(A television interview in progress with Maria Sanchez)

(Reference: Ant Dens: A suspense novel)

INTERVIEWER:Thank you for agreeing to this interview, Mrs. Sanchez. I was afraid you might still be too hysterical to go on camera.

MARIA: Ah, I don’ know why I would not be hysterical. My little girl, my bambina, is missing. What is wrong with you, senior, that you think a mother would not be a little crazy? (Maria grabs a Kleenex from her purse and blows her nose.)

INTERVIEWER: But don’t you think your behavior is a little over the top? Here’s what Jamie Aldrich said when she first saw you, waiting, outside her house. “The black-haired woman hunched her shoulders and swayed. Deep clefts bracketed her mouth and her eyes drooped. This woman bore little resemblance to the fiery Latina who had once been Ben’s wife.” Doesn’t her description upset you? It seems your reaction is a little over the top.

(Maria shrugs)

MARIA: I no care what she say. I am a mother who feels deeply. And Rebecca is my only child.

INTERVIEWER: Let me be sure I have this straight. You were married to Ben Aldrich at one time, and Rebecca, the girl who is missing, is the child of that marriage? But Ben is dead, right?

MARIA: Si. Ben is dead. Rebecca is our daughter. We divorced many years ago, when Becca was very young. He married Jamie later.

INTERVIEWER: So now you are staying with Jamie while the police search for Rebecca. Isn’t that a little awkward?

(Maria straightens her shoulders and tosses her head.)

MARIA: We are both mothers. We both love Rebecca. We will work together to find her. We will do what any mother would do.

INTERVIEW: I understand that the police believe it likely that Rebecca is a run away, rather than the victim of a kidnapping. Wouldn’t you rather believe she ran away, too?

(Maria shakes her head.)

MARIA: No, no, no. She not run away. Someone took her. I know it. Why they no listen to me?

(Maria disintegrates into sobs.)

INTERVIEWER: Mrs. Sanchez, could I ask you one more question? You seem to have some inside track. Do you believe Rebecca was taken by someone as part of a personal vendetta against you or your deceased husband? Mrs. Sanchez?

(Maria keens and turns her back to the cameraman.)

INTERVIEWER: (speaking into the camera) This has been Kyle Bolasky, at Highlands University campus, Las Vegas, New Mexico. That’s all for now.

(The interviewer motions to the camera man to cut the feed.)