Disclaimer: Any recognizable Twilight characters and ideas are property of Stephenie Meyer. I am not profiting from the distribution of this story. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Notes: I'm back! Camp NaNo left me exhausted, but I have 50,000 more rough words to share with you in the coming months. Really, really excited about the direction this story will be taking! This chapter here is one I've been dying to share with you all since I first wrote it back in November. Hope you enjoy it.
Thank you SO much to everyone who has favorited, followed, and reviewed since my last chapter. I've had a bunch of new readers in the last couple weeks. Hey, there! My little fic that once had six reviews crossed 200 reviews with chapter nine. Thank you all so, so much for taking the time to reach out to me. It always makes my day. I do respond to each and every one I get, so if you haven't heard back from me yet, know that I plan to finish my replies from chapter nine tomorrow night.
Now, on to chapter ten!
From Chapter 9: Unravel the Web – Of course, Fate had other plans for me, today. I hadn't even made it all the way across the destroyed circle of forest when a heard rustling from the bushes and trees behind me. Whatever was coming towards me was coming fast.
Emily's words of warning sprang back to mind. "Just never, ever let your guard down."
Shit.
Chapter 10: Holding Pattern
Present Day
Charlie POV
My hand instinctually went for the loaded gun in my holster and withdrew it, cocking it on the way up. I cradled my weapon in my hands and took aim at the ruckus headed directly for me. The noise was getting louder and louder by the second.
Damn, whatever it was out there sure was fast.
The closer it came, the more I had to admit that it sure as hell didn't sound like only one person—or even one large animal—out there. It was a whole group of somethings.
Oh, God. A group. Like a pack?
The wolves?
All the warnings I gotten about the kind of danger my little mission could bring me were playing over and over in my head. Such a hard-headed, stubborn mule. What the fuck had I been thinking? Out here all alone with just my department-issued weapon between me and whatever the hell was coming right this way. I had no idea if a gun would even stand a chance against a bunch of possibly out of control, horse-sized wolves, but I had to at least try. If it came to it, I sure as hell wasn't going down without a fight.
Without any warning, the loud rustling completely stopped before anything could break through the brush. I wasn't foolish enough to think that I was suddenly in the clear, though. The hair on my arms and the back of my neck still stood up on end. Whatever was out there was watching me—maybe just waiting for the right moment to strike.
I could feel my heart pounding heavily in my chest as I took in the surrounding area with my peripheral vision. The branches swayed a little bit in the breeze, but nothing else was moving. Yet, anyway. My gun was still trained on the last spot I'd heard the noise before the forest went quiet, again. Too damn quiet. The bird calls' absence was more than a little obvious and a whole lot creepy.
The waiting game was taking its toll on me. A part of me—an admittedly crazy-ass part—wanted to call out to the overgrown beasts watching me to come on out.
Why? I didn't know.
Possibly to get our standoff over with faster. I didn't need this crap prolonged. If this was my time, then it needed to just be my fucking time already.
Of course, if it all ended like this before I had the chance to find my daughter again, I was going to be leaving this world really pissed off. I was almost positive now that Bella was still out there somewhere, which meant she wouldn't be waiting for me at the pearly gates. Life wasn't going to be that cruel to me. It just couldn't be. Not after everything it had put me through. There was a way out of this because there had to be. I would find her.
That rustling started up again, only this time quieter. Something had broken off from the rest of the pack. I steadied my gun and braced myself for anything. At least whatever was out there wasn't all coming at once.
Through the thick trees and brush, I could start to make out a person—not a wolf—coming towards me. Were the wolves still out there? This guy must have the worst case of wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time-itis. One man couldn't have made the sounds I heard. What the hell was going on here?
My finger flexed on the trigger. I wasn't leaving anything to chance. This could definitely be a trap.
"Charlie? Charlie, is that you?" asked the person coming towards me.
No.
No way. It couldn't be.
Way too much of a coincidence for him to be here of all places.
"Charlie? What do you think you're doing out here by yourself?"
Jacob got close enough to the damaged area of forest that I could identify him easily through the trees. I guess that meant he could see me, too, because he suddenly stopped short, and his voice took on a panicked edge. "Jesus Christ, Charlie. Put down the gun. It's just me. See? It's me. Jacob."
He stepped over a fallen log and lifted his hands up high as he entered the newly-made clearing. When he was just thirty feet from me or so, Jake came to a stop. My gun still stood between him and me, and maybe I liked it that way. Whatever I heard just a minute ago was still out there in those woods. Could it really be the wolves? Did Jake bring them? Were they able to be controlled, for now?
And more importantly, could I trust Jacob?
"Charlie? Charlie…aw come on, man," Jacob said interrupting my thoughts. "Please just…put the gun down. You're safe. I promise you. You can put the gun down."
I narrowed my eyes at him, but didn't lower shit.
Jake reached a hand out to me. "Just put it down. Jesus, Charlie, come on. It's just me. Everything's okay. It's handled. I get that you're scared right now, but we've got this."
We?
When Jake took another step towards me, I noticed the kid was shirtless. Again. That itself wasn't exactly a revelation. What was a revelation was what I couldn't see.
"What the hell happened to you, Jake?"
"Charlie, put the gun down and we'll—"
I squared myself off, and Jacob took a step back. "Four days. It's only been four days since I last saw you, son. You mind telling me where the fuck your injuries went?"
Even though it had only been four days since I'd seen Jacob on the rez, the deep cuts and nasty bruises that had been all over his body were completely gone. Not even scars were left. It was like they'd literally never been there at all.
Jake sighed. "I'm better, okay? I'm alright."
"I can see that. That isn't normal, kid. Injuries like that don't just get 'better.'"
"I—" Jake started, but stopped. After closing his eyes and gathering himself for a moment, he just said, "I know. I know they don't. But this isn't the place to talk. It's not safe. Now, just please, Charlie. Put. The. Gun. Down. Put it down. It's okay."
"How?" I asked as I slowly lowered my weapon and hit the de-cocker lever. Jacob's shoulders immediately dropped down a fraction in relief as I holstered the gun and continued, "How is it possible you don't have a scratch on you?"
"Charlie, I get that you're curious, and we've all been kinda douche bags about it. But for now, I mean it. I really need you to worry more about getting the hell out of here."
No, no. He wasn't getting off that easy. One way or another, the truth was coming out—today. If he wanted me to play dumb, I could until the cows came home. "Why do you think you get to tell me to leave my own investigation site?"
Jacob looked over his shoulder towards the part of the woods he had come from before looking back at me, clearly worried about something. I asked, "Jacob, you wanna tell me what's going on here?"
"Like I said, it's not safe, right now," he said, scanning the area behind me. What else was out there? "You've gotta go. I can try to come to you when everything is over."
"Not a chance. Not this time, Jake. My boys may be finished out here, but I haven't been able to really look around. One of my own men is out there. I'm not going to sit on my hands looking at photos in some office. If I'm gonna be useful, I have to be out here. Helps me think. Puts everything in perspective."
There. That sounded reasonable, and really not that far from the truth. I was concerned about Brian. It just wasn't necessarily evidence about the perp tied to his case that I was focusing on.
"Charlie, I do get where you're coming from, but now is really…not the time."
Jake glanced over his shoulder again just like he'd done that day at the rez right after I'd gotten Billy's letter. The wolves, or whatever had made all that ruckus before Jacob showed up, were still out there. They had to be. Was that what he'd kept looking at that day at La Push? He'd obsessively checked over his shoulder again and again then, too.
I waited for him to look back at me and tossed my hands out to the sides. "Answers, Jacob. I'm tired of playing these games. You want me to move, then first you're gonna need to start talking."
"Please don't ask me what's going on," Jake said. "I can't tell you. I literally can't."
Just as I was about to tell that that he could do whatever the hell he wanted to do, Sam or no Sam, Jake's head snapped towards the woods to my right and his left. "We're not alone."
"We're not?"
He shook his head. "We're being watched. Shit."
Whatever it was had Jacob wound pretty tightly. He hadn't taken his eyes off that spot in the trees. Jake shifted his weight, sort of pivoting instead of taking an actual step. As he turned, he brought us both into a kneeling crouch. I couldn't see shit out there, but every hair on my body was back to standing on end. Something was definitely out there, and whatever it was, it wasn't good.
I drew my gun and cocked it, again. As I aimed it towards where Jake was looking, I decided to jump into the deep end of the pool with both feet. "Is it the huge wolves from La Push? Are they the ones watching us?"
Jacob never moved his head, but I caught his eyes darting over to look at me. "How did you—"
With a sigh, he turned his attention back completely to the trees. "No. Not them. Something else. Something far worse."
"The wolves are real?"
"So not the time to do this, Charlie. And put that thing away. You need to go," Jacob said as he set his feet more firmly on the ground, almost like a runner's stance before a race.
I shook my head. "I'm not leaving you alone to deal with something dangerous. And those wolves? What if they tore you up, again? If Billy knew I was leaving you out here to fend for yourself, he would have-"
"He would've had my head and skinned me alive if I didn't get you the fuck out of here is what he would have done," Jake interrupted. "We've got this."
"There's that 'we' crap again. Who's really—"
Jake put up his hand to stop me from saying any more. Was he talking about the rest of the boys from the rez? The wolves? Before I could ask for more information he probably wouldn't have given me, he said, "You have to get out of here, Charlie. I'm not gonna be able to hold off this stalemate forever. Don't know how I've even held it for this long. You can't be here when all hell breaks loose. When I say so, run like hell. We'll give you cover. Follow the path back to your patrol car and floor it outta here. I'll come to you as soon as I can."
A growl higher in pitch than I'd ever heard came from the thick tree and brush in front of us. A second one joined from somewhere above. Jesus, something was in the trees, too?
Lower growls, a bunch of them, answered back from my left. I could feel the skin at the back of my neck tightening, and my breath started to come faster and shallower.
We were surrounded.
And that was the moment I finally I got it. If the rustling before was scary, this growling thing was damn near petrifying. Jacob and everyone had been trying to tell me that there was something very dangerous and very wrong in the area, and I brushed it off. Now, I understood. I didn't wanna come face to face with whatever was out there in those woods. I knew in my gut I would lose. Even though I felt like a huge coward, I was going to have to trust Jake and get the hell out of here when it was time. If I wanted to be alive to find my daughter, I wasn't seeing much of a choice in the matter.
"Be ready to run," Jacob whispered as I slowly de-cocked and holstered my gun.
I got off my knees and prepared my old, rundown body to run as best I could without actually standing up. How that was going to pick myself up when it was time, I wasn't exactly sure.
More growls on each side.
"Jake…"
"Hold your position."
Jacob raised himself higher off the ground and leaned in towards the high-pitched growling in front of us. Meanwhile, I was trying my damnedest to lean as far from it as possible. I couldn't remember why I had wanted to stay out here in these woods in the first place. My entire body was screaming at me to get the hell out and leave the problem to the guy who seemed to know what he was doing. More power to him.
Like he was in slow motion, Jake reached a hand out behind him without looking my way. The signal to hold on just a few seconds more. Any moment now.
"GO!"
It was the mark every cell in my body was waiting for. I took off as fast as I could, stumbling forward my first several steps while my legs tried to catch up with my brain's screaming commands to move. Somehow, I managed to stay mostly upright and took off down the path of smashed brush and snapped branches. It was a pretty clear shot to the Cullens' driveway, but it was almost two hundred yards to travel. No way could I run the entire distance.
As the crashing sounds and animalistic screaming and growling started behind me, though, my body took over. I didn't stop for a moment.
My heart was racing.
Breaths sounded more like gasping for air.
The entire time, I was calling out to God, Jesus, and anyone else who'd listen to come help me. To get me through this run. To make sure I lived.
I didn't look behind me. I didn't dare look behind me. The path curved a little as it went, but I wasn't going to run the risk that it hadn't curved enough. Without a doubt in my mind, I wasn't ready to see whatever it was that was making those horrible sounds.
One animal screamed so loudly that I felt it in my teeth. No other way to describe the gut-wrenching sound. Oh God, it had to have been a wolf. The La Push wolves? Whatever kind of creature it was, it was in a fuck of a lot of pain. The answering howls and snarls told me its friends were pissed off.
And then noises got even louder.
My vision began to wall off around the edges after I'd been running for what felt like forever. The blackness came closer and closer to the center as I ran, and I found that I was starting to clumsily reach out for trees to catch myself from careening head first into their trunks.
"Oh God…Oh God. Jesus fuck…Oh God, help me…Oh God…Oh God."
The exit to the clearing with the big, white, shuttered-up house and the safety of my car was finally visible. My legs were screaming at me to stop almost as loudly as my entire chest cavity. I couldn't breathe and my heart was in danger of beating itself to a pulp throbbing the way it was.
But I didn't care. I was almost to my patrol car. I was almost safe.
With every new step, I wondered somewhere in the back of my mind how the hell I'd have the strength to keep going, but I could still hear those God awful noises coming from the forest. There wasn't anything that would stop me now from getting to my car. Almost, now.
Ten steps.
Five steps.
Three steps.
Two.
One.
I wretched open the door I'd left unlocked and fell into my seat. My fingers fumbled with the keys, but were able to start the car without dropping them. Without hesitation, I threw my car into drive and circled it around to tear off down the driveway at breakneck speeds.
The overgrown branches brushed up against the sides of my car as I drove back to the 101, checking my rearview mirror every three seconds to make sure there wasn't any giant wolf—or whatever the hell fights with a giant wolf—trailing me.
There wasn't.
True to his word, Jacob had gotten the danger off me.
Jacob.
Without batting an eye, I had abandoned that kid in the middle of a relatively fresh crime scene with something quite clearly destructive and life-threatening. All I had thought about was saving my own sorry ass. And whether or not it's what Billy would have really wanted was completely moot.
I am a police officer. A chief. It was my duty to serve and protect, and I had just taken off.
I was a shit. I was a complete shit.
My only hope that was that those wolves were on Jacob's side, today. Or that he didn't get caught in the crossfire like last time. He told me he could handle himself, and I hoped he wasn't just feeding me a line.
By the time I reached the 101 and peeled out onto the open road, my heart had at least calmed down enough that I wasn't concerned about needing to detour over to Forks General. But I was still breathing hard, though, and each raw breath reminded me of my coward's way out.
Whatever was out there in those woods, I knew in my gut that Bella was wrapped up in it, somehow. She had to have known way more than she let on about the Quileutes and the Cullens, and it had been dangerous enough to make her feel she needed to leave Forks—and me—for good.
I had thought I was ready to face what Bella had dealing with before leaving Forks. After everything I had uncovered and spending years around Billy and Harry, I thought I could handle anything. Even it—the secret. Not only was I cop, I was also a dad that missed his daughter. There wasn't going to be a danger on this earth too great to keep me from figuring out this mess and getting to her. Whatever it was, I really thought I would take it in stride.
And yet when push came to shove, that's not what happened.
The wolves were right there. Jacob was right there. Whatever the hell was the making my skin crawl was right there. I was finally standing practically on top of the last puzzle pieces, and I just turned tail and ran for the hills. This had been the universe's way of testing me to see if I was ready to tackle whatever truth could be coming my way.
I failed.
I wasn't ready.
But I knew I could be ready when Jake came to find me.
Alice had made me promise that I wouldn't go researching any of the Quileute legends online because it wasn't safe, and for the first time, the scary shit that went down in those woods had given me a heaping helping of reality. I'd be listening to her warning if she said it was too dangerous. I was obviously in over my head. But in the meantime, I needed to figure out a way to brace myself for what Jacob was going to tell me. I'm sure his explanation would remind me too much of the tribe's stories I'd heard more times than I could really say, and I needed to not laugh in his face like I had his father so many times. What I'd just experienced was deadly serious. Wading much further into the river I knew would change me.
All I knew for sure was that for Bella, I would figure out a way to be okay with it. When Jake came to see me, I was going to be ready to listen.
The very second I got home and locked the door, my jacket and holster were already coming off. In reality, I'd only been out of the house for a little over and hour and a half, but my entire world had shifted in the course of those ninety or so minutes.
The La Push wolves were real. They were really, really real. Jacob hadn't denied it, and he didn't need to. Those growls and the sounds of the fight as I ran said more than enough. All I could hope was that the boys were able to stay clear of the actual fight itself this time, and that the injured mutt didn't turn on one of them in fear.
Of course, even if the boys did get in the way of a stray claw here or there, the Elders could just whip up another batch of that herbal miracle drug they had to be pumping into all of them. Jake had looked seriously worse for wear just a few short days ago. The healing I'd seen on him today was almost beyond my understanding. Maybe I shouldn't have worried about Seth so much. If Jacob had bounced back so completely, I'm sure Harry's boy was doing just fine, too.
I didn't even try to cover up the huge yawn I let out as I walked to the couch. That sprint had used up about a year's worth of energy reserves, and I had a feeling that no amount of caffeine was going to do for me what a little old-fashioned sleep could do. Even though it was just past eleven in the morning, a nap was going to have to take first priority over everything else. Jacob was busy now, anyways. As I stretched out on the couch, I figured I'd just shut my eyes for a moment while the boys…did…whatever it was they did out there with the wolves that shouldn't be real. When they were back and settled in at home, he'd call. Then maybe I'd finally get my answers.
Almost as soon as I closed my eyes, my cell phone rang. I was pretty impressed at how quick Jacob and the rest of them had gotten the situation under control when I read the caller ID.
The station.
"Damn," I mumbled, my voice more roughed up than normal.
Did that mean I actually slept? A glance at the clock on my cell told me that not only had I been asleep, I'd been asleep for over four hours. I guess running for your life from a pack of overgrown wolves and whatever their enemy is really takes it outta you.
"Swan," I answered before it stopped ringing.
"Chief, glad I finally got you," our dispatcher, Maggie, said. The tone in her voice immediately set my hair on end. Something was definitely wrong. "I'm so sorry to call you on your day off, Charlie, but you'd better get down here."
There was really only one reason Maggie would be calling me in on a Saturday. My stomach felt like it was on a free fall clear down to my feet. "Brian?"
Maggie didn't say anything right away, but her pause told me everything I needed to know. I could hear her sniffing a couple times on the other end before she took a shaky breath and answered, "Martinez is requesting you to join him. There's no…We don't have Delaney, but Steve is saying that SAR did find enough to call you in. CSI is already on scene."
I rubbed a hand roughly over my face, partly to wipe away the sleep as fast as I could, and partly because I really didn't want this to be happening. Brian was a good man and a damn good cop. "Where am I headed?"
Please, not the Cullens' house. Please, God, not the Cullens' house.
Thankfully, that wasn't where they needed me. I recognized the area as being near where Brian had last been reported. More forest, of course. No escaping that in our little backwater town.
I thanked Maggie and hung up. My alerts showed that she had tried calling me three times before I had finally picked up on the fourth attempt. Damn. I'd slept like the dead. Hadn't done that in a good long while.
What wasn't along with the missed calls was any notification of a missed call from Jacob, or anyone else on the rez for that matter. Praying wasn't usually my thing, but it did feel good now and then. I looked up at the ceiling and said, "God, if you could keep your eyes out for Jake and all of 'em out there, that'd be really nice. I'm pretty worried about them. Could be in over their heads out there."
That would have to do for now. I pried my stiff body off the couch and headed back to the coat hanger to grab my stuff. Even though I wasn't completely sure what to expect when I got to the scene, I had a feeling it was going to be a rough day.
"Okay, thanks for the update. Keep me posted," I said to the uni on the other end of the line before putting the phone back down on its base.
As I tried to keep my breathing as even as possible, I put my elbows on my desk and dropped my head heavily into my hands. We had bitten off way more than we could chew with this investigation, and between that and the fact that Jacob's crew still wasn't back, I had no idea what my next move should be.
It had been two days since I'd tucked tail and run from a bunch of kids in danger. Two days since I'd abandoned them in the woods to save my own sorry neck. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that I was just doing what Jacob had wanted me to do. I wouldn't have been any help, anyway, if the noise I heard behind me had been an indication. Still, it didn't stop me from feeling like an asshole for leaving them the way I did. I just wished I knew if they were okay.
I hadn't been able to find out from anyone down at the rez about how the boys were doing. Even they didn't know. That was the worst part. Yesterday, I called Rachel when Jake's cell went directly to voice mail three times. The news that they still weren't back had shocked me pretty good, but she didn't seem too concerned.
Was this normal for them? Did they take off on adventures protecting La Push and Forks often enough that not coming home wasn't something to worry about? Well, I was going to just have to worry enough for the both of us, then. Because where I come from, people not coming home is the first sign that something very bad happened.
And we already had enough of that in spades.
On Saturday, I had gotten called in because SAR had found an engraved pen that belonged to Brian. They set up a grid search in the area and found a human finger with a length of tendon still attached. Most of the skin and muscle had been gnawed off, but my team is confident there's enough there to test DNA. Now it was just a waiting game.
Unfortunately, the evidence we found meant that as of Saturday, I had to officially mark Brian's case as a homicide. And that just fucking sucked.
To make matters worse, the search for any further evidence was getting seriously held back by our canines' refusal to track scents. One of my uniforms, Montgomery, had just called to tell me that Port Angeles's department canine, Blitz, had also refused to track any scents out on the field. This coming just a day after Ice had done the same. While his handler was getting concerned that there was something wrong with the dog, I was starting to think I knew better.
We'd gotten plenty of rain in the past week, but the thick canopy above was sheltering the ground and preserving the scent.
It was only going to be a matter of time before the other guys started wondering the same thing—is it really the dog that's the problem, or is it something about the scent it's trying to track? I doubted that any of them would remember anything about the same thing happening with Bella and Edward's accident years ago since it wasn't even our jurisdiction, and I knew that their line of thinking wouldn't exactly lead them to wolves and worse. Still, I didn't think it was wise to have the others poking their noses into this whole mess. I may not know much about mutant animals, but I wasn't born yesterday. The secret getting out was probably not something that would be tolerated, especially since the Cullens had gone to ridiculously expensive lengths to keep even me in the dark. More people finding out wouldn't end well. I could feel it.
Which is why my department was in way too deep with this investigation. How was I supposed to allow this circus to continue knowing that by sending my guys into those woods, I was possibly putting them right into the line of fire with a bunch of creatures they didn't even know existed? We didn't have the Quileute Elders' magic potion. I couldn't keep them safe.
Hell, I hadn't been able to keep anyone safe, up to this point.
"Chief? Have you gotten a chance to—" Steve's voice stopped abruptly, probably because he saw me sitting at my desk the way I was. I lifted my face from my hands as he continued, "Jeez, Charlie, are you alright?"
No.
"Yeah, I'm okay. I don't know. I was just…thinking. What can I do for you?"
Steve looked me over a couple times before apparently deciding to just run with it. "Uh, I reached out to the state patrol lab. They said that they're working a little ahead of schedule on the prints we lifted from Brian's car. We should have the complete print analysis package back in maybe five to seven more business days."
"That's not terrible. Sooner than I was expecting," I said.
"Well, they know the…you know, the situation going on down here. I think they might have bumped us to the top of the list."
I nodded. "Appreciate that. Did you—"
"—thank them?" Steve finished for me. "Naturally."
"Good."
"If you don't need me for anything here, I'm going to go on out and check in with Search and Rescue. Banes just called me pretty upset. Said that the dog from PA didn't want to follow the trail, either?"
Shit. Here we go.
I leaned back in my chair. "Yeah. Got a similar call from Montgomery."
"What the hell do you think is going on down there? Two dogs refusing the scent seems a little weird to me."
"Guess it does," I agreed. "Thoughts?"
Even though my question seemed purely innocent, I felt like I had tossed a big grenade right into the middle of the room. Almost found myself cringing waiting for it to go off. What was Steve going to think of the information he had? There wasn't anything that would lead him back to the Quileutes or the Cullens, at least I hoped.
That was the weird part. I really did find myself wanting to protect everyone from Steve's stupid poking around—the Cullens and the boys from having their secret figured out, and any of my guys from whatever punishment might be waiting for people who aren't supposed to know the truth…and do. People like me. I couldn't imagine it was a certificate of achievement for keen detective skills or a lifetime supply of beer.
But I wasn't going to apologize for feeling that way. I just wanted everyone safe. Was this how Billy felt all these years, chasing me away from the truth? All those times the boys had run around without their damn clothes on, or whenever something made me think about Bella's accident. Billy knew the whole time. Was he always nervous that I might figure out the truth?
"I have no fucking clue," Steve finally said. "Maybe some kind of toxin that the perp had gotten on his clothes? Maybe he works with hazardous materials? Maybe we could try looking into that. What else would make two separate dogs balk at a scent trail?"
Big ass wolves and their enemies.
"Beats the hell outta me," I said. "Might be an avenue to explore. So alright, listen. Get on out there and keep me in the loop. You find anything, I wanna know."
Steve nodded and left me alone with my thoughts. Seemed like the secret or secrets were safe, for now. But I was sure how much weird crap could keep happening around here before someone else started to question it. Until I knew more myself, there wasn't a damn thing I could do.
That left me twiddling my thumbs until I heard from Jacob or Alice.
Whenever the hell that would be.
"I really don't know what you want me to say," Rachel said, the edge in her voice becoming easier and easier for me to hear.
"I want you to say you'll stop playing games with me!" I yelled.
Okay, I probably didn't need to yell at her. That was pretty shitty of me. After all, the last week since I'd seen Jacob had been really hard on everyone. We were both under a mountain of stress.
Apparently she agreed. "Charlie, I'm not playing any games with you. I'm just as worried as you are, but I have to trust that Paul and Jacob will reach out to me when they can. They're just…They're just out of town, right now. That's really all I know."
I rubbed my hand over my eyes. "Can you promise me that you'll call the second you or Emily hears from them? I really need to talk to Jacob."
"Yes, like I've said every day you've called, I'll let you know as soon as they make contact with us," Rachel said. "Still not sharing exactly what happened between the two of you?"
"That's between Jake and me. Not like any of you have been overly sharing when I was the one asking the questions."
Rachel sighed. "Touché, I guess. Alright, Charlie. Please take care of yourself."
I promised her I would and ended the call. It wasn't like I was lying or anything, but at this point, I wasn't sure how to do that.
Ten days.
Ten days with absolutely no word from Jacob or any of them.
Even Rachel was starting to get concerned. She never said anything, but each day I called, she seemed a little less confident that one of them would be reaching out soon. Every time I asked her if it was still normal for them to be incommunicado like this, she stopped answering with, "Everything is going to be alright," two days ago.
That's how I knew—we had now officially gone beyond the longest they'd been away.
To make matters worse, it had already been two weeks since Alice had called. I half considered trying to research the old Quileute legends in the hopes that it would somehow make her possibly-psychic radar start buzzing.
No luck.
So here I was, completely cut off from the Cullens again and with no word from the La Push boys and their wolves. Somehow, I had to try and deal with the homicide of one of our own at the same time, whose death seemed to somehow almost impossibly be tied to the pack of wolves and whatever it was that made the Cullens so horrible.
As I walked quickly down the hallway to our little debriefing room at the station, I had to wonder if the fingerprint analysis that we had finally gotten back was about to finally shed some damn light onto this investigation, or if it was only going to complicate things further. It sure as shit better help because I wasn't sure how much more of the freaky crap I could handle around here.
My two detectives, Meaghan Green and Rick Morgan, were already in the conference room with the print analysis was spread all over the table in front of them. One look at their faces told me everything I needed to know. This was definitely about to complicate things further.
"We just waiting on Martinez?" I asked.
Meaghan nodded. "Mmm-hmm. We'll update you both on the situation. It's…interesting."
"Interesting? What do you mean?"
The two detectives shared a look between the two of them before Rick replied, "It's hard to explain without getting into too much detail, but we really have no idea what to do with what we got back."
I rolled my eyes. "Well, that's just great news, folks. Really. Best news I've heard all week."
Meaghan was about to say something when Steve came barreling into the room. "Sorry, guys. Nature called in a big way. We ready?"
Finally.
"Yes, if you're both ready?" Meaghan asked.
When I gestured for her to take it away, she continued, "Okay, so our combined teams were able to capture complete or partial prints from several locations in the car. The prints came from the steering wheel, gear shift, turn signal, headlights, audio system dials, glove compartment, various flat surfaces along the dashboard, and all four doors and were representative of all five digits."
Meghan slid a number of pages across the table at me, showing me all the prints that had been collected. Quite a few of them seemed to repeat themselves. Brian's. "Tell me at least a couple of these are from our guy," I said.
"Absolutely," Meaghan said. "Most of the prints were Brian's, of course. But the good news is that some found on the steering wheel, gear shirt, and driver's side door were not his. According to the analysis, they all belonged to one individual. We're presuming our guy had expected to return to the patrol car for him not to have wiped anything down at all."
"Okay," I said. "So everything I'm hearing sounds like more than we were even hoping for. But if you're telling me that's the good news, then I take it there's bad news right there along with it? Let's hear it."
"Here's where it gets weird," Rick said as he isolated out the handful of prints that belonged to our guy. "These prints all came from the same man, reported missing in Billings, Montana."
Steve shrugged. "Yeah? And?"
"Reported missing in Billings, Montana," Rick said, "in 1958."
A long moment passed in silence as Steve and I looked at each other while working out the numbers in our heads. I could tell the very second Steve figured out what I just had—it just wasn't possible. There must be some sort of misunderstanding.
When we turned back to Meaghan and Rick, they were both sitting there nodding at us in understanding. It was the reaction they'd been waiting for. We hadn't miscalculated.
But we had to have.
I adjusted my position in my seat so that I could lean forward more and put my arms on the table. "1958?"
"That's what the lab analysis says, yes. A Donald Heroldson," Rick said, reading from the lab report. "Aged twenty-one at the time of his disappearance. Arrested in October 1956 as part of a brawl in a local bar. Paid fines but didn't serve any time. His parents reported him missing in May of 1958. Declared legally dead in absentia in 1965."
"1958?" I asked again. "Our perp was reported missing in 1958?"
Steve shook his head. "No, that doesn't make sense. If he was twenty-one in 1958, that would make him…"
When my deputy began floundering for the rest of his sentence, Meaghan finished for him, "That would make him seventy-four years old here in 2011. Yes."
"We tried to warn you it was an interesting development," Rick added.
"Now, wait just a damn minute," I said. "We are not honestly suggesting that a seventy-four year old man abducted a police officer, possibly murdered him, dragged the body through the woods, and stole the patrol car. That's not possible."
Rick replied, "We don't know what to think, Chief. Meg and I went through the same shock you both are right now. The best explanation we've been able to come up with is that Donald has been a vagrant, or at least was at one time. Maybe he stumbled across the car and become confused?"
Yeah, and then drive it to the Cullens' house? That smelled awfully fishy to me.
"But what about Ice not following the perp's scent at the Cullen residence or at our investigation site where Brian went missing? How the hell does that fit in?" Steve asked.
Shit. There was a reason I brought Steve up as my deputy. He was incredibly bright, and I should have known that he'd connect the dots just as fast as I would. I so didn't want to be going down this path, right now, but he continued, "Wouldn't that suggest that the same perp we're looking for in Brian's murder is the same one who also went missing on the Cullens' property?"
Meaghan nodded. "Well, there is that. We don't really have answer for that, just yet. But at least we have a person of interest. Who feels like putting out the APB on a dead guy?"
When I noticed all eyes had fallen on me, I realized that I was the lucky bastard that got to do that. "Aw, hell. Okay, I've got it. Gonna be the laughing stock of the entire state, but that'll be my problem. Green, Morgan, you two keep doing what you do best. Get me absolutely everything there is to know about this guy, and then figure out just how in the hell a seventy-four year old could have pulled all this off right under our noses. Good luck with that."
I stood up and gestured for Steve to walk with me out of the debriefing room. "Steve, I want you to go join up with SAR and see how their search is coming along. I need more than a set of lifted prints from some old guy that couldn't possibly have taken a guy Brian's size any day. There's gotta be something out there in those woods, and I need you to go make sure they're finding it immediately."
"You got it, Chief," Steve said before heading over to grab his jacket.
Things were getting weirder and weirder around here. And without any way to track down either Alice or Jacob, the waiting game just continued. I only hoped I could hold Forks together long enough to hear from one of them.
I checked my phone to makes sure I hadn't missed any calls during the meeting, even though I knew what I'd see looking back at me.
No missed calls.
Damn.
"Here you go. Careful, it's still pretty hot," Emily said as she handed me a mug of coffee.
When I had come down to the rez to confront Rachel about why the hell I still hadn't heard from Jacob, I wasn't exactly surprised when she wasn't at home to see her sitting on Emily's porch. But I was a little surprised to see Sue right there with them.
Tomorrow would be two weeks since whatever had happened in the forest behind the Cullens' place. Any fight that had been in my sails when I pulled up to the house completely disappeared when I saw the toll the boys' absence had taken on these three women. With as badly as I needed to have my mystery solved, I guess I'd forgotten that their husbands, brothers, and children were out there. They weren't my enemy. I could understand that fear better than anyone.
Without much fuss, Emily invited me inside with them and offered me a cup of coffee. Since Billy's passing, I hadn't felt the same feeling of home on the rez. It was like I'd suddenly become an intruder because I knew more than they wanted me to. Sitting here with Emily, Sue, and Rachel was the first time being back here felt right.
"You haven't heard from them at all, then?" I asked.
Rachel shook her head. "No, there hasn't been anything. It's so unlike them to just be completely off the grid like this."
"They left all their cell phones here, but they've done that plenty of times before. In the past, that hasn't stopped them from making contact. One of them has always gotten word to us," Emily added.
"Usually Seth. He'd always make I knew he was okay," Sue whispered.
I hated hearing the hopelessness in her voice. I knew that tone. It was the same tone that all parents take when they know something terrible has happened to their kid, but haven't quite been able to say the words, yet. As a cop, I've had to deal with that more times than I would have liked to, but as a dad—that was hell on Earth.
Without really even thinking about it, I reached over and laid my hand on Sue's. "It's gonna be alright. Those boys can take care of themselves."
Sue nodded, but didn't say anything. When I saw her staring at my hand on hers, I pulled mine away. The old feelings of rejection started creeping back just like they had when she'd shut me out after Bella's accident. Off course, that quickly started turning into anger as I realized she probably knew Bella was still out there somewhere—had known all along. Now was definitely not the time for that, but one day it would be.
Ignoring the a part of me screaming to get into it with Sue, I asked, "Did they say anything to you before they left?"
"No, nothing. I mean, we knew that something was up. They left pretty quickly," Rachel said. "Which is typical for…this kind of situation in the past. They just have never been gone this long, and definitely not without reaching out to us."
I really hated that after everything that had happened over the last month, they still felt like they couldn't just be honest with me. The vague crap had gotten old a long time ago. Fine. Two could play and that game. "You know, I saw Jacob right before they took off, I think. In the forest behind the Cullens' place."
That got their attention. All eyes were on me, but none of the girls said anything. "I take it you didn't know?"
"No, no we didn't," Emily said.
Rachel narrowed her eyes at me for the quickest second before she nodded. "That thing that happened between you and Jake. It was then, wasn't it? Something happened. Something more than another disagreement. That's what you've been keeping from us."
Where Jacob had some of his dad in him—his lighthearted spirit and county-clearing temper—he has always been much more like his mom. Rachel was sharp as a tack and all Billy. Never more so than this moment.
"You got me," I said.
Rachel asked, "When was this?"
"Maybe 9, 9:30 in the morning."
Rachel leaned forward. "That would have been after they left here in a hurry. What were you doing there? I thought the investigation was over."
And how exactly would you know that?
I decided not to comment on how she should have no reason to know the comings and goings of my department, unless of course, someone from the rez had been keeping an eye on the investigation site. "I'm not one to be a desk jockey. If I'm gonna work on solving something, I need to see it for myself. And after I'd spend days coordinating all the staff from the command center, I hadn't really had a chance to see the damage for myself in my own time. Hell of a disaster out there."
Not one of them took my bait any further than they already had, not that I'd been expecting them to. "Anyway, I was out there when Jacob just kind of appeared. Nearly scared me half to death."
Which is why I drew my gun on my best friend's son.
Sure as hell wasn't sharing that part.
"So, did he say anything to you?" Rachel asked. "Did he look alright? Were the rest of them there?"
I had two choices. I could hold my cards close to my chest and not give them any of the courtesies they had denied me. After all, when I was begging them to tell me more about my daughter, who I thought had been killed in the woods by a bear—but who my best friend was saying was actually alive out there—none of them stepped up. They let me roll around in my frustration and confusion.
The other choice was to tell them everything I saw out there in the hopes that now, finally, they would tell me something.
As satisfying as the first choice would be after they'd hiding so much from me for so long, I chose the second path. Without Jake or Alice's help, they may wind up being my only hope. "He honestly didn't say much to me."
"But they were okay?" Rachel asked me again.
"It was just Jake. He made it seem like maybe the rest of them were out there somewhere, but he was the only once I could see. The last time I saw him, he didn't have a scratch on him. But that was before…"
Emily and Rachel sat quietly waiting for me to continue, but my cop's eye saw Sue's pinch at the corners. Something told me she was beginning to realize how far into this I really was. This time, it was Sue who reached out to me and laid a hand on my forearm. "It's okay, Charlie. I know we haven't been as forthcoming as you would have hoped, but if you saw something…"
"I didn't. See something, I mean," I answered. Sue pulled her hand back and gestured for me to continue. "But I did hear a whole mess of stuff."
"What do you mean? What did Jake tell you?" Rachel asked with the same edge in her voice she'd been taking every time I brought up the mess with her dad's letter or the boys' disappearance.
Did she think that Jacob had some loose lips? No worrying about that needed. "Nothing. Of course he didn't tell me anything. As always. Said he wished he could, but he couldn't. And then all he kept saying was that I needed to leave. That it was too dangerous. Over and over again he said it."
"And did you?" Emily asked.
"I wasn't going to," I admitted. "There's only so many times a man can hear that something is too dangerous before it becomes this things he has to do. But I tell you what, there was something in those woods, that day. It had pretty Jacob spooked."
All three of them exchanged looks with one another before Rachel asked, "Did he say what it was? A bear, maybe?"
I fought the almost overwhelming urge to roll my eyes. "No. I asked him if it was the gigantic wolves from the rez, actually."
"You asked him, what?" Rachel asked loudly.
"The wolves. I asked him if that's what was watching us. Jacob made it seem like we were being stalked."
Emily's expression matched her friend's shock, but it was Sue's expression that interested me. Rather than looking shocked, she looked more resigned, like she'd been expecting this. Her sad, small smile got a little bigger when I made eye contact with her.
When I didn't say anything more, Rachel asked, "What did Jacob say?"
"What did Jacob say when?"
"When you asked him if it was the wolves?"
I shrugged. "He said whatever was watching us was way worse than the wolves. I know whatever it was out there, they hurt those boys pretty good a few days before." I looked at Sue and continued, "And I know Seth was messed up bad that day."
Looking back to the rest of them, I said, "Suddenly I got it. I didn't know what was out there, but I felt the danger, almost as easy as I can feel this table and cup under my hands. I can't explain it, but I knew that all those warnings weren't just crap."
"They weren't," Emily said quietly.
I acknowledged her with a nod. "I know that now. But it doesn't make what I did any better."
"What did you do?" Sue asked.
"Jacob told me that they could handle whatever it was out there in those woods. I shouldn't ever have believed him. They're still so young. But I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe that there wasn't anything I could do just so I could get the hell out of there as fast as I could."
I paused for a moment to bow my head. This next part was what I'd been dreading for the last couple weeks to ever admit to these women. I had been the adult, the professional police officer, and yet I'd left their loved ones alone to fight God only knew what. After a couple shuddering breaths hadn't gotten me ready enough to own up to my mistake, Sue spoke instead. "Charlie, did you listen to Jacob and your instincts? Did you leave?"
I couldn't respond to her. How could I? What was I even supposed to say? Yep, damn straight I did. Left my best friend's son and probably yours, too, in the forest to fight alongside one kind of hell beast to defeat another. By themselves, of course.
And all to save my sorry skin.
"Charlie?" Sue asked. When I didn't move or answer in any way, she repeated herself. "Charlie?"
"What?" I responded, finally picking up my head to meet her eyes.
I was surprised to not see any of the judgement or anger I had expected. Actually, Sue's face seemed fairly relaxed, given the circumstances. Tense in places where the stress was peeking through, but overall…almost kind? "Charlie, you did what everyone has been asking you to do. Seth, Leah, Jacob, Sam, Paul…none of them would have wanted you caught in the crossfire. You know that's true."
"A part of me didn't want to run. I didn't think I could do that to Billy. In the end, I did. Once Jake gave me the signal to run, the noise began. There's no way I would have stopped running once I heard the growls and the…God, I can't even describe it." I shook my head. "But I shouldn't have run. It was my job to protect them, but I didn't. Now they're out there alone somewhere. That should have been me there with them. It's my job."
"See, and that's where you have your wires crossed, Charlie," Rachel said. "It's their job to protect you and everyone else. And no one is better equipped to do that than them. You wouldn't have been able to help. We all know that. It's okay that you got to safety."
Before I could argue further, Sue said, "That's enough of this talk. It's not getting us anywhere. None of us here blame you, Charlie. You kept yourself safe, and that is the most important part. There are people who still walk this earth who'd be very upset if you were taken from us."
Sue looked at each one of the girls in turn before saying, "Charlie, what is out in those woods is not for me to divulge. Even Jacob may not be forthcoming with you as it is the chief's final call whether or not we may cross a line and share sensitive information with you."
"But you know," I said.
It wasn't a question.
"I do." Sue gestured to Emily and Rachel. "We all do. It is a carefully guarded secret that simply isn't ours to tell."
Then whose secret is it? Why would they be protecting dangerous creatures that had pulled their families from their homes?
And then it hit me. The Cullens.
It was their secret. Of course it was.
My chest suddenly felt like someone had dropped an anvil on it. Breathing was becoming increasingly more challenging as more and more of what I had guessed about the connection between the Quileutes and Cullens was turning out to be true. I had to know. "It's the Cullens' secret, isn't it? The treaty Jake was talking about?"
Sue actually smiled at my question. Not really the response I was bracing myself for. "You really are one of the smartest men I know. When I took Harry's spot on the Elders Council, it was originally as a placeholder until Seth or Leah was ready for it. But I found I love protecting my people in any way I can, and through them, I have been able to do just that. But it's allowed me to do more than just protect. I am quite familiar with what I can and cannot do as an Elder. And I know that while I can't go sharing others' secrets without penalty, I do have more leverage with those secrets that belong to the tribe."
"And those would be?"
"Charlie, the wolves are mighty," Sue began, taking on the same tone of voice that Billy had always used when telling his tales about them. In awe, maybe? I couldn't think of the word, but it was like they were sacred. "I know you must have been very scared to hear their calls and the sounds of their battle, but they're strong. The creatures in the forest don't stand against them. The wolves have the numbers, and they have the strength."
Was this really happening? Was I really not a crazy old man with crazy old theories? A part of me always clung to the fear that I was losing my mind after all these years carrying the burden of my daughter's death. Could it really be possible that it was all real?
The look on my face must have given my thoughts away, because Sue continued, "I know this is probably a shock. Thinking you know something that seems impossible to be true and knowing it beyond any doubt can be very bewildering. It's something the three of us have all had to come to terms with."
"And everyone here," I said gesturing to the air to symbolize the Quileute Nation, "knows the truth? That the wolves from your stories are true?"
The words weren't even completely out of my mouth before all three women shake their heads. "No, and they can't know," Rachel said.
"Why not? It's your people's secret to tell. Wouldn't that make everyone safer?"
Sue shook her head. "No, not necessarily. The wolves stand as our protectors. In turn, we keep them as safe from the outside world as we can. The fewer people who know of their existence, the more safe the wolves will be. There are some out there who would not be able to resist the temptation the challenge beating them would present, and so we safeguard the secret."
"Even when that means the rest of our people not understanding our anguish when the boys are just 'out of town,'" Emily said.
"Or when those we care about come here begging for answers we can't give," Sue added, her eyebrows scrunched up.
"So then, why tell me?" I asked. "If the secret is so dangerous to your people, why did you share it with me?"
Sue smiled, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. I hated seeing her this sad. "Because, Charlie, Rachel's father set the wheels in motion. Seeing and hearing the things you have in the last few weeks will only lead you to seek out the answers, yourself. I cannot in good faith allow you to do that. The consequences are steep if you stumble across the wrong source."
"But Bella knew. About the wolves. She spent so much time here that spring. She had to have known."
"She did."
"But you're not going to tell me how she knew?"
"Oh, I can tell you that easily enough," Sue replied. "Jacob."
Before I could even start asking my next question, Sue said, "Charlie, I think we've shared much with you here, today. Even if all the secrets were mine to share with you, I could not and would not proceed without the consent of the rest of the council. Of course, that having been said, Harry and Billy weren't always the best at keeping everything to themselves."
I rolled my eyes. "No kidding. There's a letter with my name on it that's definitely Exhibit A."
"Well, yes," Sue said. There was a lighter quality to her voice, but she still wasn't smiling. Not the time for jokes, I guess. "Charlie, I think somewhere along the line, one of them might have told you the story, or at least part of it, when they were still with us. Telling our stories to you wasn't something either one of them took lightly. Did you know they had to get clearance with the council to even go that far?" I shook my head. "They did. We protect our histories and our traditions above almost all else. Yet, both Harry and Billy wanted you to be a part of that. Wanted you to be a part of us. Billy, especially. Whatever happens next, all I ask is that you try not to be too upset with them for not saying anything."
"Not promising that."
Sue nodded. "Maybe with some time, then."
Sure. Time would make the fact that there really was a mythical, mutated wolf pack living on the Quileutes' land as their protectors, and that my best friend had lied to me about it for years, at least by omission all better.
I took a huge swig of my coffee. Forgiving any of them wasn't something I would even know how to begin doing until I could get my arms around my daughter, again.
The next morning, I woke up with a start. What the hell? The last thing I remembered was falling into my bed half asleep after trying with some success to push all the mystical crap from the day outta my head with some basketball and a generous dose of Vitamin R.
As I sat up in bed, I realized pretty quickly what had woken me up so suddenly. Someone was pounding over and over on the front door like they were trying to take the damn thing clean off its hinges.
"What the hell?" I mumbled to myself as I threw my sweatpants on over my boxers.
I pulled a shirt over my head and hit the home button on my phone to check the time. That's when I saw them—thirteen missed calls and thirteen voicemails.
All from Jacob.
How the hell did I sleep through that?
Figuring who was likely the one responsible for all the commotion, I jogged down the stairs as fast as my stiff joints would take me. The force of all that banging was making the shelves rattle in the kitchen.
"Alright, alright!" I yelled when I was almost at the door.
As soon as everything was unlocked and open, Jacob Black stood in front of me in the doorway, or at least a beaten down and broken version of the kid I was used to seeing.
He looked like complete crap.
"Oh, God. Finally," he said as his shoulders heaved up and down.
Was he out of breath from knocking on my front door?
"Jake, where the hell have you—"
"No time," Jacob said, holding up his hand. "The rules just changed, Charlie. I'll tell you anything you wanna know. Just promise me you can help me get them here, like, yesterday."
I must have looked as confused as I felt, because he added, "The Cullens. We need their help. Now."
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