[Chapter One]
Growing up in Phoenix, Arizona I was accustomed to knowing it was one of the top states of the United States that had the biggest missing persons' cases.
There would be the milk cartons at the grocery store that had the missing picture on the side of the carton, letting everyone know who was missing. Most of the people that ended up being on the milk cartons happened to be children.
My mom, Renee, often tried to shield me away from the ones that had children on the sides when I would try to reach for the strawberry milk cartons as a little girl.
She wasn't that good though when it came to censoring what I would watch on the television, and sometimes would leave the crime channel on. I would learn things about bodies, decomposition and blood splatters along with many other things that children shouldn't watch. She would giggle and tell everyone I was a curious one, but when we would get home, she would scold me and tell me what an embarrassment I was.
A few weeks ago, Renee and my stepdad, Phil Dwyer, disappeared.
They disappeared without a trace; their car keys and identification cards were left at the house. The fish tank Phil had bought and put exotic fish in ended up dying, since I didn't know the proper way of taking care of them. He was too possessive of the fish and told me that was one thing I didn't have to worry about. I had other things to worry about.
I could only miss school for so long, and being only seventeen, I'm still legally a minor. I don't have friends to go couch hopping with, and even if I did, I wouldn't be surprised if their parents would make sure I wouldn't get too comfortable. I'm a teenager, but Renee often jokes that I'm middle-aged since I've taken care of the bills, appointments, all the adult things that only adults need to worry about since I was in elementary school.
Traveling from Phoenix to Seattle takes three hours on a plane.
Then there is the one-hour flight from Seattle down to Port Angeles.
I'm more than aggravated at how I couldn't stay in Phoenix and continue to take care of myself, but I can only do so much. I have to listen to the law enforcement, partly because I've never been a rebel and another being my own dad happens to be the chief-of-police in my birth town, Forks.
There are a good amount of people moving through the Port Angeles Airport, none of them really looking around unless they are on a search to find a certain person or people.
I'm one of them, my small and not that curvy figure, and my hands stuffed into the pockets of my white eggshell parka. My brown-red hair is in its natural state, a slight wave, as it falls halfway down my back. I wasn't really in the mood to straighten or curl my hair, I'd be spending the whole day on a plane. I'm wearing a white eyelet lace blouse, dark washed jeans that were on sale in the mall, and some clunky boots one of my classmates were selling on Facebook that I managed to swipe before anyone else could. I'm nothing special, though people say my brown eyes remind them of tree bark or if they look too closely, my eyes remind them of sunlight hitting brown beer glass bottles.
I've barely let my eyes run over the people around me before they land on my dad, Charlie Swan.
He's not that hard to find.
He both looks like me but doesn't at the same time.
We share the same eye color, along with eye shape. His lips are thinner than mine, which are the shape of a bowtie, and his hair is salt and pepper. His mustache twitches upwards on his upper lip and his uniform hat sits smug on his head, hiding his declining hairline. His body is slightly pudgy, from the meals he's gotten from the restaurant downtown, The Lodge instead of cooking at home. It barely shows on his police uniform, but I can tell because I'm his daughter.
Reaching him, while pulling my rolling luggage behind me, I awkwardly one arm, knowing that this is ironic now that I think about it. I was going to arrive next week anyway if Phil and Renee hadn't gone missing, so they could spend some time happily together in their first year of marriage. They barely got to experience three months of wedded bliss before they disappeared off the face of the earth. The results are the same, I'm here right around the time I was destined to come.
"Hey Dad. Let's get going."
I start moving forward again only for Charlie to reach out and take my wrist. I frown and turn to him, barely managing to let out a squeak when arms wrap around me and pull me closer to him. He sniffles some as he holds me, and I stay completely still. I don't awkwardly reach my arm up and pat him to let him know that I'm here. I can tell he's trying not to cry, since he's been raised up with the stereotype of men not crying.
Pulling away from me eventually, he clears his throat and straightens himself up. I leave the airport with him next to me. I roll my eyes in annoyance when it starts sprinkling, the droplets of rainwater could be a sign that I'm heading into my doom.
Or it could be I'm letting go of negativity and going into a new rebirth, arms spread out and head tilted back as I laugh.
Either way, I still can't stand rain when it's freezing cold outside and it's nowhere near the 75 degrees Fahrenheit it currently is back in Phoenix today. It's a spit in the face, and I know that I'll be having to keep away from Facebook and other social networks in order to get adjusted to Forks. Then I can start looking at the pictures of Phoenix once again.
The good thing about Charlie is, the hour it takes to go down to Forks, he's quiet.
The radio is low, and the police scanner sits in its usual spot. The police cruiser is a neon sign, one that grabs at attention whether or not the occupants of the cruiser want the attention. I can already tell that I'll be looked at too closely by the student population of 300 something, where they will stare at me with interest and whisper to each other.
We've just passed by the population/welcoming sign, when Charlie clears his throat. My head turns towards him, as I'm leaning against the side of the car window. I made sure to lock the car door, something I always had to do myself when I was little because Renee would always forget to do so. Thankfully there was only one time I almost fell out of the car when we were on the highway, but I learnt my lesson after that.
"What's up?"
Charlie taps his fingers against the leather steering wheel, and he licks his lips as he tries to think of what he wants to say to me. The fragile link between us tugs, but it doesn't loosen. It's a lot looser since I had stopped coming up here for a month during the summer three years ago. I preferred and still prefer going to California for two weeks with him coming down. A middle spot for him and Renee, a state that doesn't legally link either of them to it.
"I…um…I got you a homecoming present."
I straighten myself up faster than I expected as a nauseous emotion comes over me.
Presents, oh joy. That's something that I have never had a good experience with.
What presents I would receive from Renee in the past were only given to me in order for her to prove she could be a mother to all the other mothers in school. Charlie is and always has been awkward by nature, so he has always given me gifts from the clearance rack and often are things that I never really wanted but had to accept because he's, my dad.
The twitch I give, one that isn't very attractive on my plain Jane face is barely there, just skims the surface but I'm most thankful that Charlie is too busy trying to find a way to tell me more about my homecoming present. He manages to take a deep breath and look at himself in the rearview mirror above the dashboard and then glances over at me.
"It's a truck, Chevy. Cherry red."
I blink a few times, my features that just twitched fully smoothen out as the anxiety goes away. I make a little hum to let him know I'm not against it. He takes and continues rolling the conversation, "I got it from Billy Black, from the La Push Reservation. You remember him, right? He's your godfather. I go fishing with him all the time."
A fuzzy memory of a Native Indian American catching me in a fishing pontoon before I can fall into the murky water appears in my mind. I remember him having a cowboy hat that shielded his eyes, his warm rustic hued skin, and those large and warm hands that I would always hold during winters as I would sit around a bonfire with him on the local beach.
"Yes. I do remember him. How is he?"
A part of me wants to smack myself upside the head for asking how the man is. Only those who enjoy small talk ask questions of how other people are doing. It's the least I can do since he had given me a truck, though I hope that he didn't give it to Charlie for free.
"He's in a wheelchair now, due to diabetes. When he heard you were coming up here, he wanted to give it to you because he has no use for it anymore. It's relatively new."
"Define new."
A chuckle, nervous.
A small shrug of his shoulders, before he says, "He bought it in 1984. It was new in the early 60's, late 50's at the earliest."
He's barely finished saying this when we pull up on the street where his house that he bought for him and Renee in the early years of their short marriage, is. My eyes land on my homecoming gift. It's not in the best shape, but happiness bubbles in me at the knowledge that I own my own vehicle now. Renee said there was no point in me having a car while living in the city, but now with this truck in front of me I feel like things won't be so bad here in Forks.
It's faded, where there is a large amount of rust against the body of the truck. There are big, rounded fenders, and a bulbous cab. There are a few dings and kinks in the body of the truck, but not that many. I'm sure it can hold its own, and since it's been around this long, I'm certain that it can get through a car wreck with the other vehicle(s) being the one(s) in the worst shape.
I wait until Charlie parks in the gravel driveway before I hop out of the police cruiser once I've unhooked my seat belt and rush forward. I stand on my tippy-toes and scan the inside of the truck; the strong scent of Native Indian American cigarette spices is ingrained into the leather lining of the seats. A necklace hangs around the rearview mirror in the middle of the truck, a leather woven necklace that I remember Billy had one of his friends make for me, but I must have left it at Billy's house. It sits there, a reminder of my childhood.
"Thanks Ch-Dad. It's pretty badass," I can't help but remark, earning a gruff chuckle behind me. I glance over my shoulder at him, noting how he's pulling my luggage behind him.
"Yeah, I thought so too. Come inside, I kept the room the way you like it."
Entering the two story, small white paneled house with two bedrooms and one bath, my eyes rake over the living room.
Everything looks exactly the same.
The wallpaper with the terrible pattern, worn out wooden floorboards that need to be replaced, and the furniture that was passed down by Grandma and Grandpa Swan to Charlie and Renee. The fireplace is lit, where the flames flicker against the dry wood and cracks the logs open. Every single school picture of mine from Pre-K all the way to this year, my junior year, are lined up on the mantel for everyone to see the horrible stages of my hairstyles and the brief period I had braces.
Going upstairs to the second floor, my eyes land on my bedroom door opens for me.
The bedroom faces West, and the only window within the room looks out on the front yard. It has yellow lace curtains that frame it.
The walls are a light blue, there's a peaked ceiling with wooden planks from Redwoods. A ceiling fan hangs in the middle of the ceiling, the fan hums as the blades circle the motor. A secondhand computer with a modem (phone line) is stapled on the floor to the closest phone jack. The rocking chair from my baby days is in the corner of the room.
A white wrought iron bed frame with both a headboard and footboard sit perfectly in the middle of the left wall, nestled up against the blue paint. The design of the headboard and footboard is of vines and flowers, on closer inspection they are roses and daisies. The bedspread quilt is in all different shades of purple–periwinkle, fuchsia, dark purple, light purple. All the colors are swirled together in a 60's Hippie aesthetic. The pillowcases are just solid purple, not of the same design of the bedspread quilt.
A whitewashed dresser sits on the other side of the room, with little potted cacti and succulents spread across the top of the dresser. A purple lava lamp has recently been plugged in and the purple mass is moving up and down in little globs. Posters are taped up on the walls from my favorite novels, and film adaptations of said favorite films. The tape that keeps them up on the wall needs to have another layer over them, for the ones that are on the wall are dirty and frayed.
Charlie sits the luggage onto the top of my bed, and I sigh as I sit down on the bed a moment later. Charlie shuffles awkwardly where he is, taking his chief cap off of his head. The standing antique mirror behind him shows off the balding spot in the reflection of the back of his head. It just reminds me how my parents are getting older, I'm getting older, even though he's not that old to be a dad. He was only twenty when he had me.
Plopping backwards I peer up at the ceiling of my bedroom, as Charlie gruff a goodbye to me, before my bedroom door is cracked. I turn on my side, my eyes landing on the photograph propped up on my nightstand. I just started puberty, and I have braces. Renee is dressed indecently for being a mother, her shorts being too short for a mother to wear and a designer brasserie the color of blue–the same blue as her eyes, along with wedges. There are fake tattoos that were on her, a henna tattoo that is on her wrist and she's giving a peace sign to the person with the camera (I think it was a random fling she had when we were in California).
"Where are you?"
The photograph doesn't reply.
Unlike Renee, Phil is a responsible person.
He's a little too young for me, having just turned thirty. He's seven years younger than Renee and he's a minor league baseball player. He has a contagious laugh, was raised Catholic, and in high school volunteered at a pet shelter. He's bald and sometimes remembers to put sunscreen on his head and sometimes he doesn't. He's always wearing tank tops, khaki shorts, and flip flops that need to be replaced but he still thinks have some good years left.
I barely think this when I hear the sound of the home phone ringing downstairs. I sit upright, slowly getting off the bed. Tiptoeing out of the bedroom and down the hallway towards the winding stairs, I take a deep breath. Charlie is mumbling to the person on the other end of the line, before his body stiffens and he drops the phone out of his hand. It hits the ground in a loud thud, and I have to move backwards, when Charlie turns to pick up the phone again.
"Yes, yes I am still here. Are you sure it's him?" Charlie rubs the nape of his neck as he turns his attention towards the wedding photograph of him and Renee still hanging on the wall. He snaps his attention away from the photograph and hums.
"His parents identified him. And they didn't find anything about Renee's whereabouts?"
His voice has changed, it's gone from concerning, to completely professional.
He continues his conversation with the man on the other end, without showing any emotion towards the subject of his ex-wife's now deceased second husband. There's no cord attached to the phone with the answering machine so he's not twirling the cord around his fingers. I know he would though if there was one there, instead his fingers dance across the phone and the other hand taps against his pants of his police uniform during the brief conversation.
Sneaking back into my bedroom, I begin to pull out my clothes from my luggage and other things (including my favorite historical romance novels). I force myself not to try and focus my attention on the sound of Charlie downstairs or him trying to figure out how to tell me that my stepdad is dead. It's not a conversation any parent wants to have with their child, especially when the said stepparent was actually a pretty decent person.
The thudding of shoes going up the stairs and then down the hallway lets me know he's on his way. I glance down at the last of my clothes I'm pulling out, barely putting them onto the bed when the rapping of knuckles against my door frame makes me turn my head to the sight of Charlie. He's awkwardly standing there, and I turn my head to the side, observing him and letting him know that he can take his time telling me what he needs to tell me.
"Bella…sweetie…I think you need to sit down."
I sit down on the mattress and put my hands together, listening to him with rapt attention. He comes over and bends down so that he's on his knees, crouched in front of me. His knee joints pop, and he sighs as he brings his hand up and runs his fingers through his hair. He frowns and looks over at the photograph of me and Renee in California before turning and looking at me.
"I received some news from the Phoenix Police Force. I've been keeping tabs with them since your mother and Phil went missing. They just found Phil's body," Charlie slowly informs me, and I'm surprised when a sting reverberates through my heart at the knowledge that Phil really is dead. He's gone, barely even my stepdad.
Without thinking tears begin to rise in my tear ducts but I force myself to not let them fall. I reach my hands up and rub away the tears ferociously, enough that my eyes will become sore from the intensity. Charlie hugs me, and I lean against him, hoping that Phil wasn't in any incredible pain at the end. I hope that his death was instant, painless.
Yet something inside me tells me not to be that naive.
I have a feeling that he was murdered.
There was no reason why Phil Dwyer should have died.
There is no reason why he even had to go on a date with Renee other than having a mutual attraction to each other. There is no reason why he should have married Renee other than the fact that he loved her, and I can't help but wonder if he learnt he would die only a few months after marrying her he wouldn't have. Perhaps he would have decided to marry her after all, happy for the few months of marriage he would have with her.
I can only hope that things will be better.
It's what I repeat in my mind the rest of the day, especially when it comes to dinner.
I'm just thankful that Charlie and I never really talk to begin with. We especially never talk about his work, and at the moment the death of Phil is somewhat linked to Charlie through his job, because I'm certain there's no way they would have told him anything about Phil because he's not the one married to him or related to him.
I can't help but toss and turn when I go to bed, while down the hallway Charlie snores loudly. He's been diagnosed with Sleep Apnea but still won't use a CPAP machine despite the fact that I'm certain he was told to get on. It worries me, since I had forgotten about this little detail about Charlie, and how one night he could end up passing away due to it.
Without thinking, I get up from my bed and shut my bedroom door before walking over to where the chunky, old-school computer is. I pull back the worn-out desk chair that was gifted to me in middle school and flinch as a loud noise comes from the computer when I power it up.
My eyes flicker over to where my lava lamp is, turned on so that it sends out a soft purple glow around the room. I only tear my attention away from it when my computer signals it's done powering up. I bring up the internet tab and search Phil through google, hoping that I can find something about him. It doesn't take long for one of the news channels from Phoenix to have a link towards a news article from some famous crime reporter.
Clicking on it, I quickly read it.
MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL PLAYER FOUND DEAD AT 30
Two days after Christmas Phil Dwyer (30), a minor league baseball player, went missing with his wife, Renee Dwyer (37). They had just gotten married back in September and have a daughter (17) that is living with her dad currently. There is no evidence that there was any break-in at the house, and there was no sign of struggles.
Many people on Cactus Drive claim that the couple keep to themselves most of the time but come over to hang out with other neighbors when they are invited to parties. They are ordinarily Phoenicians, which makes it quite chilling for everyone.
Although Phoenix Law Enforcement have made no comments about the discovery of Phil Dwyer's body, this reporter is—
Sighing, I click out of the report, and climb into my bed.
The ceiling fan still hums around me, and Charlie's persistent snoring reminds me that he's still here with me. I can only hope that no one at the high school will know of the disappearance of Renee and the death of Phil.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: since I am currently working on only one fanfiction at the moment, and the last of the Volturi King Trilogy I decided to jump start on my first two guards in the guard series. I will also be posting two chapters at one time: this one, and one for my Felix fanfiction: The Swan Song. As always: Twilight doesn't belong to me.
-it'semmynotemma