November 24

Ana

"Are we done yet?" I ask, fiddling with my FBI visitor badge.

"Miss Clarence, we've only just finished covering what we already know from the statement you gave to the police," says Agent Givens.

I rub my hands across my face. "Oh great. So everything thus far has just been rehashed. Why are you even bothering to talk to me if you already know everything I'm going to say?"

He doesn't bother responding to that question. "Your connection to the embezzled funds and your whereabouts for the last several months are still very much unanswered."

I push back from the table to slump in my chair, sighing. "I don't know what you think you're going to accomplish by questioning me about the money. I can only say 'I don't know' so many times before I drive us all insane."

"Miss Clarence, are you aware that lying to a federal agent is a federal crime?"

"I am now."

"Punishable by up to five years in prison."

"Glad I'm not lying, then."

"I would advise you to take this seriously, Miss Clarence. You wouldn't like prison."

"Do I need to get a lawyer involved?" asks Ben, standing.

I'm startled by his tone. I glance up at him to see that he's fixing Agent Givens with a pointed glare.

"I haven't lied, Ben," I say. He looks down at me and must see something in my expression because he sits back down without comment.

"We have reason to believe that you were aware of where your mother was hiding that money," Givens says, watching me like a hawk.

"Think very carefully about how you respond to that," says Ben.

"Oh my ga- for the last time, I don't know anything. Think about it logically. I'm still alive - that alone is proof that I don't know where the money is."

"And how does that logic follow?" asks Givens.

"As soon as they found out where this money is, they wouldn't have any reason to keep me alive. So they'd have killed me if I'd told them, right?"

He seems to think this was a rhetorical question.

"I'm alive, which means I didn't give them what they wanted. But not for lack of trying. I gave them all the money I had access to - which you already know about because you read the police reports. And you probably have access to the records of my family's finances, so you've seen the activity on the accounts. I tried everything I could to give them what they were after, but I'm still alive, so that means I couldn't. Because I don't know anything about the money."

"I understand your logic trail here, but you've failed to consider your own sense of self-preservation."

"I'm sorry?"

"So you knew that by giving them the money, they'd kill you?"

I can see where he's going with this. I take a moment to breathe and try to figure out how to bash the truth into this thick-headed man. "Have you ever been tortured, Agent Givens?"

He doesn't answer.

"It sucks. A lot. It has a way of changing your priorities in life. My priority was making the beatings stop. I gave them everything I could think of. When that didn't work and I couldn't produce anything else, I started praying one of them would hit me a little too hard and just end it."

"Your point being?"

"That if I knew where this money was, I would have told them. Even if I knew they'd kill me after. Regardless of it."

"Maybe you were protecting someone else."

I can feel the expression melting off my face as my eyes unfocus and stare blankly across the room. What would I have done if they hadn't killed Ryan? If they'd brought him along and beaten him instead of me? What levels of desperation would I have sunk to?

"I don't have anyone left," I hear myself say. I struggle to bring myself back to the present and try to end the visions of Ryan lying dead on the floor by staring at Agent Givens's face. I just want to go home.

"Then perhaps-"

I sigh in frustration. "Look, I don't know how else I can express to you that I don't know anything about the money you people say my mother stole. I don't know where it is. I don't know why my mother had it. I don't know what she was planning to do with it. I barely even thought about it at all until they snatched me and it was all they wanted to talk about. If you won't believe me, that's your choice. But it's not going to change the fact that I don't know anything."

"I think it's pretty clear to all of us that this line of questioning isn't going anywhere," Ben cuts in. "Let's take a break or move on to something else."

"Where were you from March 19th to November 17th?"

I suppose it was foolish to think I'd avoided the question earlier. Of course he was going to come back to it. Like a dog to its vomit, I hear my mother's voice say. Gross, Mama! I hear baby Julie's voice pipe back. I almost smile at that memory.

"Anastasia?"

I blink back into the present. "What?"

"March 19th. The helicopter you took out of Fairbanks crashed. You survived and escaped. What happened that day?"

"I can't remember."

Givens glares at me.

"I'm being completely serious. I hit my head in the crash or running away from it. Then I was sick. I'm missing about a week of memory."

He seems to believe I'm telling the trust, begrudgingly.

"Well, when you did regain your memory, where were you?"

"Alaska."

"You can't be more specific than that?"

"No."

Givens looks ready to break out another glare.

"You said you were sick. Who took care of you?"

"It doesn't matter."

Now he's glaring.

"She told me that she stayed with someone in Alaska for the majority of the time she was unaccounted for. Out of respect for the individual's privacy, she is unwilling to share any information about the person. However, she did tell me about a truck driver she met there who could corroborate her story about being in Alaska as recently as last month."

I'm blindsided by the sudden betrayal. I can't believe he just told all of that to the FBI. I thought he understood that this was private.

He looks down at me without a trace of remorse in his face. I guess I'm an idiot. Of course he was going to tell investigators about it. He's a police officer. What was I thinking?

"Don't look at me like that," he says. "I'm helping you here. It's in your best interest to cooperate, and we can do that without compromising the privacy of your friend."

"Fine. As long as he doesn't start questioning me about," I pause. Ryan. "My friend."

"Was this person associated with the Alvarez family?" Givens pushes his way back into the conversation.

I turn to give him my full attention. "No. Absolutely not. He had absolutely nothing to do with any of this. He is not relevant to this investigation in any way and that is the last question I will answer about him. The only thing you will gain by asking more questions about him is making me more upset and less likely to talk." I try to will Givens into losing interest in Ryan.

"Why did he-"

"Why don't you tell him what happened that brought you back to Phoenix?" Ben interrupts.

I stare at him a moment before I realize what he's really saying. He wants me to tell Givens that Ryan is dead so Givens will stop asking. But he's letting me choose whether to reveal that information. I'd noticed him carefully avoid mentioning that my mystery friend was dead. My trust in Ben slowly starts to resurface after his earlier revelation nearly drowned it.

"Ben thinks it's my fault that the Alvarez family found me again. There was an emergency and I had to go back to Fairbanks. He thinks that while I was there, someone recognized me and that's how they found out where I was. A week later they came for me. They took me alive. They killed my friend."

"Are you certain he's dead?"

I remember being held and forced to watch what they did to Ryan. I remember everything about that day, that scene in the cabin living room, and recall the horror of that day. I don't let myself feel it, but I remember it. Then I open my mouth and explain how I know Ryan isn't ever coming back to rescue me.

"He'd been very sick. Almost died. He was getting better, but he still wasn't recovered. They shot him in the chest. Then they beat him. I heard bones break. Ribs. He wasn't breathing when they were finished with him. He probably bled out soon after. No one knew where we were. No one could have rescued him. His body is probably still on that floor."

I can't feel my fingers or toes and the room feels like it's shifting under me. I'm still talking, but my voice is becoming quieter and quieter and I'm not even sure what I'm saying. I don't realize what's happening until my vision fades and my body slumps to one side.

When I open my eyes, I'm lying on the table in the interview room with people staring down at me. Ben is on my left and Givens is on my right. Givens looks as impassive as I've come to expect from him, but Ben looks worried.

"What happened?" I hear myself ask.

"You passed out," says Ben. He looks paler than I've ever seen him. "Are you OK? Have you been feeling dizzy recently? Has this happened any other times since you were beaten?"

"One question at a time," I say.

Ben looks at Givens. "We're done for today. I'm taking her to the hospital."

Givens doesn't object, which surprises me. I try to protest, but Ben's not hearing any of it.

~~~

"It was probably just brought on by stress," says the doctor.

"You're sure?"

"Quite sure. From what you've described, she was experiencing trauma when it happened. It's not as unusual as you might think."

"What about the physical abuse she's been through? Are you certain she doesn't have a head injury or something else physically wrong with her?"

"The root cause of this event appears to have been psychological rather than physiological. Though I can see evidence of physical abuse, she seems to be healing well and without any complications. That being said, I strongly recommend consulting with a psychologist about..."

The doctor keeps talking, but I've stopped listening. I've heard this before from the last time Ben took me to a hospital.

When Ben's finally convinced I'm not about to spontaneously drop dead, we make our way out to the car. Somehow between the long interview with the FBI and the hospital visit, it's become late enough that the sun has gone down and my stomach is complaining about the number of hours that have passed since I last ate.

"What do you want for dinner?" Ben asks with almost providential timing.

My deliberation lasts only a split-second. "In-N-Out."

Ben looks over at me. "You're the type of person who just knows what food they want, instantly?"

"I am today."

"Fair enough."

We drive to the North Mountain Village In-N-Out Burger. I tried to convince Ben to take our food out to a picnic table at North Mountain State Park, but he refuses for "security reasons." We find a compromise - we go to the park, but we stay in the car. Ben does let me open my window, at least.

After my first bite of burger, I can't help making a small sound of delight. Ben chuckles to himself.

"We don't have In-N-Out in Vermont," I point out. "Or Alaska, either. Phoenix has, like, eight, I think. Count yourself lucky."

"I don't judge," he says, unwrapping his burger.

The cool desert air tangles in my short hair. I look up to the sky, but the stars are obscured by the glow of the city. At the horizon, a gibbous moon rises from behind the mountains to the east. Out my window, I see a cactus in the darkness, a few feet away from the car door. Even in the dim light, the landscape is so different from the one I've been used to for the past several months. I miss the boreal forests and the icy rivers and the distant snow-capped mountains. The midnight sun and the camping trips and the days spent in the garden and the hours spent on the river bank, talking and laughing and forgetting we were supposed to be fishing...

Will I ever feel so at home ever again?