The Locals

Charlie looked over at the clock on his desk, noticing that the reporter was going to walk in any minute. He had given the receptionist orders to let her back this time, shocking her. He was shocked himself.

To say that Charlie Swan was concerned would be an understatement. From the very beginning, he knew that it wasn't an ordinary animal. After seeing the first body, he immediately went out to La Push and spoke with Billy and Jacob, who then called in Sam. He was still murky on a lot of the details surrounding the wolf packs and whatever else was out there, but he knew whatever this was, it was something they were better adapted to take care of than the Forks police. He kept up the appearances of an investigation and hunt for some large animal, but ultimately it was all a smokescreen until the wolves had finished the job.

He sighed, glancing down at the photo of Bella, Edward, and Renesmee on his desk. They were safe in Vancouver with the rest of the Cullens. At least that was one less thing for him to worry about, what with the reporter snooping around.

He didn't want to let Mara in on the case, but he could tell from talking to her last night that she wasn't going to give up. And even if she went back to Seattle, someone else would be sent in her stead. Even Sue agreed. It was better to work with her. At least that way he could control what information she got. Once the packs took care of the creature, he could feed her evidence that it was a rabid bear or cougar and she would move on to the next story.

Blasted Mike and his meddling. If he hadn't spoken to her, he could have probably gotten by without getting her involved. But that didn't matter now. The damage was done and all he could hope to do was control it and keep an eye on her. At least the folks in town were wary of her. Less chance they'd blab something.

He glanced up, seeing the receptionist leading the reporter to his office. Sighing, he stood up and walked to the door, meeting them.

"Ms. Winslow is here," she said. Charlie mustered a smile as Mara stepped in.

"Good to see you, Chief," she said brightly.

"Have a seat, Ms. Winslow," he said, motioning to a chair.

"Please, it's Mara," she said. "If we're going to be working together, we can at least be on first name basis."

"Fine, Mara. Let's get started…"

Mike lounged at his desk, browsing through The Seattle Times on his computer. He was waiting for Chief Swan to tell them whatever their orders were for the day. Hardly anything exciting ever happened in Forks, so the entire department was focused on the hikers.

The others seemed to go along with the chief's explanation that it was animal attacks and they had already spent hours out in the woods with rifles trying to hunt it down. Anytime he brought up how strange things were, they laughed and told him he was watching too much TV. Chief Swan was also spending a decent amount of time up at La Push, which Mike also found strange.

Now that the chief seemed to be open to talking to the reporter, he hoped he could share more information with her and see what she made of it.

He looked over and sat up as he saw Mara walk in, being led over to the chief's office. He smiled as she glanced over at him, waving.

"How'd dinner go last night?" another deputy asked – Ryan Collins.

"Good," Mike said, smiling at him. "She turned me down for another drink, but pretty sure that'll happen soon enough." He'd rather his co-workers think he was trying to score with her. He was sure they'd snitch if they knew what he was really up to.

"Can't believe you put your neck out for her. She's hot, I'll give you that. But that little trick with 'accidentally running into the chief and his wife at dinner' could have backfired," Ryan said. Mike shrugged.

"I knew it would work," he said nonchalantly, watching through the windows as Mara sat across from the chief.

"She's going back to Seattle after this, bro," Ryan said.

"Still worth it. We don't get much new blood in town," Mike replied. Ryan laughed a bit louder.

"You are dreaming if you think she's going to get involved with you," he said. "Face it. She's a newspaper reporter from Seattle." Mike frowned slightly.

"You never know," he said, looking over at Ryan. "Even reporters gotta take a break at some point."

"You think he's giving her the reports?" Ryan asked.

"He was already talking with the medical examiner when I got here," Mike said. "They were going over the files. Probably redacting them."

"What changed his mind?" Ryan asked, looking over at him.

"Said last night that she was going to write something anyway, so might as well have the right information," he said.

"Suppose it makes sense," Ryan said. Mike hummed his agreement as he pushed up out of his chair when Mara walked out of Chief Swan's office smiling.

"I appreciate it," she said to the chief as Mike walked over.

"They're expecting you just before lunch," the chief said, looking slightly uncomfortable. Mara looked over, seeing Mike walk up.

"Deputy Mike," she said, smiling.

"Good to see you, Mara," he said. "You off then?"

"Yea, I need to get some prep work done before I go talk to the Whites," she said, holding a file of folders to her chest.

"Meet for lunch?" he asked.

"Ehm, can I let you know? I'm not sure how long the interview is going to last," she said.

"No worries. Just give me a call," he replied.

"Got it. See you later," she said with a wave. She then turned and walked out of the station.

"Careful, Newton," the chief said.

"What do you mean?" Mike asked, looking at him

"I told you that no one was to talk to her," Chief Swan said, folding his arms across his chest.

"I didn't tell her anything about the case," Mike said, lying easily.

"But you toed the line," Chief said.

"But you now see that she's not a threat," Mike countered, smiling slightly. Chief Swan sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Get back to work," he said, turning and walking back into his office.

"Got it, Chief."

Mara sat at the table in her room, going through the reports with a frown on her face. The chief had only given her reports for the first two deaths, saying the third wasn't ready yet even though it had been nearly a week. Both were basically carbon copies of each other and read as though the medical examiner rushed through filling them out. She was curious as to whether he actually carried out a full postmortem before scribbling "accidental - animal attack" in the cause of death box.

Her suspicions were further raised when she took a closer at the body diagrams - some of the injuries were filled in with slightly different ink. Almost as if they were added in later.

Granted, she couldn't prove it. There were no photos of the crime scenes or post mortems in the reports. All she had was the feeling she got at one scene. She needed to get out to the others.

Sighing, she put the documents aside and looked at her laptop where she had the first victim's Facebook opened. His name was Nick White and he seemed to have had an active, happy life. She picked up her notebook and jotted down a few more questions that she wanted to ask the family. Glancing at the time, she knew she had about 30 more minutes before she needed to leave.

She then sat up and stretched, glancing down at the piles of paper spread out around the floor of her room. She had started sorting the articles, placing them in two different piles – normal and odd. So far there were about 10 to 15 animal attacks that she thought fell into the odd pile. She also pulled an article on a mysterious death involving a New York Times reporter from a few years ago. Even though it had been ruled an accident – her car had run off the road near Forks and exploded – the body had never been found and she was declared dead after the police spent a few months searching the woods for her. Mara found the entire thing strange, but there was also the caveat that she was an investigative reporter and the last story she had been working on involved a rather large, previously unknown organized crime organization that was eventually taken down several months later. Mara only kept it because she found it curious the body was never found.

It seemed there was much more to Forks than she had initially thought. Richard would be happy. He loved a good mystery and read just about everything written by Stephen King. Mara couldn't help but think King would have a heyday writing creepy novels about Forks.

She stood and walked over, bending down to pick up the top story in the odd pile, skimming through it again. She had highlighted a few interesting bits. She wasn't sure if the chief would give her any answers, but at least she could ask Mike about it.

She then walked back over to the table, looking down at the reports again. Frowning, she rifled through the papers, trying to find directions to the accident sites. She needed to get out to the other scenes. If the interview didn't take long, she would have enough time to go to one. It was slightly crazy to go out alone with a homicidal maniac or deranged animal out there, but she figured she was relatively safe if she went during the day. She'd take some pepper spray.

Glancing at the clock again, Mara started gathering things up and packing them into her bag.

Time to get to work.

Nearly 24 hours later, and Embry still couldn't stop thinking about what had happened the day before. He had laid in bed nearly all night staring at the ceiling trying to figure out what it was. He could still smell a lingering hint of lavender. Quil had told Jacob about it as soon as they got back and the two cornered him, but he didn't want to discuss it. He wasn't even sure what there was to discuss.

As if he needed another thing on his mind. Between the move to Seattle, work, and the recent vampire attacks, there was a lot going on. It troubled him, along with everyone else. With the Cullens gone, they thought perhaps they would have a few vampire-free years, but it seemed with their absence, something else had taken the opportunity to move into the area. Something that the pack couldn't seem to catch.

Sighing, Embry ran his fingers through his hair as he continued walking to Sam's house, listing out everything he needed to get done that day, figuring it was something safer to focus on. After the meeting was more work. Then he would likely do what he did every day. Stay up late into the night working on homework and papers. Thankfully, he didn't have patrol that night. Though he was worried dreams about the scent of lavender would keep him up again.

The closer he got to the house, the more he could hear the rest of the packs already there. He would need to hurry if he wanted any food. He trotted up to the porch and pushed the door open, stepping in.

"Good of you to join us," Paul said from where he sat at the kitchen table, surrounded by large bodies as they scarfed down food.

"You know I had work," he replied, sitting in the final open chair. "I only have an hour."

"Then we should get started," Jacob said as Embry started filling a plate. Sam walked up to his side as Emily sat more plates of food on the table. "We're still patrolling the areas after lunch. Seth, you and Leah will take Site 2. Jared, you and Sam will be with me at Site 3. And Paul, Quil, and Embry will take Site 1." Embry stopped filling his plate, glaring at him.

"You know I have to work," he said.

"We've already cleared it with your boss. Said it was tribe business," he replied. Embry rolled his eyes as he started to eat. Great. He'd be docked in pay again. Tuition was coming due and he needed the money.

"Why do we need to keep checking the sites? Whoever did it is long gone as far as we can tell," Quil said, though he glanced cautiously at Embry, wondering if he should mention to the group what had happened yesterday.

"We need to stay on top of it – he's been in the area three times already and there's a chance he could come back," Sam said, frowning at him. "Chief Swan came by again yesterday."

"Anything new from him?" Paul asked.

"No. Just that there's a reporter from Seattle snooping around," Jacob said. "If you see her, tell her we're helping hunt down an animal and send her back to town immediately. Besides the fact that she can't know about us, it's dangerous for anyone to be out there alone right now." Quil snorted.

"Thought that was a given. What did you expect? That we'd phase in front of her?" he asked.

"Just, be careful," Jacob urged. "I don't know if she's going to come up to the reservation, but we have to watch what we say. If anything, we need to use it to our advantage. If we get her writing that it's animal attacks, then that will help sell the story to everyone else."

"Sure, we can handle it," Paul said, grinning.

The meeting continued, though Embry zoned out, his thoughts turning to his job as he started grumbling to himself. Jacob knew how badly he needed the money. He had spent the last couple of years saving up everything he could in preparation for finally leaving the reservation. Of course, just as he was about to make the move, a frickin' vampire would show up.

He tuned in for a moment, hearing the others giving Quil yet another hard time about Claire. Embry sighed and turned his focus back to eating.

Yet another topic that was a sore spot. Imprinting. Embry was now the oldest in the pack to not imprint and the older he got, the more he was beginning to think it wouldn't happen. In a way, he supposed it wasn't such a bad thing. He would at least have the option to fall in love like a normal person. But at the same time, it hung over him. The idea that it could still happen kept him from getting into any serious relationships, worried that the same thing that had happened to Leah and Sam would happen to him. The last thing he wanted to do was inflict that kind of pain on someone else. It was getting rather lonely, in that sense. Watching as more and more couples were formed. It just made him want to leave the reservation even more.

He glanced up, meeting Jacob's eyes across the room. He looked back down at his plate, shoveling food into his mouth quickly. If they were doing a patrol that afternoon, he would need the energy.

After he had finished eating and the meeting had ended, he stepped outside on the porch to wait for the others. They were now all locked into conversations about their girlfriends and plans for the upcoming weekend while Sam fawned over Emily, who was five months along with their first kid.

"It'll happen, you know," Jacob said, walking out after him. Embry looked over at his best friend and smiled.

"Says the man who imprinted eight years ago," he replied.

"It's not always easy after you do," Jacob replied, grimacing slightly.

"Please, we both know it doesn't take you long to get to Vancouver to see Nessie. You're up there just as much as you are here," Embry replied. "And you got lucky – she was full grown after seven years. Quil is still waiting. Still not sure how you two handle it - it's weird."

"Trust me, you're not the only one who feels that way… but it is what it is," Jacob said with a sigh.

"At this point I'm thinking she's not even born yet," Embry replied. "Or it's just not going to happen."

"I told you, it'll happen. Just… stop thinking about it so much," Jacob said. "And we all get it. No one is going to give you a hard time." Embry was quiet a few moments, nodding. "How are things coming for the move?"

"Good," Embry replied. "Though I'm hoping we can catch this bloodsucker soon. It's cutting into my study time. Are you guys sure we shouldn't call in the Cullens? That tracker guy is living with them now. He'd probably make this a lot easier." Jacob frowned.

"Demetri's still connected to the Volturi and I'd rather not give them a reason to come back here," he replied. "We're saving the Cullens as a last resort." Embry nodded and looked back out to the forest. "You want to talk about what happened yesterday?"

"I'm not sure what it was," Embry said.

"You couldn't stop thinking about lavender," Jacob commented, thinking back to the short patrol the two had done together last night.

"Still think it's strange that Quil couldn't smell it. It was all over the clearing," Embry replied. Jacob was silent a few moments.

"Maybe it has to do with imprinting," he offered. Embry looked over at him.

"Was it like that for you?" Embry asked. He recalled hearing a woman's voice yesterday in the clearing before they left. Jacob shook his head.

"Though I suppose it could be a bit different for everyone," he said.

"Whatever it was, I don't really have time to dwell on it. Need to take care of this situation first. Besides, I'll be off to Seattle in a few months anyway," Embry said. "Though I'm sure Mom would love an excuse to keep me here."

"You know she's proud of you. You got into the University of Washington. And got scholarships. We're all proud of you. And you know your mom will be well looked after while you're gone," Jacob said. Embry smiled.

"Thanks, man," he said.

"No problem," Jacob replied. "I better go get Quil and Paul. We should all head out."

"Got it," Embry said. Jacob turned and walked back into the house as Embry sighed.

"Just a few more months…"

Thanks for reading and following!