FINDING HOME
SUMMARY – Renee Dwyer was Tony Stark's half-sister. When Renee is murdered in her home in Jacksonville, Tony knows something isn't right. He is distraught and needs answers. When his digging unearths several more related deaths and a niece he never knew existed, how will he react? Can Bella overcome the horrors of her past and make a new life with the only family she has left?
MARVEL'S AVENGERS X TWILIGHT CROSSOVER…
COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER – All Avenger's characters belong to Marvel Comics, and all Twilight Saga characters belong to Stephanie Meyer. I own nothing, and no copyright infringement is intended.
CHAPTER 4
Natasha Romanov prided herself on being ready for anything. The legendary Black Widow, spy, assassin, SHIELD agent, she liked to think that she was never taken by surprise. She had an uncanny ability to read people. She could tell after only a few minutes with a person what made them tick, how to get into their heads, and most importantly how to predict what they were going to do next.
So, you'd think that Agent Romanov would have no problem at all tracking down one civilian girl with no resources. She'd thought finding the trail of Isabella Swan would be a walk in the park compared to her usual activities with SHIELD. Instead, she was growing more and more frustrated by the minute as she sifted through the thousands upon thousands of different surveillance feeds, searching for any trace of their girl. With no success, she might add.
Isabella was proving to be a bit of a ghost.
"Anything on your end?" she asked Banner, who was staring just as intently at his own set of screens as he searched tirelessly through the millions of social media and online forum postings that might hold a clue as to where Isabella had gone.
"Nothing," he sighed, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples lightly as he sat back in his chair, "What are we missing here?"
"What do you mean?" she asked, looking up from her screens.
"Isabella was nineteen when the killings occurred right?" he begins, "And yet she somehow disappeared on a moment's notice when things went south. What kind of teenage girl in the US has an escape plan in place for that sort of situation?"
"So you think she knew someone was coming for her even before the first killing?" Natasha thought he might be right, but didn't like the implications of what he was saying any more for it.
"And that she planned her escape ahead of time, just in case," Banner confirmed, "Think about it. I know the first place you must have checked was train stations, airports, bus stations, and the like. Nothing. So she had her own vehicle, right? Except her truck and her father's cruiser were both present at the scene when police arrived and there were no cars reported stolen in the town around the time of her disappearance, so whose car was she driving?"
"Her friends on the reservation that the killer believed were helping her?" Natasha suggested.
"But we both know you checked all the satellite telemetry we have, and there were no vehicles missing from the area that should have been there," Banner correctly surmised, "So a car entered and left the area undetected during one of the time gaps in the satellite's coverage, but whose, and how did she arrange for transportation so quickly and without leaving any kind of obvious paper trail?"
"Yes, I know all of this already," Natasha grumbled, feeling more frustrated than ever, "What is your point?"
"We are looking for her as if she were the typical teenage girl who just lost her family and is running away," Banner stated firmly, "When we should be looking for an intelligent young woman capable of escaping from a serial killer and remaining hidden for years off the grid. Think like a spy Nat. What would you do if someone was after you and you needed to make yourself disappear?"
She closed her eyes for a moment and tried to imagine herself in Isabella's shoes. As far as they were aware, she had no access to weapons nor any kind of substantial funding, and she wasn't trained in any real form of self-defense, so what would be her first step in keeping a killer off her tail?
"Transport. Provisions. Weapons. Cash. And I'd need to change my appearance," she finally answered.
"So let's forget the vehicle for right now," he suggested, mentally setting 'transport' aside, "Provisions. Check her spending activity leading up to the attacks. Was she stockpiling extra food and water? First aid supplies? Or did she need to stop somewhere on her way out of town?"
Natasha was thoroughly impressed with Bruce's insight in this. But then again, he had spent years in hiding himself so he knew exactly what it took to fall off the map. Yet SHIELD had always been able to keep tabs on him, even back then, and Isabella didn't seem to have left any obvious trail…
"Her spending patterns were completely normal for feeding herself and her father, right up until the night he died. No major spikes in grocery costs. No bulk buys in the days leading up to her leaving town," she answered as her fingers continued to dance across the keys.
"But she didn't use any of her, or her father's, credit cards after his death?" Bruce checked, knowing that was likely one of the first things the former KGB agent checked in her search.
"Not once," she confirmed, "In fact, the police noted that all the cards were accounted for when the crime scene was processed, so she didn't even have them with her when she ran."
"Large withdrawals from their bank accounts?"
"Nothing out of the ordinary," Nat huffed, frustrated, "The girl just disappeared."
"Ok, so her funding is another big question to pass on to the Captain, but we still might be able to track her down based on provisions, right?" Bruce tried to be optimistic, "Check surveillance from the night she left, specifically focusing on gas stations and small convenience stores within fifty miles of Forks. Gas, food, and water."
Natasha nodded adding, "Plus she might stop for hair dye if she wanted to change her look before she got too far away," and started her search again with renewed focus.
"Now I just have to figure out how to narrow down my search," Bruce grumbled, looking back at the searches still running on his own screens.
Nat thought for a second before looking over at him and saying quietly, "Try photos and videos from funeral services in the months following the first killings. V made it clear they weren't planning on stopping the bloodshed, and just because we haven't connected any other bodies to this yet doesn't mean there weren't other victims. Isabella might have felt compelled to see someone she cared about laid to rest."
As morbid as the thought was, it was a good idea, so sighing sadly, Bruce entered the new parameters and returned to his search.
It was almost two hours later when their searches finally turned up their first real lead. Tony was just making his way into the lab, a look of triumph on his face, ready to share his own findings with them, when Nat's computer started dinging loudly.
"I've got something," she called happily, motioning Tony and Bruce both over to her desk, "You were right," she smiled at him in congratulations, "Isabella Swan was caught on CCTV entering a gas station outside of Seattle on the night that Charles' body was discovered. She was careful to avoid all of the visible cameras in the building, but there was one across the street that managed to capture an image of her face that was clear enough to get a match."
She quickly queued up the video and they watched the girl ride up to the station on an old, red motorcycle – no license plates – and started the gas pump running before ducking inside. She came back out not two minutes later, a gallon of bottled water and several travel packs of what appeared to be trail mix and dried fruit. She tucked her purchases into the travel packs of her bike, before taking her single remaining plastic bag around the back of the building, where they could only assume a bathroom was located. When she rounded the corner again about twenty minutes later, her long, mahogany locks had been sheared off above the shoulders and dyed a golden blonde.
"Twenty minutes in a gas station, and she covered food, water, gas, and changing her appearance, paying for everything in cash so there was no trail to follow electronically," Natasha summarized, somewhat impressed with the planning and execution of this young girl who was surely still in shock from her father's death only hours earlier, "And she very nearly managed to do so without being caught on any of the area's cameras."
"And now we have a vehicle description and an updated physical description to pass on to the others," Bruce added, pleased.
"That's not all we have," Tony piped up, reminding them all that he had come running down here to tell them what he'd found, "Turns out Seattle PD made a series of arrests involving a lawyer who was running an underground documentation fraud operation."
He showed them his own series of photos and sent out the copies of police documents.
"J. Jenks was using his law office as a front to produce and distribute everything from fake ID cards and passports to birth, marriage, and death certificates. And when he was arrested, all of his copies of his work were seized, including a certain order placed the day that Renee was killed and picked up the day that Charles was killed for a customer by the name of B. Swan. And look at the photos."
There in front of them were two dozen fake driver's licenses, all featuring photos of one Isabella Swan, granted with different hair and eyes colors and styles, but they were all clearly her.
"You got us a list of aliases?" Bruce's eyes lit up. Now that was a major step towards finding their girl.
"Not just that," Tony continued, "There were lines of credit established under each of the aliases, and copies of several different credit cards ordered using the new identities."
"Twenty-four different lines of credit, that she would never actually have to pay off, but simply use until she maxed them out and then ditch them, leaving the credit card companies with no way to track down the nonexistent card owners for payment," Natasha was growing more and more impressed by the minute.
"And only three of the IDs recovered featured blonde hair," Tony finished, looking intently at the photo on the widow's screen of his niece astride her motorcycle as she pulled out of the gas station lot, "Emily Samuels, Lauren Grant, and Charlotte Connelly."
"Start with Charlotte," Natasha instructed the others. When they both looked at her questioningly she explained in a pained whisper, "Charlotte shortens to Charlie. She had just found her dead father and fled in a rush. Trust me, she'd use his name first."
They both nodded their solemn agreement and Tony set up his computer alongside Bruce, having no intention of leaving the others until they'd found his niece.
