name? Or even something I can call you? We’re here alone together in all of this. You can at least talk to me. You don’t have to tell why you’ve done this, or what your plans are. Just talk to me. You’ve let me know you’re here by giving me something to feed my baby. Can’t you just say something?”
    Silence.
    Again, Diane heard the creak of wood. Is he sitting in a chair? A straight-backed wooden chair against the wall? Sitting there with a gun in his hand just waiting for the order to kill her? Or is he just staring at her? Or was that muted clicking sound she’d heard really a cell phone he’s using to text someone? She tried to form a picture in her mind. Were the walls concrete? Was the door metal, like a cell? Were there windows? Were they glass, and thus breakable?
    The silence was causing her imagination to run rampant. She’d never been good at silence. In her work, she was surrounded by people: attorneys asking questions, aides making requests, bailiffs giving reports, other judges discussing changes in rules. Outside of court, she was a sociable woman, attending conferences and fund-raisers and society dinners.
    Billy was the quiet one, always listening, always taking in the conversations and sights and smells, and rarely speaking. Though his stutter put him in that situation, Diane knew there was an upside to it. He liked the fact that she could take over in a social situation. He was glad to be able to ignore a social function he considered a chore. Billy might be able to stand this silence and wait it out.
    She didn’t think she could. She needed to know. She needed to do something. She was blind, pregnant, and at the mercy of physically bigger and stronger captors. If she tried to get up, she’d be shoved back down. If she called out, she’d be slapped quiet. If the only way she could act was by talking quietly, she’d do it.
    â€œDo you speak English?” she asked. If indeed her kidnappers were somehow aligned with Escalante, maybe they were South American. Or would they be locals who worked in his drug distribution enterprise?
    She’d read the files on Escalante, knew of the ruthlessness of his multiheaded businesses in Colombia and the internecine battles with both the government there and other drug distributors vying for trafficking routes and supplies. The photos of village citizens, children, caught up in the crossfire of the drug wars had made her blanch. Even if Escalante hadn’t done the deeds by his own hand, it was by his order that certain outcomes were achieved. If these were men of the same cloth, a dead American judge would mean nothing to them.
    Stop, Diane , she told herself. No negatives now—don’t go there. Your father always taught you optimism.
    Her father had been a judge for forty years. As a child, she’d learned from watching him come home from court with the wear in his eyes and the tired, slumped shoulders of a man who had carried a burden all day and had not been able to leave it behind in the courthouse. When she was older, he would quietly discuss the day’s deliberations and rulings and the inevitable moral and ethical dilemmas that could not be discussed on the bench or with attorneys.
    Those burdens belonged to the judge. He’d told Diane the truth when she first donned a robe: