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She didn't like the way they watched her as she let Jasper led her across the police station and into a large room with a long table and a bunch of chairs. Jasper released her hand and gestured to the chairs, and she hurried over to the farthest side of the room and climbed into one of the chairs, pulling her knees up to her chest. Edward sat next to her, and she wanted to hold his hand again, but wasn't sure she should. Not with the way everyone watched her. Carlisle sat on the other side of her, while Rosie and Emmett settled next to Edward. Jasper and the tall man with the ashy blond hair and the small beady blue eyes were the last two to enter the room, which made her feel better — or almost better. They'd want details, to know exactly what she had done.
Jasper and the other man settled at the far end of the table, each of them placing one of those yellow notepads her daddy used to have all over the house. He used them for notes, scribbles, everything. She used to sneak them into her room at night, leaving him notes. Eventually, he'd leave her notes, too. It had been their thing, and he'd taken that away from her, too.
"Honey, can you breathe for me?" Jasper asked, and she exhaled the breath she'd been holding. "Nobody here is going to hurt you. We want to help you."
Her eyes shifted to the man next to him before looking back at him.
Jasper smiled and placed his hand on the man's shoulder. "This is Garrett. He's my Captain, my boss. He is helping me, help you."
"Hi," Garrett murmured, speaking softly.
"Hi," she whispered. "You're nice, right? You're like them?" she asked, gesturing to Jasper, Carlisle, Emmett, Rosie, and Edward.
"I am," he said. "Can you tell me your name, honey? Just for the record."
She shifted her eyes to Edward, who nodded. "They said I'm Bella."
He frowned. "And what do you call yourself?"
She shrugged her shoulder. "I don't call myself anything."
"Do you believe you're Bella?" he asked.
Again, she shrugged her shoulders. "Maybe a long time ago, but not anymore. Not since . . . not since him."
Garrett frowned, and scribbled something on his notepad. "Would it help if we told you that the DNA test we ran says you are Bella?"
She shifted her eyes to Carlisle, remembering how he used the Q-tip to take her DNA, before saying. "No."
"Why not?" Jasper asked.
She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't deserve to be anyone. I'm not a good girl. That's why I'm nothing, a nobody, because only good girls get to be someone."
"Who told you you're nothing, a nobody?" Garrett asked.
She felt her shoulders tense as she shook her head.
"I know you already told them," Garrett said, "but can you tell me about the night . . . the night he took you away?"
She wrapped her arms around her knees, shaking her head. She didn't want to talk about that night again, about how he'd come into her room that night, but she knew she had to, because he would come for her again if she didn't, and if he came for her, he'd kill her nice people, and she couldn't let him hurt them. They wanted to be her family.
Garrett sighed and leaned back in his chair. "You're scared, aren't you? Scared Sam Uley will come for you again?"
She simply nodded.
"I am, too," he admitted. "Because he's really scary and dangerous, isn't he?"
Again, she nodded.
"I'm really sorry to ask you to tell me about him, about what he did to you," Garrett whimpered, and it confused her. Why was he so sad? Had he hurt him, too? "But I need you to tell me and Jasper, so that we can lock him away for the rest of his life. So he can't hurt anyone else the way he . . . the way he did you."
"Why?" she asked. "Why do you want to help me?"
Garrett shared a look with Jasper before saying, "Because you're important to me, too."
She shifted her eyes up to Edward, who reached for her hand, bringing it up to his lips as he nodded, encouraging her to tell him. And though she was terrified, she heard herself saying, "I was in my bed, and I heard the window to my room open. When I opened my eyes, he was standing in my room. I was scared, because Daddy said he wasn't supposed to come over anymore, and he wasn't allowed inside the house. I started to cry because I didn't want to get into trouble, but he pulled me out of bed and held me against him," she whimpered. "It hurt and I started to cry louder, and he, um, he put his hand on my neck, like this," she said, showing him how he wrapped his fingers around her throat. "I couldn't breathe, and I . . . I cried harder. He kept telling me to be quiet, but then I heard . . . I heard them coming upstairs," she wept, and Edward turned his chair so that he was facing her, wrapping his other arm around the front of her, holding her as best he could. "He put me in the closet and closed the door. I didn't like it in there. It was too dark, but I couldn't get the door open. And then . . . and then I heard them screaming."
"Who was screaming, honey?" Garrett asked.
"Mommy and Daddy," she cried, wrapping her arms around herself even more. "They told him to get out, to leave me alone. I used Blue to try to cover my ears. And . . . and then it got really, really quiet."
"And then what happened?" he asked, frowning.
"He opened the door to the closet. His shirt was covered in blood, and he grabbed me and threw me over his shoulder, and he carried me downstairs, and I saw . . . I saw them, on the floor. He'd . . . killed them."
"Where did he take you? When he took you from the house, do you remember where you went?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "He put me in the truck of the car, said I was his now, and I had to be good. I don't know how long I was in there when I felt the car stop moving. I was really scared, and when he opened the trunk, we were at the house by the water. He grabbed my arms and threw me over his shoulder again, and carried me inside, past her, and down under the house. There was a wooden box, and he . . . he put me inside, and left me there for a long time."
"He put you in a wooden box?" Jasper asked, and she nodded. "You said he walked past her, honey. Who was she? Do you remember her name?"
She shook her head.
"You said he left you in the box for a long time?" Garrett asked. "Do you know how long you were in there?"
Again, she shook her head.
"When he came back," Jasper asked, "and opened the box, was it light outside?"
She bit the inside of her lip, and shook her head. "There wasn't any kind of light. It was cold, though, and it smelled really bad, like . . . dirt and . . . poop," she murmured. "I tried to fight him, but I was so tired and hungry and thirsty. That was the first night he . . . put himself inside me. It hurt so bad, and I cried and screamed, begged him to stop, but he . . . he hit me and told me I was his now, and he could do whatever he wanted to me. When he was done, he put me back inside the box."
"Did he do that a lot?" Jasper asked.
She nodded. "All the time. Sometimes, she would sneak down to me and talk to me through the box. She said she was sorry, that she was trying to get us help, but help never came, and then she was gone. He . . . he . . . he was inside of me again when the police came to the house, said she had stolen from the store," she whimpered. "He said she'd betrayed him, and nobody betrayed him and got away with it. He hit her a lot, and she cried and cried, but he kept hitting her. . . and then she stopped moving. He put me back in the box and when he came back, she was gone, and we left the house by the water."
"Where did you go after you left the house by the water?" Garrett asked.
She frowned. "We mostly stayed on the streets, old buildings that were abandoned. He'd find one that he liked and lock me in a room, instead of the box, which was better, I guess."
"How many buildings did you stay in?"
"I don't know," she murmured. "I stopped counting after ten."
"Okay, and when you were staying in these buildings, did he stay with you?"
"Sometimes," she said, shrugging her shoulders. "But sometimes he'd leave me there for a long time. Said he had things to take care of, and that if I wasn't such a bad girl, he'd take me with him, but he was a liar because I let him do whatever he wanted. I didn't cry anymore when he put himself inside me, but he still locked me inside the room when he left."
Jasper shared a look with Garrett before asking, "Honey, can you tell us about your baby?"
She frowned. "He took her from me. Said I wasn't gentle enough, that I'd hurt her, but I never would have hurt her. Never!"
"Of course you wouldn't," Garrett said, softly. "Do you know where he took her?"
She shook her head. "He said she was safe from me."
Garrett frowned. "You told Jasper that you . . . you were alone when she was born, right?"
Her eyes shifted to Jasper before she nodded. "I tried to be quiet, but it hurt. It hurt so bad and I screamed and screamed, and then she was there, so I put her inside my shirt so she wouldn't be cold."
"Do you remember what building you were in when she was born, honey?"
She shook her head. "It was by the water, though."
"How do you know?" he asked.
"I could hear the boats," she said. "They'd come by every night, and I could hear their horns. That's . . . that's how I knew it was a new day, because of the boats."
"Okay, and how many days did he leave you alone between when your baby was born and he took her away from you? Do you remember?"
She frowned. "Seven, seven days passed. She would cry and I didn't know what I was doing wrong. I held her all the time, but she still cried, at least until . . . I put myself in her mouth."
"What do you mean by yourself?" Jasper asked.
She looked at Edward before moving her hand to her boob. "I put my . . . my boob in her mouth. I remembered seeing it in a movie one time. Mommy tried to cover my eyes, but I still saw. She said it was how mommies took care of their babies. Was that bad? Is that why he took her away from me?"
"No, honey," Jasper said, giving her a soft smile. "That was good thinking. Your baby was probably hungry, and by letting her suck on your boob, you were feeding her. Just like when Beth has a bottle, remember? She likes to suck on the nipple, right?"
She nodded.
"Well, your . . . your boob has a nipple, too, and when you put it in her mouth, you were giving her breastmilk to drink."
"Oh." She bit the inside of her lip. "So . . . so I wasn't hurting her?"
"No, you were not hurting her, Bella," Carlisle said, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. "You were being a good mommy."
"Then . . . then why did he take her from me? I let him do whatever he wanted to me, I let him . . . hurt me all the time. Why couldn't he have just let me have her?"
"I don't know," Carlisle whispered, before looking at Jasper. "I think that's enough for today."
"Yeah, okay." Jasper stood up. "I'll check on her later, all right?"
Jasper spared her another look before he and Garrett left them alone.
—SfH—
When Garrett and Cullen walked out of the conference room, they found the district attorney, a beautiful woman with long, silky blond hair and bright blue eyes waiting for him. He'd met Kate Denali several times, though they had never quite gotten along. He was an ass, and she didn't put up with his shit. She went to speak, but Garrett put up his hand, gesturing for her to move away from the door the conference room.
She rolled her eyes, and moved, but seemed to understand when Carlisle and Emmett led Rosalie, Edward, and Bella out of the room, across the station, and outside. In fact, the entire station house had been incredibly silent as they watched them leave, the young, fragile Bella Swan wrapped in the protection of her family.
As soon as they were gone, Garrett walked back into the conference room and sat down, leaning forward and placing his elbows on his knees. He hadn't been prepared for what that little girl told him. He knew the facts: she'd been kidnapped, held for years, raped repeatedly, impregnated only to have her daughter ripped from her arms, but sitting there and hearing that little girl tell him about the night he crept into her bedroom, how she heard him slaughtering her parents, locked her in a wooden box for the better part of a year, and then moved around like cattle all so he could rape her any time he wanted.
Well, Garrett hadn't been prepared for how matter of fact she was about the hellish life she'd lived for the last eight years. For Bella Swan, being used and abused had just been a way of life, and he wanted to string Sam Uley up himself after listening to her speak.
"Well," Kate Denali said, following him and Cullen into the room, closing the door behind her. "That was some story."
"A story?" Cullen asked, tilting his head to the side. "You say that like you don't believe her."
"Oh, I believe every word of what she said, Jasper," Kate said, placing her brief case on the table before sitting down and crossing her legs at the knee. "Problem is, I'm not sure a jury will."
"Why wouldn't they?" Garrett asked, tilting his head backward. "Sam Uley has done a lot of truly evil things, Kate. Murdered eight people, caused two suicides, raped at least four little girls that we know of, assault, kidnapping. How could a jury not believe that he did any of it?"
"Because you don't have any witnesses," she said like it was a matter of fact. "His parents' deaths, though suspicious, were caused by the fire that destroyed his childhood home by the medical examiner. Harry Clearwater officially died of a heart attack, Billy Black died in a car accident, Jacob Black hadn't been linked to him, your Jane Doe in Bainbridge Island can't be linked to the girl he supposedly killed, and the only witness to the murders of Charlie and Renee Swan is a scared little girl, who nobody ever saw in the presence of Sam Uley. Not one person in the eight years she's been missing had ever seen her with him."
And before either of them could offer a rebuttal, she continued, "Leah Clearwater and Emily Young both committed suicide, and even with the clear and obvious stalking charges are useless since we no longer have a complaining witness. All I can charge Sam Uley on is the assault on James Swan, but that's not going to put him away for long, and, gentlemen, I want people to hate him so much, they petition to have the death penalty reinstated just to put that animal down." Kate stood up and picked up her briefcase. "You want to put him away for the rest of his life? Find her baby, because that little girl can prove that Sam Uley raped Isabella Swan. Otherwise, we have seventy-two hours to file charges, and I can guarantee he will be released on bail without something more substantial than one damaged little girl."
And without another word, Kate Denali walked out of the conference room, leaving Garrett and Cullen sitting there with a clear mission: Find Baby Hope in order to save Bella Swan.
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