The local library had a glut of information about the Quileute. Different authors offered different perspectives on the situation, some lamenting and others lauding, but I was able to learn the boundaries I needed. One of the more recent books—more of a pamphlet, really—was aimed at tourists like myself, and so I learned of the markers that would alert me whose land I was trespassing. Sometimes there would be a labeled fence, other times the marker was obvious, in the case of a river border.

Unfortunately, I lost myself in the research for several hours. As I came out of the reverie, I argued within myself. On the one hand, the research had provided precisely the information I needed. On the other, I had spent much more time than necessary, satisfying my curiosity about these humans and their history. Under normal circumstances, I would have just let the lapse fade without too much self-recrimination, but I'd missed something crucial.

Nearly the first thing I heard as I exited the library was mention of another 'bear attack.' My head snapped toward the speakers, a couple teenagers walking past, speaking in hushed tones. Careful to walk quietly and at a careful distance, I followed and listened more closely.

"You can stay at my place tonight, man," the first guy said. "I can't believe a bear came so close. That was your neighbor! What if the thing's still around?"

"I mean," replied the other guy, "I've seen them before, out in the woods. But they never come nearer than, like, a hundred feet or whatever."

"What do you think he did to antagonize it?"

The second guy shook his head. "Nah man, you must've never met Waylon. Guy was super careful around wildlife. He wouldn't've been stupid enough to do that."

"So what, it snuck up on him?" asked the first, incredulously. "Just… what? Swam up to his boat and merced him like a Navy Seal?"

I tuned out the rest of the conversation and turned away. I had the information I needed. The name Waylon sounded familiar—maybe I'd met him at Carver's?—but I knew there were only a few lakeside properties. If these teenagers were worried about proximity, that reduced the number of properties to two: the only ones with nearby neighbors. I flipped the metaphorical coin and chose one, dashing off in that direction.

I wasn't able to dash for long. I felt her iron attention before I saw Bella Swan; I skidded to a halt and resumed walking normally, desperately hoping that her attention had been fleeting. I watched her and her father drive past, heading away from my destination and toward the precinct. Our eyes met for a second, long enough for me to see recognition enter them, then suspicion. Then the vehicle passed and the moment was over.

Kuso.

She'd noticed me slowing down. I hated how her bizarre immunity constantly got in the way, forcing me into unwanted situations and inconvenient action. Now I just had to hope that she'd forget; it was a slim hope, but bolstered ever-so-slightly by the grief I'd seen on her father's face. If she was busy comforting him, she might discount whatever oddness she'd noticed in me. Maybe.

When I arrived at the lakeside home, I immediately knew I'd chosen correctly. There were still a couple cop cars parked outside the place, with police milling about. I cursed again as I saw they had K9 units. I should have expected that, since they were assuming it was a bear attack. But it meant I had to keep my distance, lest the dogs, whose attention I could not affect, notice me. Most of the time I was grateful my gift had no effect on animals; if it did, then walking anywhere would feel like constantly scrubbing my face clean of cobwebs as every bird, rodent, and insect noticed me. But times like this? When I was mere meters away from the next clue toward my quarry?

Endless frustration.

I found myself gritting my teeth as I waited for the canines to finish sniffing around. Eventually their handlers packed them away and I was able to sneak into Waylon's home. As I entered, the man's scent hit me and I immediately remembered. I had met him before, and it had been at Carver's. I'd seen him there many times with Charlie Swan. The two had seemed close friends, which explained the grief I'd noticed earlier. I followed the scent of blood out the back of the house to a small dock that had a small, bloody boat floating in the water. Eager to get my next clue, I jumped up onto the boat, rocking it with my weight.

Different parts of the boat were marked with forensic notes, and to my dismay one of those markers marked not a body, but the chalk outline of a body. I stomped in frustration, rocking the boat further. I knew what I'd find in the bloodstains and boat damage, it was the body I'd needed to see. But they'd already carted the body off, probably to the morgue. If I hadn't spent so much time in the library, I would have been able to learn so much more.

"Someone in there?"

I froze, then leaped onto the dock and launched myself at a low angle into the woods beside the lake. From my landing point I watched as a lone officer stepped up to the boat and looked around suspiciously. He didn't think to check fifty yards away across the lake—why would he—but he did obviously take note of the rocking boat. He called something in on his radio, then left.

I berated myself for the idiot I was again. I kept letting emotional motivations get in the way of my investigation. Curiosity about local history made me late to the scene of this crime, recrimination over the curiosity nearly revealed my nature to Bella, and frustration over another setback let a human nearly sneak up on me. I closed my eyes and took deep, unnecessary breaths. They still worked to calm me somewhat. I ran through what I knew and concluded that it would be more fruitful to examine Waylon's body than to try and track the culprit vampire from here. For one thing, it would be wise to confirm with my own eyes that it was a vampire kill. For another, I was more likely to find a helpful clue there than here.

With my renewed calm in place, I made my way to the morgue. The sky had already darkened into night, and I forced myself to walk. I would not allow myself any more close calls. Besides, the hour or so it took me to walk there like a human would leave the place empty.

When I arrived, there were just two vehicles parked in the lot. One probably belonged to some night janitor, but the other was Charlie's police cruiser. I supposed grief over his friend must be keeping him here, but I could spare him little sympathy, because his presence almost certainly meant Bella's. My luck really was foul. One unlucky encounter with her and the game would be up. So I had to use more traditional methods of stealth.

I scanned the building's windows, noting which were alight and where, accordingly, the humans inside ought to be. There was a bit of light far separated from the others, with only an occasional, solitary shadow silhouetting the windows. The janitor. The others were a small cluster that I figured must be offices. They were somewhat near a section of the building with a large air conditioning unit atop it. I narrowed my eyes. All stealth was best accomplished far from watching eyes. If I could enter the morgue directly—as opposed to passing through lit areas—then my Bella problem would be a non-issue.

My luck turned, just a little. I found a window left unlatched in a back corner. Even better, it led directly into a janitor's closet. It was the kind designed to only open a few inches at the bottom, for air flow, so I had to do a little damage. I snapped the little inhibiting arms, then carefully popped the screen and climbed through. It was the kind of window that would be forgotten, and even my intrusion would be attributed to simple wear.

It was cold in the morgue—better to preserve bodies, I figured—and dimly lit by a small light in one corner. It wasn't as large as some, with drawers for maybe a couple dozen corpses. Waylon's wasn't opened; I had to open them one by one and find the one that had both a corpse and a toe-tag that noted his name. It only took a couple tries.

When I slid him out into the air, I wrinkled my nose in disgust. The body was savaged in the most extreme sense of the word. The man's face was untouched, but there were great chunks missing from his neck, his upper back, his abdomen, and his forearms. Surrounding those missing chunks, the flesh was scored with claw and teeth marks, suggesting what the assailant had used to rip the flesh away. Even for a vampire kill, it was brutal and unnecessary. I could see easily that the 'claw' marks were actually made by fingernails, and that the teeth marks were too small and dull to be bears' teeth. But the placement of each mutilation was textbook bear attack, each wound telling a story so blatant as to be immediately accepted and to convince an examiner that the inconsistent claw and teeth marks were just oddities.

But I knew better. I could see the telltale signs. The bloodstains around the wounds showed that Waylon had been almost fully exsanguinated before the mutilation. The bloodstains back at the boat, too, were too sparse for this level of destruction. There was a clean incision that opened Waylon's carotid artery, opposite the missing chunk. That had probably been opened with a fingernail. If I had to guess—and it was hardly a guess coming from me—it would be that my quarries hadn't played with their prey. Waylon was too near to civilization, and his screams had a much better chance of being heard than that poor night guard out at the Grisham Mill. The thrill of a risky kill would have replaced the fun of taunts. I could learn more if I located his personal effects, and…

I heard voices and whipped around toward them. They were muffled, but they were coming from the door that led from the offices to the morgue proper. Alarmed, I took as much time as I dared to slide Waylon's drawer shut, slow enough to make little noise but fast enough to be done in time. When I felt the thread of someone's gaze, though, I abandoned the drawer, leaving it ajar, and dashed to the janitor's closet. Maybe I hadn't noticed a window in the door to the offices? Or maybe they had heard the drawer and focused on it for a moment?

But as the voices became clearer, I recognized Charlie and Bella. The attention wouldn't have been hers. Perhaps Charlie had been the one? But no, I'd become quite familiar with the feel of his attention. This hadn't been him. Was there a silent, third person with them? That was the only explanation that made any amount of sense. I couldn't risk opening my door to verify it with sight or scent, though. Not with Bella there. So I just had to wait, and listen.

I heard the drawer—I assumed Waylon's—slide open.

"Does it really make you feel better," Bella's voice came. "Seeing him like this?"

There was a pause before Charlie responded. "No, it doesn't." His voice was thick with emotion.

"Then we should…"

"I have to, Bella. I owe him that much."

More silence, then the thud of a fist hitting metal.

"Dad!"

"Look at him!" Anger had entered his voice, now. "Does this look like a bear attack?"

I scowled to myself. What was this?

"Yeah, it kinda does, Dad." Bella sounded sickened. "Even serial killers don't do this, do they?"

I heard footsteps, agitated pacing. Charlie was extremely worked up, with more than just grief.

"More likely a serial killer than a bear!" he growled. "Bears ain't the kind to come into a man's house and just kill him."

"I've heard of it before," Bella replied. "Sometimes animals get a taste for humans, right? Like those tigers in India or whatever?"

"Bears ain't tigers." Charlie sounded doubtful. "And besides, bears don't steal clothes. They never found his leather jacket. I even looked myself."

"That jacket he never took off?" Bella asked, reminiscence entering her voice. "Didn't he sleep in it?"

Charlie laughed, apparently despite himself. "Yeah, that one. God, I swear I only saw him without it once or twice. I had to threaten to kick him out if he wore it to the wedding, back in the day."

"He even wore it under his life jacket whenever he took me and Jacob on his boat!" Bella said with a smile in her tone.

"Ha, yeah, I remember that. Last link to his old man, that jacket. Never parted with it."

"Super Bowl Sunday is going to be a lot quieter now, huh?"

"Yeah…"

I heard a rustle of clothing, then a choking sound, like barely-silenced sobs.

"I'm gonna miss him, too, Dad."

A long, loud sniff, then a grunt of acknowledgment.

"Come on, we should go. You haven't eaten all day. I've got some casserole in the fridge that we can heat up."

Another grunt, then a long sigh. "What would I do without you?"

"Please, you'd find a way to cope," Bella said. The sound of a closing drawer came. "You'd just do it with a sad freezer meal instead of my cooking."

"Maybe… maybe…" Their footsteps retreated toward the exit. "Remember when he…"

The conversation turned to further reminiscence as the door cut the sound off. The part of my soul aching for Charlie's loss was smothered by the sheer excitement of what I'd learned. I had a lead. A real lead. That jacket hadn't just gone missing. It was a trophy, taken by my prideful prey to commemorate their brutality. Trophies like this wouldn't be a problem if not for me. If they were stupid enough to wear it—highly likely—it would essentially replace their non-existent vampire scent with something I could trace as easily as a bloodhound. Better than one, actually. This was the kind of breakthrough lead I'd only gotten a few times in my century of life.

The lights cut out. I moved silently to the janitor's closet, then out that window, returning everything to its proper position. Or as close as possible. I couldn't restrain myself from running back to my room at the Roadside—it was dark and I had a new energy in my chest. I ditched my shoes and changed into my night patrol clothes. These were dirty and well-used. They were useless for navigating the civilized world, but their relative filth was full of the scent of the wilderness. Not only would roaming the woods ruin my normal clothes—as I'd been reminded traveling to and from the Grisham Mill—but vampires smell like their clothes. The pleasant scents of laundry detergent and dryer sheets would be a dead giveaway in the wilds. So, barefoot, I left my hideout and resolved not to return until I found my quarry. I had a scent now. It was the scent of an innocent man brutally murdered. It was the odor of his friends' grief.

It was the sweet, sweet perfume of the hubris that would be my prey's downfall.