Chapter 20
Edward and Bella took the drive out to the South Beach area, having left Charlie with Carlisle and Esme. They held hands and came up with a strategy, but aside from that didn't talk much until the GPS indicated that they were with a mile of the house.
"Should we give him our real names?" Bella asked, glancing over as Edward traced her thumb with his own.
He thought for a moment, "I'll call myself Eddie Masen. You say you're my girlfriend Renee..." He paused.
"Black?" For some reason Jacob's last name came to her mind.
Edward shrugged with a smile, "Alright."
Bella sighed and Edward could tell that she was nervous.
"We'll be fine," he assured her, still smiling. He brought her hand to his lips and kissed the back of her hand softly.
The GPS voiced out the last direction. Your destination is approaching on the right.
Edward slowed his car down, bringing it to a halt, then quickly disconnected the battery.
"What are you doing?" Bella asked him.
He smiled again, "We're having car trouble and neither of us can get service on our cell phones."
She cocked her head slightly to the side and squinted her eyes.
"So, we'll need to use their phone," he finished.
"Gotcha," Bella said with a nod. "So, how are we going to get around to talking about Carter? What if they know who we are?"
"I'll be able to read if they do," Edward assured her. He slammed the hood of the car, then leaned in and kissed her on the lips. "Let's go."
She sighed, but followed his confident demeanor, noting he didn't seem at all worried by the situation.
The house was large, and stood by itself with paint peeling from every corner. It looked out of place to be in a west coast beach town, but the outskirts of town weren't at all like the ritzy beachside neighborhoods. The area was open, and country-like, with farm houses and big colonials all with acres and acres of land and plenty of privacy. The Mancini's house was surrounded by woods on all sides with a lengthy driveway that was only half paved.
Dust began to gather on Edward and Bella's shoes as they hit where the asphalt ended and dirt began. Their eyes scanned the yard that looked brittle and straw-like in most areas with occasional healthy patterns of green grass.
A beautiful front porch outstretched in front of the house with four or five stairs leading up to an open front door protected only by a screen storm door.
"Gosh, this house could be beautiful," Bella commented as they walked up, "Too bad they haven't kept up with it."
"You and I have some different tastes in what's beautiful," Edward joked back with a smirk, "Though I'm sure Esme would agree with you. I can see her finding a lot of potential in this house."
She smiled, and took her mind off their mission for a moment to think of what Esme's reaction might be.
Edward glanced to the left of the house toward a barn-like garage that stored a pick up truck that looked like it could have been from the nineteen-eighties. It was rusty and old, but fit in perfectly with its surroundings. Country music played from beyond the open double doors.
The two of them walked up the small set of stairs and Edward looked at Bella before knocking on the screen door. She felt herself tense up, and he squeezed her hand lightly for reassurance.
A long moment went by before a young man slowly approached the front door with apprehension in the way that he walked. "Can I help you?" he asked. His voice was timid and almost shaky.
"Um, yeah..." Edward started, clearing his throat. "My name is Eddie and this is my girlfriend Renee. Our battery died in our car and your house was the first one we came across." He held up his cell phone, "There's no service out this way and we didn't know if we could possibly use your phone to call for a tow truck."
The man crossed through a patch of darkness, created by the interior shadows of the house and then finally emerged to where they were standing.
"No cell service, huh?" he asked.
Edward held his phone out so he could see, "No. I understand if you'd rather not let us in the house. It just looks like it's about to rain and I honestly haven't seen another house on this street for at least a half mile." He glanced over his shoulder.
"Lot of land out this way," he concluded with a nod.
"Yeah, I've noticed."
Bella smiled as the man looked at her for a moment.
"Alright," he said, still seeming to find the two of them a bit skeptical. "What kind of car do you drive?"
"A Volvo," Edward told him, as the screen door opened a few inches. He then allowed Bella in before him and followed the man towards the kitchen.
"We don't drive anything but Chevys in this family." He laughed lightly, beginning to loosen up.
"Maybe I should start," he said with a laugh, "They run good?"
"Best car ever made." The phone on the wall looked as outdated as the rest of the house. "There ya go."
Edward picked it up, "Thanks."
Bella watched, not knowing what number he was actually dialing, if any.
"Thanks for letting us use the phone," Bella said.
He nodded and adjusted a John Deere hat that covered a head of messy dark blond hair, "It's no trouble. My name's Randy," he held a hand out.
"Oh, um, Renee."
"Can I get you something to eat or drink? I don't have much, but..." He opened the fridge, "Some bottles of water... beer... orange juice?"
"Oh, I'm okay," she told him. "But thank you."
The young man sighed and reached in, "I've been working outside all day, I hope you don't mind." He reached for a Budweiser and cracked it open.
"Yard work?" Bella asked, making conversation as Edward continued to speak with whoever it was on the other line.
"We do some farming," Randy said, "Well, I do... I grow some vegetables, sell eggs from the chickens. In the fall coming up we sell pumpkins... I sell pumpkins." He shrugged.
She saw the strain on his face as he adjusted his words from 'we' to 'I'. Bella thought to herself that he couldn't have been older than twenty or twenty-one, but the creased in the corners of his eyes made him seem a little older.
"Do you live here all alone?" she asked him, feeling as though she was invading his privacy by asking.
"Um, well, yeah... I guess so, yeah." He sighed and took a long swig of the beer. "I mean, my brother lived here with me, but he's been gone now for some time."
"Oh..." Bella said, "I'm- "
"Well, I don't know if he's... gone gone. But he ain't been around for weeks." He sighed again and wiped some sweat from beneath the bill of his cap, "He had a drug problem, and it put a lot of stress on our family. He was always getting himself into trouble and it drove my mother batty."
There was a brief silence and Bella could tell that Edward was trying to zone in on their conversation.
"I'm sorry," she said to him, looking down toward the scuffed up hardwood floorboards.
"Ahh, it's alright." Randy waved his hand, but his voice shook slightly and he took another sip. "We inherited this house from my grandpa. My parents live in the next town over, but they didn't visit us much because of Carter. That's my brother. My mom thinks he's dead, but I don't. I just don't feel like he is."
"I'm really sorry Randy," Bella said again, "I'm sorry. I hope... I hope you find him, or I hope he comes home."
"Me too," his eyes were strained and sad, but he started to laugh, "I mean, I could use some help with those damn chickens."
She smiled at him as he looked at her.
"I'm sorry to be bothering you with my personal stuff," he shook his head.
"No, it's fine," Bella said. "It's totally fine." Her eyes drifted toward the front of the refrigerator where a few pictures were stuck with magnets.
"That's the two of us there," Randy said, pointing to the highest one, "Yeah we were in high school then. He used to take me fishing down on the docks in town."
She smiled, seeing the innocence in both boys in their younger teens as they each held an oversized fish. There were a few more, and she could easily distinguish who was who. Their school photos were also posted, and she saw that their graduation years were two years apart.
"So, he was older then? she asked.
He nodded, "Yeah. Couple years older." Randy took another long sip from the beer, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I don't know if he had a girlfriend or not, but a beautiful blond girl came here about a week after we started to think something went wrong."
Edward turned around at Randy's revelation, but began to rattle off his 'fake' name and the license plate number of the Volvo.
"She was too good for him though," Randy went on with a laugh, "If she was a girlfriend, I mean. I doubt she was, but she seemed really sad when I spoke with her." He looked into Bella's eyes, "She... she kind of reminded me of you in a way." He immediately looked embarrassed for speaking the thought aloud, "I mean, I don't know."
"What was her name?" Bella asked him, intensely curious.
"Oh, heck, I don't even remember..." He eyed the ceiling as he brought the bottle back to his lips. "Gosh, I really don't know."
"Okay, thank you," Edward said into the receiver. He hung the phone back up onto the wall, then looked out past Randy's shoulder to where rain began to stream down the windows of the old, farm house.
"All set?" Bella asked him.
"Yeah," he said with a nod.
"Janice maybe?" Randy said. He glanced at Edward, "You guys can stay until they arrive."
"Oh, it's alright," Edward told him, "We don't want to be a bother."
"Please," he said, "I wouldn't want you guys waiting out in the rain." He shook his head.
"We'll be okay," he held up his keys, "We'll wait in the car until they arrive. I don't want to miss the truck."
"Alright," Randy said, now seeming almost disappointed that they would be on their way so quickly.
Bella could see the loneliness that was radiating out of him. "Thanks so much for the phone. I hope your brother comes home."
"Thank you Renee," he said with a nod. "The two of you are sure you don't want to wait here? I can make you some sandwiches or something."
"We're alright," Edward told him, "Thank you very much for the offer and the phone."
Randy nodded at the two of them and followed them toward the front door.
"Bye," Bella said with a smile.
He looked at them with the same sad expression. "Bye."
Edward linked hands with Bella again and the two of them headed back to the road. Randy watched as they hit the pavement in the driveway, then closed the door to the porch, making the two of them look over their shoulders.
"I feel terrible," Bella said, passing by the last set of trees to where their car was visible up the road.
Edward quickly patched the car back up and got it running, then did a U-turn and headed back toward Forks.
"Who did you call?" she asked him.
"I dialed a local tow company, but I hung it up before anyone answered and carried on a fake conversation. It was just in case he dialed the star-six-seven after we left. I found the hours of the place and they close at six on Saturdays." He looked down at the car's clock at the same time as Bella. "It's six-fifteen now so if he calls back, he'll just get the machine that they close at six."
"You really thought this out," Bella said, smiling.
"I'm very smart, Bella," he joked, "The two truck thing was actually Carlisle's idea."
She laughed briefly, but then stopped. "I feel bad for him; Randy."
Edward nodded in agreement, "It's too bad."
"Who do you think the blond girl was? Did you hear him say that?"
He nodded again, "I was about to talk to you about that. He said she looked like you, and that her name was Janice... you don't think it could have been Jane do you? What if she gave a fake name too?"
"Why would Jane visit him?"
"I saw in his thoughts that she had said that he was in a more peaceful place now. They had a long conversation, and she stopped by to give her condolences."
"Could Jane have changed Carter into a vampire?" Bella wondered aloud.
"We'll have to talk to Carlisle," Edward told her, "And see what he thinks. I have a feeling that this blond girl, whoever she was, has something to do with Carter Mancini and the possibility that he might now be immortal."
"Edward... Eddie... Janice... Jane." Bella said, "On the surface that makes sense. She could have lied just as easily as we did."
He nodded in agreement and took her hand in his again. "I suppose we have even more to talk about now when we get home."