Title- Everything's Changed
Author- pepsicolagurl
Rating- R
Notes- Same disclaimer as the rest. I'm trying to calm down on the swearing a little. Anyone who knows me knows that it can be difficult. Also, thanks to everyone for the kind reviews. I appreciate it.
Chapter Nine
"But she said that she was all right?"
Nodding his head, Grissom reached into his pocket and fingered his cell phone, wondering if it was going to ring again anytime soon. "Yes, she said that she was all right. She thinks she sprained her ankle, but nothing serious. She also said something about cuts and bruises, so that could explain why her blood was in the living room."
Warrick nodded as he unscrewed the cap on his bottle of water. "Yeah, most likely. We're working as quick as possible on everything that we have, but it's not a lot. We already know who it is, but we don't know anything about him, besides what's in his file, and it's not a lot to go on."
"He kills for retribution, he kidnaps for retribution, and it doesn't bother him in the slightest. I've never heard someone so calm before, especially in that situation...and with my daughter, no less," he said dryly, noticing the look he got. "Anastasia isn't the easiest to deal with. And she has no problem talking back when she shouldn't, which she's been doing. I didn't even have the chance to tell her not to do that."
"You said that it didn't seem to bother him," he began, before Catherine walked up to them, waving a piece of paper in the air. "You have something?"
"A big something," she said with a smile before handing him the paper. "The receipt for a rental car. I matched up his signature to the one we have, and the picture. He had to have his driver's license photocopied to get the car. They were more than happy to hand over the information." Her eyes went towards Grissom. "There's already an APB out on the car, we're just waiting for a response now. As long as he didn't change the license plates, we're fine. But I'm not putting anything past this guy right now."
He leaned against the wall, crossing his arms. "I wouldn't, either, and I'm not. That's probably the same car that she was in before." When they both looked over at him, confused, he went on to explain. "When she was walking home for your place that morning, a car was following her and lead her right to a house that no one lives in, but that he came out of. The 'For Sale' sign was found in the backyard later that day. He drove her here, and then made some comment that made her realize who he was."
Her eyes widened. "I didn't know. I offered her a ride home, but she told me that she wanted to walk. I probably should have fought her a little harder."
"Should have...doesn't matter any more. What happened, happened, and you can't change it. It would have happened anyway, eventually. This guy is very...patient, to say the very least."
Warrick nodded. "Patience can be a virtue, but it can also screw you over. Someone had to have seen him waiting around. Where does Anastasia go the most? You said that he said that he was following her around."
Grissom sighed and tried to recall any place that his daughter had been to in the last little while. "A mall about ten minutes from the complex, a bookstore just down this road. Her therapist's office. She was just there the other day for an appointment." He saw, out of the corner of his eye, that Catherine had opened her mouth to say one of her usual blunt remarks, but decided against it, keeping silent. He waited for a moment to see if she really would say anything, but when she still wouldn't speak, he continued. "Which reminds me. I have to cancel a few of her appointments that she was supposed to have tomorrow. One with her school..."
"What school does she go to?" Catherine asked suddenly.
"The distance education school out here. Home schooling, for now. I was going to send her back to her school in Florida, but-"
Again, he was cut off. "What do you mean, school in Florida?" Warrick added.
"She went to a private school in Orlando. And one in New York and one in Connecticut. There was one in Hawaii, on Oahu, actually. I'm sorry. I never realized that there were that many."
"None of those really matter. He didn't take her out of Las Vegas, at least not on a flight," the woman told them. "The police have sent his picture and name to all the bus stations, the airport...everywhere. He couldn't have gotten her on a flight or a bus, anyway. Someone would have noticed an unconscious, bleeding teenager. When we got to your place, the blood was still fresh. That's a bonus for us."
Grissom shrugged. "But you're forgetting the easiest way out of here. By car. You said that he rented a car, how can you be sure that that they're still in Las Vegas? In the amount of time since she's been taken, if you have the time right, they would be only an hour away from California. How do you know-"
"We'll find her," she said, moving her hair away from her face as she spoke. "If nothing else, we'll find her."
He looked down the hallway, towards a crying woman that had obviously just been given some bad news. Would that be what he would hear in a little while, he wondered. "I have no doubt that you'll find her, Catherine, but I don't know if she'll be..." He stopped himself before he could finish the words, but that didn't finish the thought.
And he really didn't want to dwell on something like that.
**********
Anastasia leaned forward and picked the unopened bottle of water from the ground, twisting the cap to break the seal. "Why did you do it?" she asked quietly.
The man looked over at her, startled for a moment. "Why did I do what?"
"Kidnap me, brainiac. Why did you kill my mother? I have nothing but questions, and no one has been able to hand me any answers. I want to know why you did what you did," she told him, her voice even and calm before she sipped the water. He didn't say anything. "Oh, come on. I know what's going to happen, and I know that you threatened my life already, in front of the courthouse that day. I wasn't supposed to know, but I do. So if you're going to do what I think you're going to, you might as well tell me why you killed my mother."
He examined her closely. The light bruise on her face that would turn darker within a few hours. The cut that had finally dried. Her knotted and gnarled hair. And the extremely calm look in her eyes as she stared at him. She wasn't scared anymore, and that was one thing that was working against him. "Answer my question first. Why aren't you crying and begging to talk to Gil?"
She shrugged and took a longer drink of the water. "What good would that do? I call him, and he worries more. I don't call him, and he worries more. It doesn't help me out, either way. And the reason that I'm not crying...well, you already know the answer to that question. I'm not scared of you. Disgusted by you, yes, but scared?" She shook her head. "I may be sixteen, but I'm not stupid. I know that you're just biding your time until you kill me and dump my body someplace familiar where my dad would be sure to see it. Then, you'll be happy. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if you turned yourself in. You'd have finished what you started."
"You're scared, you have to be," he said confidently.
Surprisingly, she started to laugh. "Well, if you don't know the difference between scared and disgusted, you seriously need a dictionary. Remind me to get you one for Christmas," she muttered with a roll of her eyes. "You'll never get me to admit to anything like that. Dad says that I'm as stubborn as they come, and I'm inclined to believe that."
"You're inclined to believe that because he said that you were."
She shook her head and turned the cap back on the bottle, putting it back on the ground. "No," she said, drawing out the word as long as she could. "I'm inclined to believe it, because it's true. Can we just stop with the mind games, please? I'd like to know whether you're going to tell me why you killed my mother or not."
The man paused and watched as she stretched out on her side, wincing when she accidentally brushed her ankle with her foot. "Why are you so interested in finding out?"
"I'd like to know why you decided to punish me for the rest of my life," she said in a bored tone. "I was quite happy with both my mom and dad around, but you killed her, and I was sent off to private school after private school. I believe that would make it...YOUR fault that I was moved around so much. So, enlighten me. Why make my life a living hell?"
Considering her question, he tilted his head to the side. "Do you think Gil is worried about you?"
At first, she was going to groan at the fact that he changed the subject. Instead, she smiled and looked down at her ragged nails, having broken some of them when she had used them to dig into his skin when they had been fighting on the stairs in her house. "Don't know what you got, until it's gone," she said saucily. "How the hell should I know? I'm not a mind reader."
"And why aren't you scared to die?" he asked.
Anastasia could do nothing but shrug, but she knew that it wasn't going to be enough for him. "I've come to accept it. I did the second that you walked through that door and told me to call my dad. I knew what was up then. I'm smarter than most people give me credit for. I knew that you were just playing with him, trying to make him obsess over what's going to happen before you decide to finish it. God, give me a little credit here, would you?"
"You have an attitude problem."
"So my therapist tells me."
They stared at each other from across the room, before she had to break it, and look towards the floor. Maybe the calm, accepting thing wasn't working too well, she thought to herself with a frown. Maybe she really should be crying and screaming to be let out, to call her father...but then he would have an advantage over her. This wasn't exactly something that they taught her in school, and she wasn't sure what she was supposed to do. All she could do was what she would normally do, which was mouth off and be as sarcastic as possible.
But inside, she was scared out of her mind.
**********
Nick shifted uncomfortably in his seat, looking out the windshield. "So, who tells him?" he asked quietly.
"Who tells him what?" Catherine replied, distracted as she turned the corner towards the flashing police lights. "Nick, the least you can do is answer me when I ask you a question. Who tells him...whoever the 'him' is, what?"
"Who tells him if this is Anastasia?" he finally asked, turning to look at her.
She slowed the vehicle and let out the breath that she had been holding, making the hair around her face float up for a moment. "I wish you had never asked me that question, but we don't know if it's her or not. They just said that it was a female teenager, and she had been shot. There's nothing to say that it was Anastasia."
"And there's nothing to say that it isn't her. If it is, Catherine, I really don't want to be the one that has to tell him. I mean, really. And if it is her, you don't know what he's going to do or how he's going to react."
She turned the key and shut off the engine before unsnapping her seat belt and turning to him with a purely serious look in her eyes. "Look, we don't know whether it's her or not. Have a little faith, Nick. Be positive for once. We're going to go and see if it's her, and if it's not, we examine the scene and wait for the autopsy to be finished. If it is her, we examine the scene and wait for the autopsy to be finished." She had been calm a moment ago, but now her eyes flashed with barely restrained anger. "And I'd like to think that he would react like any other parent, all right? It's his daughter. They may not be close, but it's still his daughter."
Looking down, he frowned and tugged on his baseball cap. "I'm sorry. It's just that...I'm considering all the possibilities, all right? Come on, we might as well head out there." They both opened their doors and jumped out with their gear, heading over to the police officer in charge, waiting for any information.
What they heard wasn't very promising. A young girl had been shot, and the body dumped by the side of the road. That was all they knew, and it wasn't something that either of them wanted to hear. It could very easily be Anastasia, and at the same time, they were both hoping that it wasn't.
Catherine was shaking her head as she walked over to the side of the road where the body was, almost afraid of what she was going to see. As a parent herself, she knew that hearing that something happened to your child could be the most frightening thing in the world, and she couldn't even begin to imagine what it was like to hear that your child had been killed.
Her eyes slammed shut before she could look at the body, and she took a deep breath. "Catherine?" Nick called from behind.
It took a great effort, but she finally opened her eyes and looked towards the girl that was laying in the ditch, before letting out the breath she had been holding. "It's not her," she called behind her, feeling the tension drain from her body. It definitely wasn't Anastasia. The girl that was laying there had black hair, and was a lot smaller than the teenager in question. "It's not her," she repeated to herself.
"Catherine, Sara just called. They found the car. It's about ten miles away from her, empty and broken down. They're all heading down there now. She said something about Warrick having to go alone, and they're tagging along." He smiled sheepishly as he shut his cell phone and clipped it back on his belt. "They want us out there as soon as we finish out here."
She nodded and looked down again. "Come on, then. The sooner we start, the sooner we're finished. And the sooner we get out to the car."
**********
"So...are you going to tell me or not?" Anastasia questioned a final time, shrugging. "It's not life or death for me to know, but if you're going to kill me, the least you could do is answer my questions."
He shook his head, surprised by how she was acting. He had expecting nothing but screaming, crying, and whining. This wasn't any of those. And the questions just kept coming, and never ended. "Why do you need to know? She's dead, isn't she? She's been dead for years...or haven't you gotten over it yet?"
She nodded and made a face. "Oh, I'm over it, don't worry. I barely remember her, so it's not like it's that big of a deal." Was there a neon sign on her forehead that kept blinking "liar", because that's exactly what she saw. Of course her mother's death bothered her, and while she was over for the most part, the dreams were the only thing that remained, and the only thing that could legitimately scare her, night after night. "Consider it like a last meal for a condemned man. At least, they get them in the movies. Although food would be appreciated, too." She paused and stared at him for a moment. "You're not going to give me some answer like, 'I killed her because I wanted to', are you? That would really suck."
His eyes went towards the cell phone that was still sitting on the bed. "Call Gil and I'll answer anything that you want."
"Well, this is a horrible trade-off. I already answered all of your questions," she said, picking up the phone and selecting the only number in the directory, the phone dialing it automatically. "You owe me," she added as she held the phone up to her ear. "The signal cleared up, by the way," she said, the phone ringing. Her father was supposed to answer, not let it ring.
"Anastasia?" she heard suddenly.
"Hey, Dad. It's me again. Before you ask, I'm still fine. Nothing's happened since the last phone call."
She heard a sigh of relief on the other end, and could only make a confused face at the sound of it. No matter what, he always had the same poker face, and it went right down to his voice. This wasn't the father that she knew. "Okay, I want you to listen for a moment. Sara told me that when you're scared, you talk back. Don't do that, Anastasia. Do you understand me? I don't care whether he cares or not. Don't talk back."
"I'll try," she said quietly, bringing her knees up to her chest and wrapped her free arm around them. "I'm not promising, but I'll try to stop."
There was a quiet moment, where she could hear him crunching gravel under his feet wherever he was, but she knew that there was no gravel at their place, or at the lab, so it meant that he had to be somewhere else. Where the somewhere else was, she didn't know, but it gave her a little hope, as false as it might be. "And I'm sorry that I didn't know that. I should have."
Shaking her head, she tried to figure out what direction this conversation was going. "That's...that's all right, Dad. There's a lot about me that...well, it doesn't really matter at this point." Was he giving up hope or something, she couldn't help but wonder. He wouldn't say anything like that normally, so maybe he was thinking that she would never get out of there to see him again. God, she hoped not. "At least I can actually hear you this time," she added.
"Yeah, I just noticed that," he said slowly. "The reception really cleared up this time." His voice held that old calculating tone that she heard so often whenever they were on the phone. It usually meant that he was concerned about a case that he was working on, but this time...the case was about her. "You still don't know where you are?"
"The window is covered with a board. I can't see a thing in here."
"Anastasia, I-"
He was broken off when the phone was pulled out of her hand again, and she could only roll her eyes. She wanted to know what he was going to say, but she didn't think that he would give her the chance again. "How touching, Gil," the man said with a smirk, looking towards Anastasia. She shot back the glare before turning to face him, making sure that he wasn't going to do anything that she wouldn't see. For a moment, it felt like she was the kidnapped in the situation. "Yes, she's just fine. Listen."
She opened her mouth to say something loud enough to be heard over the phone, when a hand connected to the side of her face, making her cry out when his hand hit straight on the developing bruise. The bed creaked a little as she fell onto it, holding the side of her face, as tears started to develop in her eyes.
The phone was shut off and slipped back into his pocket as he looked at her. "So, you want answers?" he asked. "Fine. That's just fine with me."
Author- pepsicolagurl
Rating- R
Notes- Same disclaimer as the rest. I'm trying to calm down on the swearing a little. Anyone who knows me knows that it can be difficult. Also, thanks to everyone for the kind reviews. I appreciate it.
Chapter Nine
"But she said that she was all right?"
Nodding his head, Grissom reached into his pocket and fingered his cell phone, wondering if it was going to ring again anytime soon. "Yes, she said that she was all right. She thinks she sprained her ankle, but nothing serious. She also said something about cuts and bruises, so that could explain why her blood was in the living room."
Warrick nodded as he unscrewed the cap on his bottle of water. "Yeah, most likely. We're working as quick as possible on everything that we have, but it's not a lot. We already know who it is, but we don't know anything about him, besides what's in his file, and it's not a lot to go on."
"He kills for retribution, he kidnaps for retribution, and it doesn't bother him in the slightest. I've never heard someone so calm before, especially in that situation...and with my daughter, no less," he said dryly, noticing the look he got. "Anastasia isn't the easiest to deal with. And she has no problem talking back when she shouldn't, which she's been doing. I didn't even have the chance to tell her not to do that."
"You said that it didn't seem to bother him," he began, before Catherine walked up to them, waving a piece of paper in the air. "You have something?"
"A big something," she said with a smile before handing him the paper. "The receipt for a rental car. I matched up his signature to the one we have, and the picture. He had to have his driver's license photocopied to get the car. They were more than happy to hand over the information." Her eyes went towards Grissom. "There's already an APB out on the car, we're just waiting for a response now. As long as he didn't change the license plates, we're fine. But I'm not putting anything past this guy right now."
He leaned against the wall, crossing his arms. "I wouldn't, either, and I'm not. That's probably the same car that she was in before." When they both looked over at him, confused, he went on to explain. "When she was walking home for your place that morning, a car was following her and lead her right to a house that no one lives in, but that he came out of. The 'For Sale' sign was found in the backyard later that day. He drove her here, and then made some comment that made her realize who he was."
Her eyes widened. "I didn't know. I offered her a ride home, but she told me that she wanted to walk. I probably should have fought her a little harder."
"Should have...doesn't matter any more. What happened, happened, and you can't change it. It would have happened anyway, eventually. This guy is very...patient, to say the very least."
Warrick nodded. "Patience can be a virtue, but it can also screw you over. Someone had to have seen him waiting around. Where does Anastasia go the most? You said that he said that he was following her around."
Grissom sighed and tried to recall any place that his daughter had been to in the last little while. "A mall about ten minutes from the complex, a bookstore just down this road. Her therapist's office. She was just there the other day for an appointment." He saw, out of the corner of his eye, that Catherine had opened her mouth to say one of her usual blunt remarks, but decided against it, keeping silent. He waited for a moment to see if she really would say anything, but when she still wouldn't speak, he continued. "Which reminds me. I have to cancel a few of her appointments that she was supposed to have tomorrow. One with her school..."
"What school does she go to?" Catherine asked suddenly.
"The distance education school out here. Home schooling, for now. I was going to send her back to her school in Florida, but-"
Again, he was cut off. "What do you mean, school in Florida?" Warrick added.
"She went to a private school in Orlando. And one in New York and one in Connecticut. There was one in Hawaii, on Oahu, actually. I'm sorry. I never realized that there were that many."
"None of those really matter. He didn't take her out of Las Vegas, at least not on a flight," the woman told them. "The police have sent his picture and name to all the bus stations, the airport...everywhere. He couldn't have gotten her on a flight or a bus, anyway. Someone would have noticed an unconscious, bleeding teenager. When we got to your place, the blood was still fresh. That's a bonus for us."
Grissom shrugged. "But you're forgetting the easiest way out of here. By car. You said that he rented a car, how can you be sure that that they're still in Las Vegas? In the amount of time since she's been taken, if you have the time right, they would be only an hour away from California. How do you know-"
"We'll find her," she said, moving her hair away from her face as she spoke. "If nothing else, we'll find her."
He looked down the hallway, towards a crying woman that had obviously just been given some bad news. Would that be what he would hear in a little while, he wondered. "I have no doubt that you'll find her, Catherine, but I don't know if she'll be..." He stopped himself before he could finish the words, but that didn't finish the thought.
And he really didn't want to dwell on something like that.
**********
Anastasia leaned forward and picked the unopened bottle of water from the ground, twisting the cap to break the seal. "Why did you do it?" she asked quietly.
The man looked over at her, startled for a moment. "Why did I do what?"
"Kidnap me, brainiac. Why did you kill my mother? I have nothing but questions, and no one has been able to hand me any answers. I want to know why you did what you did," she told him, her voice even and calm before she sipped the water. He didn't say anything. "Oh, come on. I know what's going to happen, and I know that you threatened my life already, in front of the courthouse that day. I wasn't supposed to know, but I do. So if you're going to do what I think you're going to, you might as well tell me why you killed my mother."
He examined her closely. The light bruise on her face that would turn darker within a few hours. The cut that had finally dried. Her knotted and gnarled hair. And the extremely calm look in her eyes as she stared at him. She wasn't scared anymore, and that was one thing that was working against him. "Answer my question first. Why aren't you crying and begging to talk to Gil?"
She shrugged and took a longer drink of the water. "What good would that do? I call him, and he worries more. I don't call him, and he worries more. It doesn't help me out, either way. And the reason that I'm not crying...well, you already know the answer to that question. I'm not scared of you. Disgusted by you, yes, but scared?" She shook her head. "I may be sixteen, but I'm not stupid. I know that you're just biding your time until you kill me and dump my body someplace familiar where my dad would be sure to see it. Then, you'll be happy. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if you turned yourself in. You'd have finished what you started."
"You're scared, you have to be," he said confidently.
Surprisingly, she started to laugh. "Well, if you don't know the difference between scared and disgusted, you seriously need a dictionary. Remind me to get you one for Christmas," she muttered with a roll of her eyes. "You'll never get me to admit to anything like that. Dad says that I'm as stubborn as they come, and I'm inclined to believe that."
"You're inclined to believe that because he said that you were."
She shook her head and turned the cap back on the bottle, putting it back on the ground. "No," she said, drawing out the word as long as she could. "I'm inclined to believe it, because it's true. Can we just stop with the mind games, please? I'd like to know whether you're going to tell me why you killed my mother or not."
The man paused and watched as she stretched out on her side, wincing when she accidentally brushed her ankle with her foot. "Why are you so interested in finding out?"
"I'd like to know why you decided to punish me for the rest of my life," she said in a bored tone. "I was quite happy with both my mom and dad around, but you killed her, and I was sent off to private school after private school. I believe that would make it...YOUR fault that I was moved around so much. So, enlighten me. Why make my life a living hell?"
Considering her question, he tilted his head to the side. "Do you think Gil is worried about you?"
At first, she was going to groan at the fact that he changed the subject. Instead, she smiled and looked down at her ragged nails, having broken some of them when she had used them to dig into his skin when they had been fighting on the stairs in her house. "Don't know what you got, until it's gone," she said saucily. "How the hell should I know? I'm not a mind reader."
"And why aren't you scared to die?" he asked.
Anastasia could do nothing but shrug, but she knew that it wasn't going to be enough for him. "I've come to accept it. I did the second that you walked through that door and told me to call my dad. I knew what was up then. I'm smarter than most people give me credit for. I knew that you were just playing with him, trying to make him obsess over what's going to happen before you decide to finish it. God, give me a little credit here, would you?"
"You have an attitude problem."
"So my therapist tells me."
They stared at each other from across the room, before she had to break it, and look towards the floor. Maybe the calm, accepting thing wasn't working too well, she thought to herself with a frown. Maybe she really should be crying and screaming to be let out, to call her father...but then he would have an advantage over her. This wasn't exactly something that they taught her in school, and she wasn't sure what she was supposed to do. All she could do was what she would normally do, which was mouth off and be as sarcastic as possible.
But inside, she was scared out of her mind.
**********
Nick shifted uncomfortably in his seat, looking out the windshield. "So, who tells him?" he asked quietly.
"Who tells him what?" Catherine replied, distracted as she turned the corner towards the flashing police lights. "Nick, the least you can do is answer me when I ask you a question. Who tells him...whoever the 'him' is, what?"
"Who tells him if this is Anastasia?" he finally asked, turning to look at her.
She slowed the vehicle and let out the breath that she had been holding, making the hair around her face float up for a moment. "I wish you had never asked me that question, but we don't know if it's her or not. They just said that it was a female teenager, and she had been shot. There's nothing to say that it was Anastasia."
"And there's nothing to say that it isn't her. If it is, Catherine, I really don't want to be the one that has to tell him. I mean, really. And if it is her, you don't know what he's going to do or how he's going to react."
She turned the key and shut off the engine before unsnapping her seat belt and turning to him with a purely serious look in her eyes. "Look, we don't know whether it's her or not. Have a little faith, Nick. Be positive for once. We're going to go and see if it's her, and if it's not, we examine the scene and wait for the autopsy to be finished. If it is her, we examine the scene and wait for the autopsy to be finished." She had been calm a moment ago, but now her eyes flashed with barely restrained anger. "And I'd like to think that he would react like any other parent, all right? It's his daughter. They may not be close, but it's still his daughter."
Looking down, he frowned and tugged on his baseball cap. "I'm sorry. It's just that...I'm considering all the possibilities, all right? Come on, we might as well head out there." They both opened their doors and jumped out with their gear, heading over to the police officer in charge, waiting for any information.
What they heard wasn't very promising. A young girl had been shot, and the body dumped by the side of the road. That was all they knew, and it wasn't something that either of them wanted to hear. It could very easily be Anastasia, and at the same time, they were both hoping that it wasn't.
Catherine was shaking her head as she walked over to the side of the road where the body was, almost afraid of what she was going to see. As a parent herself, she knew that hearing that something happened to your child could be the most frightening thing in the world, and she couldn't even begin to imagine what it was like to hear that your child had been killed.
Her eyes slammed shut before she could look at the body, and she took a deep breath. "Catherine?" Nick called from behind.
It took a great effort, but she finally opened her eyes and looked towards the girl that was laying in the ditch, before letting out the breath she had been holding. "It's not her," she called behind her, feeling the tension drain from her body. It definitely wasn't Anastasia. The girl that was laying there had black hair, and was a lot smaller than the teenager in question. "It's not her," she repeated to herself.
"Catherine, Sara just called. They found the car. It's about ten miles away from her, empty and broken down. They're all heading down there now. She said something about Warrick having to go alone, and they're tagging along." He smiled sheepishly as he shut his cell phone and clipped it back on his belt. "They want us out there as soon as we finish out here."
She nodded and looked down again. "Come on, then. The sooner we start, the sooner we're finished. And the sooner we get out to the car."
**********
"So...are you going to tell me or not?" Anastasia questioned a final time, shrugging. "It's not life or death for me to know, but if you're going to kill me, the least you could do is answer my questions."
He shook his head, surprised by how she was acting. He had expecting nothing but screaming, crying, and whining. This wasn't any of those. And the questions just kept coming, and never ended. "Why do you need to know? She's dead, isn't she? She's been dead for years...or haven't you gotten over it yet?"
She nodded and made a face. "Oh, I'm over it, don't worry. I barely remember her, so it's not like it's that big of a deal." Was there a neon sign on her forehead that kept blinking "liar", because that's exactly what she saw. Of course her mother's death bothered her, and while she was over for the most part, the dreams were the only thing that remained, and the only thing that could legitimately scare her, night after night. "Consider it like a last meal for a condemned man. At least, they get them in the movies. Although food would be appreciated, too." She paused and stared at him for a moment. "You're not going to give me some answer like, 'I killed her because I wanted to', are you? That would really suck."
His eyes went towards the cell phone that was still sitting on the bed. "Call Gil and I'll answer anything that you want."
"Well, this is a horrible trade-off. I already answered all of your questions," she said, picking up the phone and selecting the only number in the directory, the phone dialing it automatically. "You owe me," she added as she held the phone up to her ear. "The signal cleared up, by the way," she said, the phone ringing. Her father was supposed to answer, not let it ring.
"Anastasia?" she heard suddenly.
"Hey, Dad. It's me again. Before you ask, I'm still fine. Nothing's happened since the last phone call."
She heard a sigh of relief on the other end, and could only make a confused face at the sound of it. No matter what, he always had the same poker face, and it went right down to his voice. This wasn't the father that she knew. "Okay, I want you to listen for a moment. Sara told me that when you're scared, you talk back. Don't do that, Anastasia. Do you understand me? I don't care whether he cares or not. Don't talk back."
"I'll try," she said quietly, bringing her knees up to her chest and wrapped her free arm around them. "I'm not promising, but I'll try to stop."
There was a quiet moment, where she could hear him crunching gravel under his feet wherever he was, but she knew that there was no gravel at their place, or at the lab, so it meant that he had to be somewhere else. Where the somewhere else was, she didn't know, but it gave her a little hope, as false as it might be. "And I'm sorry that I didn't know that. I should have."
Shaking her head, she tried to figure out what direction this conversation was going. "That's...that's all right, Dad. There's a lot about me that...well, it doesn't really matter at this point." Was he giving up hope or something, she couldn't help but wonder. He wouldn't say anything like that normally, so maybe he was thinking that she would never get out of there to see him again. God, she hoped not. "At least I can actually hear you this time," she added.
"Yeah, I just noticed that," he said slowly. "The reception really cleared up this time." His voice held that old calculating tone that she heard so often whenever they were on the phone. It usually meant that he was concerned about a case that he was working on, but this time...the case was about her. "You still don't know where you are?"
"The window is covered with a board. I can't see a thing in here."
"Anastasia, I-"
He was broken off when the phone was pulled out of her hand again, and she could only roll her eyes. She wanted to know what he was going to say, but she didn't think that he would give her the chance again. "How touching, Gil," the man said with a smirk, looking towards Anastasia. She shot back the glare before turning to face him, making sure that he wasn't going to do anything that she wouldn't see. For a moment, it felt like she was the kidnapped in the situation. "Yes, she's just fine. Listen."
She opened her mouth to say something loud enough to be heard over the phone, when a hand connected to the side of her face, making her cry out when his hand hit straight on the developing bruise. The bed creaked a little as she fell onto it, holding the side of her face, as tears started to develop in her eyes.
The phone was shut off and slipped back into his pocket as he looked at her. "So, you want answers?" he asked. "Fine. That's just fine with me."