Chapter Three

Bella

I must have fallen asleep reading because the sun was up when I next realized, and it was morning. I'd read up to the time Charlie proposed to Renee, romantically on a boat trip in Seattle. Tonight I promised myself an hours reading. We drove to the Reservation in my truck so Charlie could have a few beers and on the way I told him that the rest of my stuff had arrived and that Phil had phoned although I kept the book a secret and I couldn't explain why. I just wanted to read it all before I admitted it existed to my Dad. The truck was met outside Billy's by a tall boy with long glossy black hair and a devastating smile. I remembered him vaguely, we'd played as youngsters while Charlie and Billy fished. When I got out of the truck he held out a hand, "Hi Bella. I don't suppose you remember me"

I took it and smiled back,

"Yes, my partner in crime, Jake."

He grinned even wider,

"Yeah that's right. I was sorry about your Mum."

"Thanks Jake. Can we talk about something else though"

In the end he took me out to the garage to see the car he was rebuilding. He seemed to know a lot about cars and engines, in fact he left me behind after the first sentence but he was nice to look at and his voice was warm so I didn't care. By lunchtime I'd arranged to visit again the next Sunday, finally I had a real friend and one that Charlie heartily approved of.

"Jake's a good boy and he'd be a good friend for you"

"OK Stop the matchmaking. I like Jake and I agreed to go back next Sunday".

Dad smiled all the way home at that news and I just hoped he wasn't getting the wrong idea. I really wasn't interested in dating.

I pulled Renee's book from under my pillow when I got into bed and opened it where I'd finished reading last night. The next few pages were about the engagement party and their plans for the future. Charlie was already in the Police Force and they made plans to live here in Forks and were looking for a house. I gasped when I turned the page and saw a flyer of this house stuck in with yellowing tape. It was the sale leaflet for this house and under it was written in faded red ink "OUR HOME". That made me sad, how excited they'd been to find this house and all the plans they made for it were written on the following pages. They sounded so happy and I wondered what had gone so dreadfully wrong.

I turned the page and started to read, "We are getting married in three months", this was in huge pink letters and there was a drawing of the dress Renee wanted, her dream dress I guessed because the wedding photos I'd seen weren't the same. There were lists of things to be done, possible wedding presents and a guest list. I saw names I recognised, Newton, that must have been Mike's parents, Blacks, Billy and his wife who died some years later after Jake was born, Clearwater, Harry and Sue or maybe they weren't married yet either. Charlies parents were there as was Renee's mother, her father was already dead by then. It seemed funny seeing my mother as a young girl full of dreams and wishes and not as the woman she'd become by the time I was old enough to really take notice.

The next page was all about the dress fittings and choosing the design for the cake and the reception arrangements and I turned the page ready to hear what they had decided on for the band but something was wrong. The next page skipped to the wedding itself and the tone had changed. I looked at the spine and could just make out that some pages had been very carefully cut out. Now what had she written there that she felt the need to destroy? Something had happened because the tone from then on was more sober, even sad, and I could tell from reading the entries that Renee had already decided to leave Charlie. Her pregnancy was written about, but there was no excitement, no joy, it was as if she was expecting something to happen. That there was something lurking in the shadows that she was terrified of. I wondered if she'd burned the missing pages or just ripped them up.

Once I was born she seemed lighter, happier again, but then the tone darkened again and there were some cryptic remarks, she seemed terrified that something would happen to me. She was getting ready to run but she never said what from. The entry for the night before she left with me was short,

"I have to go but I'll never be free and neither will Bella"

.

Next morning after Charlie left for work she ordered a taxi and we left, taking nothing but our clothes and some money she'd saved out of the money Charlie gave her for little extras. We went to a hostel in Phoenix until she got a job teaching and then she rented a place for us. She put another little notation next to Phoenix, "No cold here!" Which seemed odd to me until I remembered what she had written earlier, "The Cold Ones". That phrase must have meant something to her.

The rest of the pages were about our life together in Arizona. She moved often from town to town taking temporary teaching posts but never settling anywhere, and it struck me she was trying to hide, "Hide in Plain Sight" another phrase from earlier. Whatever happened on those missing pages sent her running from Forks and Charlie, and I was desperate to know what. On the final page was the old photograph and I looked at it more closely, there was a man in the foreground, dressed in an outdated suit and behind him a building, a school or college or something like that, to the back of him were two more people but they were hard to make out, the photo had faded and they weren't in focus. Underneath she'd written

"Help. One day maybe Bella will find out what lies beneath".

I lay awake most of the night trying to make sense of the entries in the book. Something had happened before she and Charlie married that had frightened her so much she'd run. She thought she was in danger even before I was born, and even more so after. She was scared for me too. I needed someone to talk to about this but I couldn't involve an adult until I knew more, if at all. On Sunday as I drove to the Reservation I decided to enlist Jake's help in my mystery. I needed to solve it because if Renee was right then I was still in danger.