Chapter 20: Headstrong
EPOV
"Bella!!!!!" I yell out, and run out of my room, crashing into my father as he makes his way up the stairs. He grabs on to my shoulders and stills me, looking into my eyes.
"Edward?? What's going on, son?" he asks.
"I just called Bella…. She's with James and when I told her what happened, she said she was starting to feel funny and I told her I'd go pick her up. Before she could tell me where James lived, I heard her scream and the phone went dead. I have to find her dad, please.. We have to find Bella" I say, and pass him on the stairs, running to the front door. My mother jumps up from the sofa as she hears me barreling down the stairs and to the door, and before I can open the door, and jump into my car, my father puts his hands up against the door, pushing it closed.
"Edward…. Call your friends, ask them if they know where James lives. I'm going to get Charlie on the phone." he says, and I grab my phone from my pocket and call Rose.
After explaining to her what happened, she tells me that she doesn't know where James lives, Bella never mentioned it, and she doubts Jasper knows either. I walk back into the living room where my father is just ending his conversation with chief Swan. My mother is next to him, tears streaming down her face and she rubs his knee.
"We'll be right there" he says, and hangs up his phone. "Chief Swan says he's going to get James' address and then call us back to go over there."
"Did you tell him? That it was Bella, I mean?" I ask him and he slowly nods his head.
"Yes. I had to, but he's working hard to find where James is so we can get Bella back. We'll get her back, son" he says standing up and walking over to me. He brings his hand out and rests it on my shoulder.
The next couple of minutes as we wait for Charlie to call back are like torture. I'm anxious to just go out there and search every inch of this damn town to get Bella back. I have no idea what he wants with her, but I keep on thinking the worst.
The sound of my father's phone ringing causes me to jump and I run over to where he is. He answers and then puts his phone on speaker, knowing that I want to hear the information as well.
"Yes, Charlie."
"I found the address on his school records, but they're just an old storage unit. Does anybody know where he lives?" I hear Charlie say, and his voice is panicked, but I can tell he's trying to keep calm.
"No, Charlie. Edward called everyone, but no one knows where this kid lives." Charlie mutters something under his breath and then tells us to meet him at the police station in 5 minutes. Before he even hangs up with my father, I'm in my car, starting it, and down the road toward the station. I drive fast, anxious to get there and see what Charlie is going to do next. I park outside of the police station, and go in, waiting for Charlie behind his desk.
My father walks in not too long after me, and sits down next to me.
"Charlie told me he has every single police officer out patrolling. Everyone is looking for Bella, son." he says, but there's a sick feeling in my stomach and I have a feeling that there is something bigger happening here.
Charlie comes in finally and sits behind his desk. He greets my dad and I and then starts to type in his computer.
"I've searched for this James Costa, but nothing comes up." he says, and my heart drops. Why would he need to have a fake name? what could he possibly be doing that he has to have a totally different identity?
"What is going to happen, then?" I ask him. He looks up at me and sighs.
"I'm waiting on a picture to be faxed from the school to here of James, and then I'll need to send it over to Seattle so they can search for his real name. I have my men out there searching for her, and when they find her, I'm going to make sure James never sees the light of day again for taking my daughter." he says, pounding his fists on the top of his desk.
The sound of a fax coming in makes all of our heads snap in the direction of the machine. Charlie gets up and grabs the picture once it's finished printing, and holds it up for us to see.
"Yea. that's him" I say, and Charlie scans it and sends it to Seattle, then picks up his phone and dials.
"This is Charlie Swan, Police Chiefs for the city of Forks. Yes, I sent the picture, please contact me as soon as you know anything… thank you" he says and hangs up.
As much as I feel like my world is breaking down, every time I look over at Charlie, I can't even imagine what he's going through. His face is in his hands and he is silent, the only sounds coming from him is the sound of his breathing. We wait in agony, every couple of seconds I'm looking up at the clock, willing it to go faster so we can get some news, whether it be from the officers out looking for Bella, or the officers in seattle checking up on James. I just need her to be found.
The phone rings 5 minutes later, and we all jump up and watch as Charlie answers the phone.
"Yes…." he says into the phone and then grabs a pen and paper quickly scribbling information down as he gets it. "Why…. What do you mean?? You don't think….." he says, and then his eyes water. I watch, worried over what has been said that is making Chief Swan break down like this. He thanks he person on the other end of the phone, and hangs up, covering his face with his hands.
"What happened, Charlie?" I ask, leaning closer to the desk. He lifts his head and meets my eyes, shaking his head. He holds up a finger and gets on his walkie talkie.
"I want everyone on the look out for my daughter. She with a man by the name of James Hunter and could also be with another man by the name of Alec Richardson. Please, looks everywhere, and set up road blocks on the entrance to the highway. We need to find them." he says, and then puts the walkie talkie down.
"Charlie, please. What's going on?" I ask him, he looks up at me, and shakes his head.
"The man who has been going by the name of James Costa, is actually James Hunter. Him and his partner, Alec Richardson are wanted out of the state of Massachusetts on the suspicion of Sex trafficking" Charlie chokes out the last part and shakes his head.
My head is spinning, and I feel like I'm going to throw up. I bring my hands up and rest them on the corner of the desk, steadying myself as I breathe in and out.
"They don't think….. I mean, they don't think that's why they took Bella, right?" I ask. I feel my father's hands on my back, but I don't turn to look at him.
"I don't know. All I know is I'm not resting until my daughter is back home" he says, and stands from his seat. He tells us the detective from Seattle will be here in the morning and tell us to stop by to speak with him. In the mean time, he's going to be out there looking for her.
My father and I walk out of the police station, and I feel like I'm in the middle of a fog. I see nothing, I hear nothing. The only thing I can think of is getting Bella back, no matter what the consequences.
The next morning, I'm still up when my alarm goes off. I haven't slept at all, standing by my phone waiting for news of Bella being found or at least that they know where she is. I walk into the bathroom throw some cold water on my face, trying to wake myself up. I walk into my closet and change my shirt and pants, and then throw on some sneakers and make my way down the stairs. When I get to the kitchen, my whole family is there, and all of them look like they didn't catch a wink of sleep last night either. I take my seat next to Alice, who wraps her arms around me and pulls me to her, resting her head on my chest.
I look up at my mother, whose eyes are bloodshot, and I give her a weak smile. We eat in silence and then when it's 15 till 8, my father and I hop into his car and go to the police station. The ride is silent, because what is there to say?
We pull in, and Charlie's tired face greets us and he tells us to go and have a seat at his desk. He sits across from us, sipping on a cup of coffee and offers us some. We both decline, and he begins to tell us the latest on what's going on.
"The officers are still out searching, there is still roadblocks set up but there's still no sign of her or those two sorry excuses for human beings." the sound of the front door opening brings us all out of our thoughts and we watch as a man we've never seen before, wearing slacks, a blue button up and a black trench coat, comes in. He introduces himself as Detective Felix Witt.
"I'm sorry that I had to meet you guys in this kind of situation, but I'm going to give you all of the information we know about James and Alec, and that will hopefully lead us to Bella." he says, and then pulls out a large file from his suitcase.
"Alec Richardson and James Hunter first came to our attention after an 18 year old girl from Massachusetts said that the two had kidnapped her and drugged her. They were found, and arrested and held on $100,000 bail, each." he says, handing us their mug shots, dated 2005. In the picture, James looks nothing like what he does now. His hair is pitch black, and his whole face is covered in pimples.
"We suspect that they were already in the game by then, because they both got bailed out fairly quickly. They jumped bail, and have been running ever since."
"Have there been others? " my father asks. Felix looks at all of us and takes a deep breath, and reaches back in to the suitcase.
"Over the past 4 years, there have been multiple reports of missing girls that we felt Alec and James' trafficking ring had something to do with" he puts a stack of papers on the desk, and spreads them out. On the papers, are pictures of girls from all over the country, all with 'Missing' printed at the top.
"All of these girls were taken, and we have reason to believe that Alec Richardson was behind it. We don't know who actually kidnapped the girls, we think it might have been James Hunter, but we only have a witness from one of these cases, naming him as the suspect."
I look up at Detective Witt as he digs through the pictures, and then pulls one of a girl with fiery red hair out. According to the paper, her name is Victoria St. Marks, and it says she went missing from Pensacola Florida. 5 weeks ago.
"A friend of Victoria said she started dating a guy named Vince James. Victoria left school one day, promising to call her friend later and slid into the car with the boyfriend. She never came home."
The similarities of this story and Bella's are too much for me to handle. I lean down, placing my head between my legs and take deep breaths, trying to get the room to stop spinning.
"Did they find her?" I pant out. When I don't hear an answer, I lift my head slowly, bring it up to the face of Detective Witt, who is looking at me with a blank look on his face.
"Did they find her?? Have any of these girls been found??" I say a little louder.
"Victoria was found a couple of days ago, in a landfill in California." he says. He doesn't need to say anymore. James took her 5 weeks ago, and now she's dead; thrown in a landfill like a piece of trash. The thought of Bella being in the hands of that monster is enough to make me go insane. I stand up from the chair, and my hand shoot up to my hair as I pace the room. I walk over to the wall, and bring my fist up and crashing it into the hard surface. My fist busts through the wall, paint chips and chunks of drywall flying everywhere. I bring my hand back, ignoring the pain that is shooting up from my fingers and fall to the floor. Just in time to hear what Detective Witt says next.
"I will do everything in my power to help you find her, but I need you to know this. We are dealing with hardcore criminals here, they cover their tracks and try their best to make it impossible for them to be found. They use websites to sell these girls, and then days later, the websites are moved, with no trace of where the next one is. Bella was taken yesterday, and the way these guys work, we have a 5 day window from when she was taken"
"For what?" Charlie asks. I look up and notice that his cheeks are wet from his tears and his voice is rough.
"To find her. After that…." he says, looking around before shutting his eyes and then shakes his head.
I stand up from where I'm sitting, and move to the door. I push past it, and as I'm walking out I hear the sound of my father calling my name. I can't look back, I can't just sit around and let other people look for her. The love of my life has been taken, and although I know the police are doing everything they can to get her back, it's not enough.
I have to find her.
So... Yea. Thanks for reading and I love and appreciate all of the reviews and story alerts and all those things!
I'm going to try my best to get the next chapter out on Saturday.... But if it's not, it WILL be up on Sunday, at the latest.
Again, Thanks for reading and don't forget to review! -Pardonthepun