Here you go folks, I don't have much to say about this chapter, except, Enjoy! Thank you everyone for the fantastic reviews. I truly appreciate you guys letting me know what you think. I rushed to put this up tonight, so I'll will reread and fix any major errors that I see at a later time. As always, keep the review coming.

Chapter 17

I awoke the next morning to find a text on my phone from JC. It turned out that he was sent to Los Angeles for runaway case and he was in a meeting when I called. Instead of texting him back I called him. I didn't care if it was 4 in the morning in LA, I needed to talk to him. But why didn't Lily tell me that he was out of town? I answered my own question a second later; maybe if I would have given her time to respond and not hung up on her, she would have told me.

"Emma?" He sounded so tired when he answered the phone.

"JC…" I couldn't stop my voice from cracking.

"Emma, what's wrong?" He suddenly sounded wide awake.

I tried to swallow the lump that was forming in my throat. "He's here."

"What are you talking about? Who's there?" Was he seriously asking me that question?

"Mr. Cooper is here…in Storybrooke." I was trying not to be too loud. I had heard movement downstairs so at least one of my parents was awake. But I needed to talk to JC first. I needed to know what he knew, if anything.

"What…how…did he get to Storybrooke?" In that moment, I wished that we were having this conversation face to face rather than over the phone. It was hard to read him just by the sound of his voice.

"How the hell am I supposed to know? The last I knew is what you told me; that he was just out of jail. And not looking for me, I might add!" I think that sounded exactly the way I meant it, accusingly.

"Emma, if you're asking me if I knew that he was in Storybrooke; the answer is no. Why would I? And I had no idea that he was looking for you. I haven't talked to him. I haven't even seen him. I have no desire to even go near him!" He was getting defensive; which made me think that he knew more than he was letting on.

"If you haven't seen or talked to him then how the hell did you know that he was out of jail?" I was quickly losing my patience.

"I…I had Lily keeping up on it. I knew that it wouldn't be long before he was out on parole, so I asked her to keep an eye on his status. I didn't want to be caught off guard if and when he showed up on my doorstep. Which is the same reason that I told you that he was out; you needed to be prepared."

"Prepared for what?" I nearly yelled. I caught myself. I peeked my head out of my door to see if my voice carried and caught the attention of whoever was downstairs. I saw that it was my mother, and she was pouring herself a bowl of cereal, if she heard me it didn't seem to faze her any. I ducked back into my bedroom and closed the door. "What aren't you telling me?"

"Nothing, Emma. I just don't trust him, and you shouldn't either. I just wanted you know that he was out and you should be on your guard, that's all," he tried to convince me.

I wasn't buying it, "you're lying to me."

I called his bluff, but he held strong, "I'm not lying…I'll tell you what. As soon as get back to Augusta, I'll come to Storybrooke and we can face this…him…head on. Ok?"

I remained silent. "Emma?"

"Ok, fine. Straight here." I agreed.

"Ok it shouldn't take me more than a couple of days, in the meantime, just stay away from him," He added.

"Ha…easier said than done," he was about to hang up until he heard my snarky remark.

"What does that mean?" he asked.

"It means that in the two weeks that I was out of town trying to figure out what Gold was up to, he became my dad's favorite repair man. I came home to find his legs sticking out from under our kitchen sink, repairing the drain." I explained.

"Well, just stay away from him. I gotta go, I'll see you when I get back." He didn't wait for me to say goodbye. I looked at my phone, when the line went dead, like it was the phones fault that we were disconnected. That was the strangest conversation yet that I had with JC. He was definitely lying to me about something. At first, I was second guessing my instincts, but it was his blatant disregard to my confession of Mr. Cooper becoming best buds with my Dad that confirmed my suspicions.

I quickly got dressed and headed downstairs to the door. If my mother was just having cereal for breakfast then that meant that David had already left, but I asked the question anyway as I zipped up my boots and reached for my jacket, "Did Dad leave already?"

"Yeah," she swallowed her bite of cereal, "Yeah, he was stopping at Granny's first; if you hurry you can still catch him."

"Ok, bye." I was out the door. My hurry wasn't to catch up with my father, but rather to talk to Marco. According to my parents Zeke, also known as Mr. Cooper, had been working for Marco. So that seemed like the best place to start.

I stopped at Granny's first; I ordered a hot chocolate for me and a coffee for Marco. I looked around for David but I didn't see him, I wasn't quite sure how I beat him to the restaurant if he left the loft before me.

"Hey, there's my girl." I felt David put his hand on my shoulder. He sat at the counter next to me. "Sorry, I didn't wait for you this morning…"

"That's ok, I have some follow ups that I need to make this morning, so I won't be in the office right away." I heard the bell on the door ring, suddenly he was standing behind David and me.

"Zeke," David held out his hand to the older man, "thank you for everything, it looked spectacular last night. Everyone loved it, right Emma?" I didn't respond. My body was tensed by the man's closeness to me. I saw the look that David gave me, the 'why are you being rude look', but I didn't care.

"Thank you, you highness, I am glad that it met your approval." Mr. Cooper turned toward me, "Good morning, Princess." Again, I didn't respond to him, I glared at him from the corner of my eye.

"Emma?" Now the 'why are you being rude' tone was in David's voice. I had to get out of there before he started asking me questions.

Thankfully, Ruby set the cups that I ordered in front of me. I don't know if it was just perfect time or she saw the storm that was brewing. I set the money on the counter and turned to David. "I have to go, I'll see you later." My tone was cold, but again, I didn't care. I heard David apologize to Zeke for my behavior as I pushed through the door and Ol' Zeke just brushed it off. But I knew that it would be a topic brought up for discussion later by my father.

Marco's wood shop was a short walk from Granny's and it was a beautiful morning. Marco was just unlocking the door as I came up the sidewalk. "Hey, Marco, how are you this morning?"

"Oh, good morning, Emma; I am well, thank you. What brings you by?" It was unusual for me to be stopping buy his shop, especially now that August was a little Pinocchio again.

I held out the cup of coffee that I had brought for him, "I didn't know what you like in it, so it's just black." I said.

"Black is fine, thank you." He graciously accepted the cup and took a sip.

"I was hoping that I could ask you a couple of questions about Zeke." I got right to the point, no sense in side stepping the reason for my visit.

"Of Course, come in, come in."

I followed him inside the shop. I looked around, I thought that it was cute the way that all of his tools neatly hung on the walls and there were piles of wood planks strewn about everywhere. "What can I answer for you?"

"I promise, I won't take up much of your time, I was just hoping that you could tell me what you knew about him?"

"I do not know much. I put an ad in the paper for extra help. He responded and had experience so I hire him," Marco explained to me.

"How long ago was that?" I asked.

"Oh, I say about a month ago. Maybe a little longer," I watched the older gentleman as he moved about his shop and pulled out some brushes and varnish.

"Did he come over in the curse?" I asked as he pulled a wooden rocking horse from under a table. Of course, I knew the answer to that question; he didn't come in Regina's curse or my parents. He was already here and outside of Storybrooke. But I wanted to know what he was telling the residents.

"He said that he came in the second curse. I do not remember him from the Enchanted Forest, but so many people came from different areas, I don't know them all."

"The second curse, huh?" I ran my hand over the smooth wood of the horse.

Marco nodded and lifted his hands in the direction of the horse, "I make this for Roland. I thought he might enjoy. I am hoping that he will come back one day soon, that I may give it to him."

I smiled at old man, "I think he will. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it."

"You are welcome, Emma. Let me know if you need anything, I am happy to help."

I'll smiled to him again as I exited the shop and made my way to the station. I found it interesting that Zeke was telling people that he came in the second curse. That meant that he was getting information on the town from somewhere. Why would an outsider know anything about the curse, let alone it being cast twice. The next question was; how did he get here? I had figured out with JC that in order to get into Storybrooke, you needed to possess something that belonged in Storybrooke. And since we hadn't seen Gold back in town, I thought that it was safe to say that he hadn't learned that tidbit of information. That meant the Zeke had to have an accomplice who was currently in Storybrooke. But who?

"Hey," I greeted David when I entered the station room.

"Emma," he leaned back in his chair and threw his pen in the desk. I knew that look in his eyes; it was his 'care to explain' look. And well, I didn't, but he apparently had other ideas. "You want to tell me what your attitude was about at the diner this morning?"

Yeah, I was going to make this hard. "No, not really," I answered.

"Wrong answer," his voice was stern.

"I just don't like him." I tried to end the interrogation there and go into my office but he grabbed my wrist on my way past stopping my escape. He pulled my arm in the direction of his desk and pointed at the chair that sat next to it. "Sit!"

I let out a huff, but obeyed him anyway. "What is going on with you? You've been acting different since you left the party last night."

"I told you, I just haven't been feeling well." I slid down in the chair a little. I flung my head back to look up at the ceiling to avoid looking at him.

"There is something else going on, even not feeling well you wouldn't have acted ill-mannered to anyone like you did at Granny's this morning."

"Don't be so sure," I mumbled under my breath.

"What?"

"Nothing," I lifted my head. I still didn't look at him, but instead I cast my eyes down on his desk. "What is this?" I asked picking up what looked like an invoice.

"Oh, that is bill for the waterfall," he answered. I looked down at the price. I grunted and tossed the paper down.

"He's charging you too much." I said, of course in my mind any amount owed to Zeke was too much.

"You think so?" David asked as he picked up the invoice to look over it again.

"Yeah," I said with a laugh as I walked away, "I think he owes you way more than you owe him." I knew David didn't understand my innuendo; there was no way that he could. It didn't matter; he would get it in time.

I spent the rest of my morning searching the internet and law enforcement databases for any information that I could find on Zeke. Unfortunately I kept coming up empty. The few things that I did find were his birth date and birth place. I found addresses for the past seventeen years, which of course included the house that I had lived in briefly and jail. I couldn't find anything that made any connection between him and any Storybrooke resident. I had to be missing something.

David had spent his morning catching up on his paperwork. There was one call that came in, a domestic; he said that he would take care of it. While he was gone I went to his desk to look at the invoice again. I had noticed that he wrote out a check and paper clipped it the bill. I was tempted to remove the check and slip it in my pocket, but I didn't need to draw any more attention to my obvious disdain.

"Is that for me?" I jumped when I heard Zeke's voice behind me. I didn't know that he was coming to the station to pick up the check.

"No," I turned around to face him, with steel in my spine. "It's too much money; I think you need to drop the price to about…nothing."

He looked around; he obviously realized that my father was not present, that it was just me and him. "Listen, I don't have any beef with you girlie." Ugh, I hated it when he called me that. "I did an honest days work for an honest days pay. That is what I expect."

"Well then, I guess our expectations are a little different then. Since my expectation is that you are going to call it even," I was determined to stand strong against him.

"I've done my time, justice has been served. I'm just trying to make a clean living." He argued.

"You may have served your time, but what about me? What about the time that I served in the hospital? I think that deserves a little compensation. Besides what are you going to do, beat it out of me…again?" I didn't see David standing there when the words left my mouth.

"What did you say?" I spun, eyes wide, when I heard my father's voice, his words were soaked in venom. He shot across the room and had Zeke pinned to wall with one hand and squeezing his neck with the other. "Who is he, Emma?" I didn't say anything. Tears were beginning to stream down my cheeks.

"Who… IS HE, EMMA?" That time; my father screamed it as he squeezed Zeke's neck a little harder. I could hear Zeke grasping for air. I had to come clean.

"Mr. Cooper," I yelled back through the tears. "He is Mr. Cooper, JC's father." I slowly walked up behind my father and put my shaking hand on his shoulder. "Dad, let him go."

"No…" he yelled back and pushed the man harder against the wall. "You have one chance to give a good reason as why I shouldn't kill you, right here, right now."

Zeke tried to squeak out words, but couldn't over David's grip. "DAD, please let him go."

"Open the cell," David yelled to me.

"He already spent time in jail, you can't lock him up again for the same crime." I tried to reason but I opened the cell door anyway.

David looked at me then back at Zeke. He loosened his grip just enough to allow him to talk unobstructed. "I can lock him up for his own safety! One chance, that's all you have." David yelled in his face.

I saw Zeke's eyes turn dark, he let out a cough before he spoke. "You won't kill me because you need to know what I know."

David pulled him from the wall and pushed him into the cell. He closed the door making sure that it was locked. "And tomorrow, you're going to tell me EVERYTHING that you know. And so help me, if you come near my daughter again, you will not live long enough to regret it."

My father turned to me and pulled me into a tight hug. He held me for what seemed like forever before he finally whispered in my ear, "Let's go home. I'll deal with this scum tomorrow."