Chapter Three: Hale House
She called into the office the next morning to let them know that she wouldn't be coming in, but would instead be investigating her article. Sam was happy to hear it and told her that she could take all the time she needed out of the office as long as her article was on his desk or in his inbox by Monday morning. He was intrigued by what she had found out the night before about wolves and impressed that she had set up a meeting on Wednesday afternoon with the lab that had identified the wolf hairs on Laura Hale's body. But he was most interested in her plan for the morning. She was going to head out onto the preserve to see where they had found the lower half of Laura's body and then out to the Hale House to investigate where Stiles and Scott had dug up the top half.
Neither of them were sure what she would find at either location, but it was a good place to start.
"And have you tried to get in touch with Derek Hale?" Sam asked over the line.
Darcy shook her head, though Sam couldn't see it. "No," she admitted, knowing that he wouldn't like that answer. She sighed, cutting him off before he could open his mouth, "That's going to take a bit longer, Sam," she explained. "I don't know anyone who knows him. Or even knows where he's staying. It's not like he's living in the burned wreck of his childhood home, you know?"
"You should still try," Sam ordered her. "San Fran is already picking up the story. They've got more money and resources than we do. But what they don't have is a personal connection to the victims. We have that. We should use it."
Darcy was about to suggest that Sam take his personal connection and shove it up his ass when he continued.
"Wear something cute when you go to the Hale House. A skirt or something."
Darcy's brows furrowed, "Why?" she asked, not following her boss' train of thought.
"Whether he killed her or not, whether he buried her or not - that house is the last place his sister's body was. He might go back."
"And the skirt?" Darcy asked. It was easier to follow his thought process now, but she hoped that she was following the wrong path. She had too much faith in her boss though.
"You've got nice legs, Stilinski," Sam told her unapologetically. "They might convince him to talk to you."
"And if I recorded this conversation I might have enough for a sexual harassment case, Braun," Darcy warned him, a slight edge to her voice.
Sam was completely unbothered. He laughed, "Take the compliment, Darcy, and get to work." And with that he was gone.
Darcy would not take the compliment. And furthermore she would not take his advice. She made a point not to wear something cute, a skirt or something, and instead dressed in a pair of black leggings, a grey off-the-shoulder Georgetown sweatshirt with Jack the Bulldog emblazoned across the chest, a pair of mismatched socks, and her running shoes.
The sweatshirt was too big and hung off her slim frame, swallowing her up and falling to her mid thighs. It had been her boyfriend's from her second year at school. She had stolen it from him when they were dating and never returned it to him when they broke up. Instead she had cut the collar so that it hung off her shoulders and kept it.
Good sweatshirts were hard to find.
She pulled her dark hair up into a sloppy ponytail at the top of her head. Even in the high pony tail the ends of her hair tickled at the bare skin on her neck and shoulders. It was getting too long. She was going to need a hair cut sooner rather than later. But that was a problem for another day.
She could have taken her car, but it was a nice enough morning - cool, as most late winter mornings in northern California were, but the sun was shining and the sky was a bright, clear blue. And it had been a while since she had gone for a run outside. She had been running on a treadmill at the gym since November and she missed running in the fresh air and sunshine.
She stuffed her phone in her pockets and for a second reached for her headphones. She didn't like running with headphones, music was for people who couldn't be alone with their own thoughts. It was also for people who couldn't pace themselves when they ran.
Darcy could do both.
She left her headphones in her room, but paused again in the kitchen. Her father was already at work and Stiles was at school. She would most likely be home before either of them got back, but she still left a note on the kitchen table telling them that she had gone for a run.
She did not tell them where she had gone.
As far as her father was concerned Derek Hale was still a suspect in his sister's murder, though he couldn't quite figure out how. And Stiles was even weirder about Hale, she had mentioned him the night before when they were standing side-by-side at the bathroom sink, brushing their teeth. She had asked him if he knew Derek, he had jumped, his toothbrush slipping out of his mouth and spraying toothpaste and spit on the mirror.
"No, no, I don't know him. Why would you? Why do you? He's so old! Why?" he had sputtered out, using his shirt sleeve to wipe at the spit on the mirror and just smearing it even worse.
Darcy had shrugged and explained to him that her boss wanted her to interview him for her article.
The blood drained from her brother's face and he had shook his head rapidly at her, dropping his toothbrush in the sink as he reached out to close his hand around her wrist. "You can't go see him, Darcy," he told her, his hand tightening around her wrist with each word. "You should stay away from him."
"But -"
Stiles shook his head, "Please, Darcy," he had begged her. "Please promise me you'll stay away from him. You have to."
She had lied to him when she promised him that she would stay away from him.
And because of that she couldn't very well write a note telling either of them that she had gone to the Hale House. And so, she had no choice but to return home safely, because if something did happen to her, they would think she had started her run at the middle school track or something.
She wasn't trying to sprint the five miles to the Hale House on the edge of the preserve so as she left the house she set her pace, counting her steps and her breath, an easy nine minute mile would get her to the ruins in less than an hour. She still wasn't sure what she would be looking for when she got there, but she figured she would know it when she saw it.
…..
Fifty-six minutes.
That was how long it took her to get to the house. It would have taken her less time, the forty-five minutes she had planned for it to take if she hadn't missed the driveway the first time she ran past the house. The Hales had owned cars and they had a driveway, but the town had taken possession of the house after the fire and in those eight years landscaping had not been a priority. The driveway was so overgrown that she had run past it, thinking it was an animal path. It wasn't until she had stopped, confused that she hadn't found the house yet and turned to see the ruins on a hill, half a mile behind her, that she realized she had run too far and had to backtrack.
As she got closer to the house, carefully picking her way up the overgrown driveway, it became clear why the town had taken possession of the house. When Derek and Laura had left town there were no other Hales left to deal with the destruction left behind from the fire. The house looked unstable, unsafe.
She couldn't understand why they had left it standing. Wouldn't it have been safer to knock the whole thing down. She bit her lip with a shrug, she'd ask her dad about that later that evening. She pulled her phone out of her pocket, taking a moment to catch her breath as she took a picture of the house. There was something lonely about it, her gaze moved over it, landing on the charred and broken pieces of wood first. The wind below, pulling at her hair and she imagined she could hear the screams of the Hales who had been trapped inside the house when it burned.
Something moved in the house and her gaze shifted toward one of the windows on the upper floor. It was empty, but her brows furrowed, there was still a curtain hanging in the window - moth-eaten and charred, but still there.
It twitched.
She stared at it for another moment, willing it to move again. When it didn't she shrugged her shoulders and started to approach the house. She did not feel the need to go inside, though she could imagine that many young kids did. She could remember in high school, all the jocks who thought they were so cool would come here to prove how tough they were. Whoever could stay in the house alone the longest was the toughest.
As if it were some haunted house and not the site of a terrible tragedy.
Though, she thought with a sigh, if haunted houses were real, they would most likely all be the scene of one tragedy or another.
But she wasn't here for the house, she was here for the hole that was dug just to the left of the front porch. There was bright yellow police tape tied up around it, fluttering slightly in the wind. It was set up, tied to stakes in the ground, about two feet back from the hole, leaving a safe perimeter around the hole for anyone here to investigate.
She paused for a moment, leaning over the tape to look down into the hole. It was about six feet deep if she had to guess, definitely a man-made grave, a perfect square with tight corners. It had obviously been dug for the half the body they had found in it, not long enough to hold an entire person unless they were a small child. Her chest tightened at the thought of Derek digging the perfectly square hole by himself, his sister's torso laying on the ground beside him as he dug.
Whether or not he had been the one to kill her, that still would have been tough.
Her brows furrowed as she glanced past the grave. There was something else dug into the ground. This wasn't deep, or wide. Only a few inches deep, a shallow trench that had been dug into the ground in a particular shape.
A large spiral that got smaller and smaller the closer it got to the grave.
She walked to the far end of the spiral and took another picture. And then, as if it would help her understand why he had dug it into the ground in the first place, she walked along it, circling the grave closer and closer with each step.
None of it made sense. Was it some religious thing? Were the Hales religious? Was it some family tradition? Something no one else would understand? Was it some culty thing like Sam had suggested the day before?
Following the spiral hadn't answered any of her questions. It hadn't made her understand anything. All it had done was bring her closer to the giant hole in the ground.
All it had done was -
"You shouldn't be here."
His voice came hard and cold from behind her and caught her by complete surprise. She screamed, turning in a circle as she tried to catch sight of him. She tripped, stepping backwards at an angle, her right heel caught on her left ankle and lost her balance, falling backward. The flimsy police tape did nothing to hold her up, it snapped as she fell into it and she continued to fall backwards.
Her gaze landed on him as she fell and time seemed to slow. She had time to study his face, the sun reflecting off his green eyes, causing them to shine a strange, bright, blue? She shook her head, that wasn't possible. His skin was still as pale as it had been in the police station on Saturday night, but in the bright sunlight she could see how perfect it was. Smooth and acne free, practically poreless. People would kill for that skin, hell there were times in Darcy's life when she would have killed for it.
Senior prom, for instance.
She was still falling backwards.
And now all she could think about was what would happen when she finally landed. At this point the best case scenario would be for her to fall completely into the hole. Six feet was a long way to fall, but the hole was narrow, she might have been able to use her hands to catch on the sides, to slow the fall, to soften the blow when she landed. Worse case scenario would be for her to only halfway fall in - the upper half of her body while the lower half stayed on the ground. The impact, the split would do some pretty gnarly damage to her spine if she had to guess.
She was too big for the hole. Only a child would manage to fall completely into the hole.
She ground her teeth together, preparing for the jolt when she landed on her spine.
It never came.
Just as she was resolving herself to possibly being paralysed Derek reached out, one large hand wrapped gently around her right wrist, pulling her forward while his other arm swept around her, supporting her back as he pushed it forward.
Pressing her into his chest.
For a long moment they stood like that. Darcy's face pressed against his white t-shirt, her hands clutching at his leather jacket, her heart beating rapidly, the sound echoing in her ears. It was too fast.
He was still holding onto her, his left hand still wrapped around her wrist, his right arm still holding her, pressing her further into his chest. She wasn't even aware of it, the way he was almost curled around her until she took a deep breath in and suddenly her senses were filled with that smell.
Again.
It was the same smell from the police station. Both strange and familiar at the same time. Dangerous and safe. Too much, and at the same time, nowhere near enough.
He seemed to realize how close they were at the same time she did. His jaw clenched and he took a step back, away from the hole, dragging Darcy with him. Then, with a shallow, open mouthed breath, he lowered his hands and stepped away from her. She watched as his gaze shifted, landing on her left hand for an instant before it returned to her face.
Darcy stumbled slightly, her body almost leaning forward in an attempt to stay connected to him. His brows furrowed, jaw clenching slightly as he watched her, arms crossed over his chest. Darcy watched him too, her hands fluttering slightly at her sides. "What are you doing here?" she asked, her voice squeaking more than she'd like around the words.
He turned slightly, glancing toward the house, "This is my house."
Darcy pursed her lips, shrugging slightly, "Technically it belongs to Beacon Hills now."
Derek mimicked her face as he turned back to her, "Technically you're still trespassing then."
"Well, technically, so are you."
She thought she saw his lips twitch for a second, but if he had been about to smile it was gone as quickly as it appeared. "You still shouldn't be here," he told her, his gaze moving away from her toward the treeline. "The preserve's not safe."
Unbidden, Darcy's gaze shifted as she turned slightly to look at the hole behind her. No, she realized, the preserve probably wasn't safe and he, of all people, would know. She turned back toward him and nodded, squaring her shoulders as she prepared for what was sure to be a difficult conversation. "That's actually why I'm here," she told him. "Because of what happened to your sister."
His jaw clenched, but he didn't say anything.
Darcy continued to push on, "I work for the Beacon Hills Register," she told him. "And I want to write a story about what happened." She turned slightly, gesturing toward the hole in the ground, "I know you were a suspect in her death and they released you after they found the wolf hairs on her. But -" she cut herself off, shaking her head, "I gotta tell you, I've been doing some research, and what happened to your sister is not what wolves do."
His cheeks hollowed out as he took a breath, but he still did not say anything.
Darcy watched him, cocking her head to the side, "But you knew that."
A slight, barely there nod.
Darcy's brows furrowed, "Do you know what happened to her?" she asked him. She gestured toward the hole again, but did not turn away from him. Her gaze was locked on his face as her hand waved wildly behind her back. "You found her -" she cut herself off before she said upper half - "you found her and buried her. All without calling the cops. Because you knew what they were going to find? Because you were afraid of what they were going to find?"
Something occurred to her and her mouth dropped open. He hadn't buried her because he was afraid the cops would think he had killed her, or because he knew what they would find if they looked into her death. It was something else, something dark and cold that settled heavy in the pit of her stomach. It tasted like oil. "You buried her because you didn't want them looking into her death. Because you know what happened to her. You know who, or what, did it. And -" she took a shaky breath, "and you don't want them to get in your way when you take care of it yourself."
Another slight, barely there nod.
Darcy shook her head and took a step closer to him, almost reaching out for him before she forced her hands back down to her sides, her hands clenched into fists, "You should let them look into it," she told him. "They're trained for this."
He shook his head, "They have no idea what they're getting into," he told her, his voice a barely controlled growl. "They're not trained to deal with this."
"And you are?" Darcy asked, unbelieving.
He nodded, the muscles in his arms tensing as he tightened his hold on his elbows.
Darcy watched him carefully, it was obvious that there was nothing she could say that would convince him that he should let the cops do their job and that he should take a step back. She sighed, finally dropping her gaze and turning back toward the hole in the ground behind her. "Burying her on your property did make you look guilty," she told him with a shrug.
The right corner of his lips tugged up, a smirk, "Technically it's the town's property," he told her, echoing what she had told him earlier.
She smiled, turning back to him, "Doesn't stop you from looking guilty."
"It would have been fine if it weren't for -" he cut himself off, his jaw clenching.
"If it weren't for Scott McCall and Stiles … Stilinski?" she asked, pausing a bit on her brother's name. She had been calling him Stiles since he had picked the nickname in third grade, but she had never said it together with their last name. Their mother had been cruel to him.
Derek's eyebrows lifted, "You know them?" he asked.
She shrugged, for some reason she didn't want him to know that she was related to Stiles, or her father for that matter. "I'm a reporter," she told him, gesturing between them to silently remind him of the reason she was here. "It's my job to know things like that."
His jaw clenched as he shook his head. He took a step closer to her. Darcy countered it with a step back, trying to keep the distance between them. She didn't think he would hurt her, but it had suddenly occurred to her that she was out in the middle of nowhere, with a suspected murderer, and no one knew she was here.
He took a shallow breath through his mouth, annoyed, and reached out, his hand wrapping around her wrist. Before she could ask him what he was doing he shifted, tugging at her wrist and turning them so that his back was facing the hole and she was standing where he had been. The moment they stopped moving he dropped her wrist as if it had burned him.
Darcy watched him, an eyebrow arched in a silent question.
He sighed, "I'd rather you not trip and almost fall in the hole again," he told her.
"Oh," was the only thing she could think to say.
He watched her for a moment, "The kids are minors," he told her. "Their names won't be released to anybody. How did you know they were the ones to find her?"
"I was told off the record," Darcy told him, lying through her teeth.
"You're lying."
"No I'm not!" she told him, her voice squeaking slightly.
He didn't say anything, but he watched her, arms crossed over his chest again, a single eyebrow of his own raised in a silent challenge.
Darcy sighed, "I was told off the record," she told him with a shrug. "Stiles is my younger brother. He told me on Saturday night after our father busted me out of jail."
She thought she saw that twitch again, that almost smile. But it was gone instantly.
"You should tell them to stay out of this," he told her, his voice a hard warning. "It's not safe for either of them."
Darcy scoffed. "I mean, I can see why Stiles should stay out of it. He's sixteen years old. A child. Of course he shouldn't be running through the woods with his asthmatic best friend trying to solve a murder. But I think my dad can take care of himself. I mean - he's got a gun, back up, years of training -"
"And none of that is good up against what's out here," Derek told her.
He sounded so sure of himself, so certain. It didn't leave room for any argument. Darcy's mouth snapped shut.
He took a step closer to her and movement at his side drew Darcy's gaze in time to see his fists clench, as if he was forcing himself not to reach out for her. "You need to stay away from all of this too," he told her, his voice almost fervent. "It's not safe for you. Drop the story."
Darcy shook her head, "I get why you might not want me investigating this," she told him. Though she didn't understand, if she had to guess she would say that it was because he had some revenge fantasy to get back at whoever killed his sister and he didn't want her in the way, but even that didn't make complete sense to her. "But even if I were able to drop the story, my boss would just assign it to someone else. I -"
"Then let him," Derek told her, his voice hard. "I don't care who writes the damn story. But it cannot be you."
"Why?" she asked, her gaze narrowing into a glare.
He opened his mouth and Darcy held her breath, waiting to hear his reasoning. After a moment he shut his mouth, his jaw clenched, and shook his head. "You need to leave," he told her, nodding toward the driveway she had come up. "Now."
She wanted to argue, but thought better of it. Perhaps she had already pushed her luck too far. She nodded and turned, quickly walking down the overgrown driveway. She turned once, catching sight of him at the top of the hill, his hands shoved in his jacket pockets as he watched her.
Author's Note:
Happy Monday! I hope that everybody is doing well.
I thought I would try to help fight off the Monday blues with an update. (And would you look at that? There's a ridiculous amount of Derek in this update!)
I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
As a hint ... there will be even more of him in the next chapter (mostly because it is in his point of view!) but also the one after it.
And the one after that ...
And the one after that ...
And ... you get the idea!
If you are looking forward to those chapters I recommend that you review this one! I will keep posting regardless, because I will keep writing regardless.
But reviews are a good way to bribe me into updating faster.
Just saying ...
BIG thank you to the three of you that reviewed the last chapter. You are ROCKSTARS.
Anyway, that's all for now.
Until next time,
Chloe Jane