“Okay.”
“Here’s the interview room we’ll be using,” she said as we approached an office with closed blinds over the windows. Interview room, not interrogation room. She opened the door to reveal someone already inside, a man with a weak chin and premature bald spot that contrasted oddly with the thick arms and chest visible under his button-down. A bullied loser who’d decided to get tough and go into the FBI so he could finally be the one in control. He was fiddling with an electronic recorder. “This is my partner, Timothy Lynch. I don’t think you’ve met before.”
Lynch shook everyone’s hand and offered us coffee and soda, which we declined. Everyone was smiling, and I wasn’t sure if the undercurrent of tension in the room was real or just the product of my own nerves.
“Okay,” Morales said, clapping her hands together. “We’ll make you two comfortable outside while we have a chat with Danny.”
Any pretense of friendliness evaporated.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Lex said.
Patrick gave her a warning touch on the wrist. “I’ll be staying with my brother, Agent.”
“Mr. McConnell, there’s no reason—”
“Excuse me,” Patrick interrupted, “but I’m Danny’s lawyer and his legal guardian, so how about we cut through the bullshit?”
Morales’s smile was tight but not displeased. “You’re right. Mr. McConnell, of course you may stay. Miss McConnell, we’ll make you comfortable in the waiting room.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Lex said.
“I’m afraid I have to insist.”
“No!”
“Lexi.” Patrick caught Lex’s fingers in his own and drew her to the corner of the room, where they exchanged a few low words. Whatever he said subdued her. She drew her hand out of his, kissed my head, and walked out of the office.
The rest of us sat down at the table—Patrick and me on one side, Morales and Lynch on the other—and Lynch started the recording. He began with a few simple, establishing questions to ease me into the interview. My name, age, that sort of thing. At first I was surprised he was the one questioning me, since it was obvious Morales was the one in charge here, but I quickly understood. Morales wanted him to ask the questions so she could focus on watching. She was leaned back in her chair in a way that was designed to look relaxed, but her eyes betrayed her. They saw everything, moving back and forth between Patrick and me as I answered Agent Lynch’s questions, and I wondered what she saw.
“So if you’re ready, Danny,” Lynch said, “I’d like to move on to the day you were abducted.”
I took a deep breath and looked at Patrick. He nodded and squeezed my shoulder. Morales watched us.
“I’m ready,” I said.
“Great,” Lynch said. “Just tell us what you remember. Take your time.”
I swallowed once, then twice, then cleared my throat. I added a small waver to my voice when I said, “I was out riding my bike . . .”
I started the story I’d worked on with Patrick the day before, making sure to switch up my language as I went. I told them about the white van that came out of nowhere, the hidden compartment in the eighteen-wheeler, the tense ride over the border into Canada. Everyone was silent as I spoke. The lies started to gain momentum as they tumbled out of my mouth, and I found myself leaning in toward the recorder. As soon as I noticed, I slowly drew back and curled my shoulders in on myself instead.
“We drove for a long time,” I said. “Every once in a while, they’d stop the truck in some empty place and drag us out to let us pee or give us something to drink. Then they’d shove us back inside, and we’d start to drive again.”
“Any idea how long this lasted?” Lynch asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Maybe two or three days.”
I sank into the lie. Never enough to lose sight of my surroundings, keeping an eye on Lynch’s and Morales’s reactions so I could adjust if necessary, but enough that I saw the lies superimposed over the present, like film that’s been double exposed. A dark road lit only by the headlights of the truck, which made my eyes—so used to the darkness of the hidden compartment now—contract painfully as someone with rough hands and a bandanna over the lower half of their face pushed me toward the trees so I could piss. Barely able to stand because my legs were so weak beneath me from fear, hunger, and lack of use. The stench inside the compartment as I was shoved back in, not even resisting anymore, knowing that it was pointless to fight. One glimpse into the eyes of the terrified girl with the freckles and strawberry blonde hair whose body warmth would be my only comfort once we started driving again before the door clanged close and took all the light away.
Lynch was blinking a lot. Patrick was rigid beside me. Morales was watching Patrick.
It began to feel like the driving would never end. Like the rest of the world had disappeared, and there was nothing and no one outside of this truck and this road. We never stopped during the day, so the day had ceased to exist too. I began to think the whole world was dark.
Then we stopped again, and something felt different. I don’t know why, but we all felt it. I could tell by the way the other little bodies in the compartment tensed, the way they started to breathe differently. There were voices outside, muffled through the layers of metal separating us, but definitely raised. My heart started to pound wildly. I was convinced it was the police, that someone was about to save us. But when the doors opened again, it was one of the same bandanna men, the one with the scar through his right eyebrow. And that was it, the moment that I realized that hope was more dangerous to me than anything else.
Lynch had his head turned now, looking at the wall. I had upset him. He recovered quickly and put on his brave boy face, but my story had gotten to him. Morales wasn’t similarly moved. Her expression hadn’t changed the entire time I’d been speaking.