Abduction!

In times when situational awareness is not possible, intuition and instinct become imperative to survival. After all, Bonnie’s instincts and intuition ultimately allow her to find Matt, escape abduction, and imprison Denny. Her intuition prompts her to investigate the section of the crowd at the Mariners game where she believes to have seen a boy resembling Matt, even though there’d been no sign of a potential kidnapper near him. Bonnie battles with the belief that “[i]f Matt had been left alone at Safeco Field, he wouldn’t sit calmly and watch the baseball game” (125)—he’d find help. In the end, she goes with her intuition, and it pays off when she spots Denny dragging Matt from the stadium. Despite the situation resulting in her abduction and being held at gunpoint, Bonnie continues to trust her instincts and intuition by calling out “Zinger!” to Matt just before she believes Denny will shoot her. The instinctual pitch Matt throws at Denny saves both the children.

Matt initially listens to his intuition and distrusts Denny when he encounters him in the hallway at school. However, a six-year-old’s intuition is no match for an adult’s manipulation; Matt simply can’t trust his instincts enough at this age. Denny manages to successfully abduct him through lies and manipulation, but Matt’s instincts urge him to distrust the man even when Denny proves he’s Matt’s biological father. Matt believes he’s safe, thinking that “he’d tell Mom exactly what had happened” with Denny as soon as he gets home, but “an uneasy feeling crept over Matt as he thought about everything this man had told him” (36). Though his limited understanding of the situation causes Matt to believe in his safety, his intuition—the feeling in his gut—believes something to be very wrong. Fortunately, Matt leans into this feeling, treating the situation and Denny with the caution and suspicion they deserve. Denny provides Matt with violent PlayStation games and movies while he lives with him—things Matt’s mother would never allow. The strange feeling in Matt’s gut intensifies as he “wondered if Mom really knew where he was going and about all the computer games” (40). Matt’s intuition allows him to spot inconsistencies in Denny’s story and the dangers in his behavior even when things seem relatively normal on the surface. When Denny proves he’s Matt’s father, Matt chooses to believe the feeling in his gut that tells him “not everything the man said was true” (41). This belief allows Matt to look at the situation from a different perspective. He realizes his mom “would never have sent Matt to live somewhere else without talking to him about it first, and she certainly wouldn’t have let him go without his clothes or his allergy pills” (41). Following his instincts allows Matt to take the precautions he needs to stay alive and to gather information that’ll later be vital to his escape. His observance keeps him aware of Denny’s volatile moods and in the man’s good graces, allowing him to attend the Mariners game, where Bonnie finds him.

Intuition and instinct are also vital in investigations; police and detectives must make hard decisions when viewing evidence and seemingly obvious clues. Bonnie often becomes annoyed with Officer Calvin’s predisposition to doubt everything, “even the obvious facts,” but understands that “it was good the police considered all possibilities” (84). When the police get a call with a potential lead on Pookie’s location, instead of outright believing the claim, they come up with several alternate theories, including the possibility that the dog the witness had seen was perhaps not Pookie at all. Bonnie once again notes that the “police didn’t seem to believe anything until it was proven” (89). Choosing between following instinct and intuition or facts and proof is difficult to balance, and it can be easy to make the wrong decision. For police, their intuition and instinct are limited to their knowledge of the case and similar cases. For the family, intuition and instinct can be imperative to understanding the full scope of an individual’s disappearance—but they can also provide a blind spot. In the case of this novel, the police do the best they can with the evidence they’re given and the experiences they’ve had. Exploring all possibilities comes in handy, especially in regard to Denny. When quizzed about Denny, Anita Sholter tells the police that she thinks “[they’re] wasting [their] time trying to find Denny. He had absolutely no interest in his child” (101). Anita’s proximity to the case and her strong dislike for Denny result in her unintentional bias and prevents her from viewing the case either objectively or intuitively.