Chapter 21

"Okay… so basically, to sum this all up…" Edward said hesitantly with his eyebrows knitted together. "Charlie was on the news… doing an interview about a murder in the hiking trails. He described the victims as a… vampire snack… And then Charlie got all flustered when the reporter mentioned vampires… Ummm… is that right?"

We had called the boys home early (ignoring Emmett's loud and obnoxious discontent) a little while ago to tell them about our discovery of some possible unwelcome visitors. Our explanation was exceedingly long, frazzled, anxious, and not very understandably. Even to vampire ears. All of our voices were overlapping each other, overflowing with worry.

"Yeah, pretty much. But he didn't say the men were killed by a vampire. He just sorta described a vampire killing." Alice clarified… sorta… in a way…

"Um, maybe it would help if we saw this interview ourselves." Carlisle suggested. "I'm sure we could find it on their website." Carlisle stood up and walked to the computer, everyone but Edward and I followed.

His arm was wrapped firmly around my waist. He hadn't let go since his eyes found me when he got home.

"Edward? You okay?" I brought up hand to gently caress his face.

"Yeah." He brought his hand up to hold mine there. "I'm just a little… I don't want you hurt."

"I won't get hurt, you're here."

"But if the Volturi are the least bit concerned about you, as in you becoming to powerful, they will do anything so the outcome is in their favor." A feeling of guilt crashed over me. Anything. That's a nice way of saying 'they would kill us without hesitation'.

"This is all my fault…" I said barley audible for my ears.

Edward cupped my face in both of his large smooth palms. "No Bella, it is most defiantly not your fault." I was about to counter that but was interrupted by Carlisle.

"Found it."

Edward looked into my eyes for a moment. His were so full of emotion, so much swimming through them that I couldn't single out any of them. Then he grabbed my hand and walked over to the computer where everyone else was.

Carlisle clicked the play button. We all silently watched, our eyes glued to the screen, as the main anchor introduced the story. Then the picture switched to Charlie.

"Hey look! It is Charlie!" Emmett exclaimed. Alice slapped his bicep.

"What, did you think we were kidding?" She retorted.

"SHHH!"

They obeyed.

When he began to describe the condition of the bodies I heard everyone -me included- take in a sharp breath and stiffen. Well I didn't actually hear them stiffen… but… you understand!

When Charlie began his stuttered rant of minor insanity I could see everyone trying to hide their smiles and hold in their chuckles. All but Emmett. Of course that is to be expected.

"HA! I think his eye just twitched! He's turning red! Looks like you, Bella. Does anyone else see the beads of sweat on his forehead?"

"EMMETT! Shut up!" Jasper, and Edward hollered.

"I'm just pointing out the facts!" He defended.

When the clip ended we were all silent. Still looking at the screen. Until Emmett decided he needed to be the one to end it.

"Well, all this tells us is how terribly uncomfortable Charlie is when talking about vampires on public television."

I snorted at his comment.

"Yes… but it also tells us that their was more than one vampire that killed the men." Carlisle corrected spinning around in the desk chair to face us.

"How?" Rosalie asked.

"Charlie said there were bite marks on the neck and both wrists." He started. Edward finished catching on to what it was leading to.

"And with only one vampire, that wouldn't be necessary." (you get that right? If there was only one vampire, they wouldn't bite multiple places to drink from. They would only need one.)

"Okay, so more than one vampire. If our options are between the Volturi and Victoria it would be the Volturi, right? So that's it? Case closed?" I asked a little confused. It just seemed too simple.

"Yes, that seems like it would be the answer, but, the Volturi are smarter than to just leave their victims out in the open like that. They would do something to get rid of them," Carlisle explained.

"And that leaves Vicky," Emmet replied. "But she likes her games and knows how to play them. She's got her cunning brains. She would also be smart enough to know that she shouldn't leave her breakfast to rot in public parks."

"Maybe it's just a coincidence. It could be just some random nomad who wandered into Forks," Jasper suggested.

"I don't know… it just seems too… coincidental as you said Jasper," Carlisle replied with a thoughtful expression on his face.

"I think we should talk to Charlie. Get more information on this," Edward concluded. We all agreed.

"We also need to get Charlie to drop this case." Charlie doesn't need to be involved with our vampire fighting excursions.

At the moment, we were all hiding in the woods near the crime scene. There were about ten officers there, all searching the forest floor. A couple had police dogs. In the midst of it all were two blue lumps of fabric, just off of the trail. I'm gonna take a wild guess, say that those are the bodies covered with a blue sheet. There was one of those doctors that they have for murder investigations (I'm not thoroughly educated in the art of murder investigations, so sorry if they don't have those. But this is my story so pretend with me!) pocking and prodding at one of the bodies. Charlie was standing over him, talking to him. I couldn't make out any of it though. We were to far away.

"Edward, what is Charlie saying?" I whispered.

"Something about a DNA test. How it doesn't match." He answered just as quiet.

"Doesn't match? What do you mean 'doesn't match?"

"They started this before we got here. We need talk to Charlie."

"Okay, how are we going to get his attention then? We can't really just waltz over there and say 'hey Charlie! You need to stop what you're doing because a vampire killed these guys.'" A couple different options were running through my mind. We could call them, but last I checked this is one of those creepy dead zones from those Verizon commercials, but we can't say "Oh that's okay! I have Verizon!"

Emmett was eyeing a nice sized rock. Edward slapped him. "HEY! You know eventually my arms or my head aren't going to be able handle this constant slapping and they're just gonna fall off! What was that even for anyway?"

"If you throw that rock at Charlie, his head will fall off." Edward snapped, seeing what he planned to do with the rock in his mind.

"I'm just coming up with suggestions!"

"What we had in mind has nothing to do with causing bodily harm, Emmett."

"Well I didn't see you throwing out any ideas!"

"Because throwing would bring us more bad than good."

"Boys! Stop it!" Esme whisper hissed at them. They both muttered an apology.

I looked down to see if there was any thing that could be of use. Leaves… twigs… weeds… a puddle… dirt… LIGHT BULB! I looked back at the puddle. Bingo.

"Brilliant! It'll work!" Alice squealed while clapping her hands. She had a vision about my plan.

"What is it?" Edward questioned.

I held out my index finger and pointed at the puddle. A small globule of water rose. I carefully -and not very skillfully at all- attempted to move it towards Charlie. It fell.

"Shoot," I muttered.

Once again, this came to me like second nature. I just needed a little practice. I tried again, with more concentration this time. I was able to get it much further. Behind me, the Cullens were all frozen, trying not to falter my focus.

Finally, the little ball of water was right behind Charlie. The back of his neck was exposed so I took that as my target. The water splashed on his neck. He turned around looking for the source.

But as he did, a police dog barked ferociously and charged straight for us.