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I kept my hands still.

"If this proceeds," he continued, "you may be interviewed again. You may be required to testify. That means saying the relevant facts out loud in a courtroom, under oath, in this county."

This county.

Where I lived.

Not where I was passing through. Not a motel room or a borrowed bunk or a job I could abandon before anyone learned the shape of me.

Silver Bend.

The Bluebird women. The gossip bench. Harmon's loading dock. Doc's clinic. Wyatt's clean exact face. Cash's grin when it returned. Boone.

A public record did not stay politely in the sheriff's bottom drawer. It went into rooms. People read it. Lawyers asked why I stayed, why I returned, why I obeyed, why I handed him my phone, why I drove ninety miles after a man I claimed to fear.

The old panic moved under my skin.

Derek will hear.

Derek will know what you said.

My thumbnail found the scar in my palm.

I stopped it.

Hutchins watched me do that.

"You can take time," he said. "You can speak with counsel or a victim advocate before deciding. Given your condition and the weather, I recommend you rest before making a sworn statement."

"No."

He waited.

I heard how it sounded and tried again, not softer. Clearer.

"I don't need time."

"Miss Marsh—"

"I've had three years and six months."

The words came out level.

"I had three years while it was happening. I had six months after I left. I had ninety miles last night, and I had the last thirty this morning. I don't need more time to decide whether it happened."

Hutchins picked up his pen. "All right," he said. "Start with your full name."

"Josie Marsh."

"Current address?"

The question opened under my feet.

My Bozeman lease was gone. Derek's apartment had never been mine. The Ford had his name on the debt. The cabin at Carrow Creek came with a job I might not have by Monday, and I had never once let myself write it on a form.

I looked through the snow-blind window in the direction of the ranch.

"Carrow Creek Ranch," I said. "Silver Bend, Montana."