Chapter 13 ~ Puppet String and Real Boys

Cullen POV

Prospect number two is a no go.

I sent the text message to Swan and waited, leaning up against the traffic signal post, closing my eyes for just a second or two, just listening to the traffic.

Absentmindedly, I was envisioning…

Okay, more like fantasizing about meeting up with the gunman who’d shot dad and mentally practiced every move that would go down in my mind.

It wasn’t too complicated.

Basically, I’d confront his sorry ass, he’d make some lame move to get away and then I’d shoot him.

Right in the fucking temple.

‘Cause if I could put a bad cop like Newton down, what was the harm in taking a piece of shit, cold blooded killing, kidnapper with a death wish and whatever the fuck else, like James’ life from him?

Right?

I’d just have to make sure no one was around, photographing the moment, this time.

The vibration from Swan’s text back pulled me back into my currently fucked up reality…among other things…with news I didn’t really wanna hear, much less read, to be quite goddamn honest with ya.

Four and five were duds also.

I read the text a couple more times, then typed back a remark insinuating a few, very non-duddish things I’d like to do to her later on in the evening, to which she wrote back and told me I was an ass, forcing a chuckle from yours truly, creating already overly cautious people to eyeball my ass, while I stood there on the corner of fifteenth and N streets.

I ignored the eyeballin’ and slipped the phone back into my jacket pocket, looking around at the cab filled streets of Washington, DC and the clueless people walking around, trying to get back to their jobs, or their homes, or their, whatevers as the lunch hour ended.

None of ‘em looked too suspicious.

None of ‘em looked like the errand boy for Aro, or his drug dealer of the month…his hired…fucking…gunman…

My fists tightened into balls.

No pun in-fucking-tended.

But that didn’t mean that said bad guys weren’t standing ten, twelve, fifteen feet away from me.

They literally, could have been anyone for Christ’s sake.

Except James.

I took in a deep breath of air and let all of the small, seemingly unexciting tid bits of information that I had gotten throughout the day sink in a little.

In between checking up on our missing women for hire, that is.

Or sold women…

I wasn’t sure exactly which one they were, just yet.

Not important at this point.

The tid bits were interesting enough, all by themselves.  Like that those random thefts Muldoon had been talking about around the city were all linked in one way or another to airlines.

Mostly bullshit, like gasoline and connector hoses.  Things that were easy to get to without having to actually break in to the warehouses to get.

No big deal, right?  Except that the interesting detail, was that all those airlines were all small ones and all privately owned.

Also all having subtle ties to guess the fuck who.

Aro, I’m the epitome of douchebags, Volturi, that’s who.

Dick.

According to my sources…aka, the Jazzman, some had only conducted flights for travel for Aro, some had a shit load of unknown package deliveries, like Mendez, and some were just investments.

So the only question I had, for now anyway, was…was Aro getting targeted by someone? Or was he giving these airlines a small warning that they’d be eating from the same bowl of shit he’d served Mendez, if they didn’t fall in line?

I jotted down locations of the thefts and then a few more of the random burglaries that I’d heard about and made a mental note to myself to do some officially, unofficial follow up on the cases to see if I could get some more information pertaining to Kate Mendez.

‘Cause, ya never know.

Sometimes it’s the smallest of details, ignored by many a fuck ups, that breaks a case.

Seriously.

I’ve broken several of said cases, myself, to the extreme embarrassment of certain pieces of shit precincts within the City.

No offense to my brother.

Who called every so often during our shit jobs for the day to let me know Swan was fine and that I was an ass for thinking she wouldn’t be fine on her own and that he felt like a babysitter and wasn’t helping to his full capacity.

I asked him if he thought Rose could handle herself in the field and he reminded me that Rose wasn’t professionally trained in the police force like Swan, nor did she have any knowledge whatsoever of kick boxing, gun handling or psychological defense.

Other than the typical womanly, sixth sense, intuition, bullshit, that is.

That was about when I just shut my pie hole and told him thanks for the help he’d been able to shovel out.

The whole thing stunk to high heaven and was going piss ass productively, in my humble goddamn opinion, that is, and I was starting to think that maybe this case was just not fucking worth it.

Except for the thought of that girl, the daughter to Mendez, who was probably scared shitless while I was thinking about giving up.

Plus.

I never give up.

I’m a very persistent motherfucker.  Which I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned before.

Star log, twenty-ten…or…note to self.

Which-the-fuck-ever.

When suspicious blonde bombshells conveniently have super secret computer chips stashed in their fucking tits for you to easily lift for your own selfish needs…it’s probably a set up.

Dumbass.

Just to play it on the safe side, we spent the majority of the rest of the day scratching the numbers coordinating to random, unknown women off of our lists and when the day was pretty much done, I was thinking there really wasn’t much to do but look at this whole thing from a different perspective.

A drunken one, to be exact.

So I called Swan when I was about six…or, seven, maybe, shots of Patron in at the Ram’s Head and told her to meet me there when she was done wrapping up her list of complete and utter bullshit.

She showed up about an hour after I’d called.

With Emmett.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

“Did you really think I wasn’t gonna notice this big lug following me around today, Edward?” she asked me, all smarmy like, with her thumb stickin’ out, pointing over her shoulder at my brother, who was following her back to my booth like a dog who’d just gotten chewed out by his master.

Priceless.

I really needed to start taking some pictures of these kodak moments.

She blew the bangs out of her face to put an exclamation point at the end of her question and then that hand…the one that held the thumb that she’d previously pointed to my very conspicuous fucking brother?

It went to her hip.

So sexy.

I laughed.

‘Cause that was about all I could do at that point in the night.

“You’re drunk,” she finally noticed and I held the nearly empty tequila bottle up, toasting her.

“What gave me away, Captain Observative?”

She let out a short, un-amused laugh and then slid into the booth, across from me, so she could eyeball me some more.

I winked at her as the smirk crept up onto my lips while I pulled the shot glass to them again.

Was she fucking adorable, or what?

“Demetri!” Emmett yelled over the bar and then he held up two fingers, letting my good bartender buddy know to send a couple more shot glasses…and maybe another bottle over to where we were all sitting.

“What happened?” he asked me and I waved him off.

“It’s not what happened, Em…” I leaned in, curling a finger, instructing both of them to lean in with me, like I was telling him the world’s biggest secret…which, I could very well have been, for all I knew.

They did, eyeballing each other first, with that, let us patronize the drunk, look, on each of their faces.

They waited and I obliged, despite their fucking patronization.

“It’s who happened.”

Then I leaned back and let that shit sink in for a minute or two, grinning like a motherfucker, throwing another shot back just like the pro that I was.

Not that they got it, both of them sat there looking at me like…

Okay they were more so, scowling, than looking…and I chuckled again.

What?

It was fucking funny.

One of Demetri’s lackies set two shot glasses down, along with another bottle, as I predicted, and I poured.

Because I…am gracious motherfucker, that’s why.

“I think the key to this whole fucked up fuckery is in the shit that doesn’t actually have anything to do with the fuckery, therefore becoming an even larger vat of absolute…fucking…fuckery.”

Wah-bam! My friends.

More scowling.

More chuckling.

You get the jist.

I took another shot and then they followed suit. 

Swan was next.

“You wanna enlighten us, then, maybe, there, Captain Cryptic?”

“Touché,” I laughed, holding my empty shot glass up to the love of my life slash partner in crime solving.

She is one disturbed motherfucker.

One of the many reasons I love her ass.

Wait, empty?  That’s not right.

I poured another shot to correct that ridiculousness.

I leaned in again and gave the two ofthem some prime examples of just what the fuck I was talkin’ about.

“The wild goose chase out to Seattle for a chip that didn’t give us shit, the set up with Seth’s picture on the dead wife’s body, Dad getting shot…Emmett’s gun…”

And so many other details I couldn’t coherently list at the moment.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they shot dad with that gun.”

The blank stares were priceless, my friends, but I was on a roll and had no time for puns.

“They’re trying to keep us busy.”

“Soooo….that…..” Emmett said and Swan just waited, looking like she was catching on.

“So they can buy some time to get rid of the evidence,” she piped in and I nodded and winked at her ass again.  Because she is the fucking bomb, ladies and gentlemen.

That’s why.

Am I right?

“Bingo,” I pointed, exaggeratedly and then poured myself another shot.

How many was that?

“Which means, they still have her, somewhere.”

Emmett was working shit out in his head at that point and I fully fucking welcomed the brother I knew and loved from back in the day, back into the conspiracy theory filled craziness that was my world.

“So, what’s the next move then, I mean, it’s not like this gets us any closer to finding out where Mendez’s daughter is.

“Ya wanna know what I think?” I asked him and then before he’d had a chance to answer, “I’ll tell you what I fucking think.”

He waited.

Swan was rolling her eyes, pouring herself another shot, at that point.

And another.

“I think she’s still in the fucking City.  Maybe at Aro Volturi’s old stomping grounds, even.”

“The shipping yard?”

“Yyyyyyyep.”

Emmett shook his head.  “Nope, no way, Ed, DCPD has been watching that place like a couple of hundred hawk’s, waiting for Aro to show up, again.”

Because they always show the fuck back-up, eventually.

“Not lately,” I said, and pulled out the piece of paper I’d jotted down all those locations onto, of the robberies and shit.

Emmett gave it some concerned looks as he read it over and then even he had to admit, “You’re right, we’ve been short handed all month, it’d be the perfect opportunity for him to use his resources and hole up there.  It’s the last place we’re paying attention to right now.”

See?

I’m a fucking genius when I’ve got Patron on my side.

Or…inside…

Something like that.

I downed another shot before I noticed they were both staring at me again.

“What?”

“Do you have a plan, or is this one of those, Edward’s gonna go flying by the seat of his pants kinda thing?”

Em, my brother?  He really doesn’t get the whole…playing things by ear kinda situations.  At least, not after that whole thing with me wanting Newton to take me into jail last Spring.

But, I digress.

“Come on,”I said, pulling some cash out to pay Demetri and then some. “I’ll give ya my personal thoughts on the matter on the way home.”

I wiggled the old eyebrows at her.

That always worked.

“Oh, you’re not driving,” Swan said, un-amused with my flirtatious fuckery, snatching the keys out of my hand and waiting for me to challenge her ass with that raised eyebrow shit she liked to do.

I didn’t.

I mean, hell, I’m not a fucking douche bag.

Most of the time.

Shortly after I was able to get my two cohorts up to speed in the car, I noticed Bella checking a few more of those mysterious texts she’d been getting and somehow had avoided telling me about them.

“You planning on spillin’ about who’s texting your ass?” I asked her and she eyeballed Emmett through the rear view mirror before deciding to answer.

“It’s just Jake, Edward,” she shook her head, sliding the phone back into her bag. “Nothing, really…well, it’s kind of something, but I think he’s got it under control, it’s just…I mean he’s being very…” she blew air out.

And holy mother of hell did my head hurt all of a sudden.

And my dick.

Because, fuck if Eddy Jr. didn’t like the way Swan babbled like a motherfucker, sometimes.

“Ya know what, maybe this is a conversation for when I’m sober.”

She laughed. 

A little.

And then told me, “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.”

And Emmett was chuckling his ass off from the back of the ‘Stang as I rolled my eyes at him.

We dropped him off back at his car that he’d left behind when Swan made him and then headed home and I spent what was left of my drunken stupor calling Jasper to get him to email me the blue prints for Aro’s old shipping warehouse district.

I passed out at the desk, looking them over, so Swan, I’m guessing, put me to bed and the next day, we scoped out the area immediately surrounding Aro’s compound of warehouses to make sure they were indeed, not being over seen too much by the DC Metro Police department.

With a hangover, on my part.

I accepted zero remedies for said hangover, from Swan, just for the fucking record.

Never, again.

It was fairly productive, over all, and we only had to dodge that new reporter from the Post, twice.

She was a persistent little shit, if ya ask me.  And I was gonna have to figure out a way to give her some information without really…giving her information, for a couple of reasons.

One, to get her off our backs about shit but more importantly, two, to keep her alive.

Because I was pretty sure that if James or Aro were to get wind of a nosy reporter diggin’ around about what they were up to, lately, she’d end up dead or worse, just like her predecessor, Lauren Mallory.

Shaking that memory, I’d decided, Saturday had been a good goddamn day, all in all.

Sunday, however, was gonna be tricky.

Because although I had still planned on working the case with Swan as my wingman…

Woman.  Wing woman…

My bad.

Anyway, we’d committed to spending the day with my family at Emmett’s place, so I was just hell bent on making the best of it.  Especially since I figured more quality time with Dad couldn’t hurt.

Right?

Even though he’d been released from the hospital, he was still laid up in bed, so we ended up relocating said family  get together from Emmett and Rose’s place, over to the parent’s house and I figured in all honesty, it was the safer of the locations for to all talk some things through and get on the same page.

Especially Alice, since she was the least likely to have self defensive skills, despite her personal body guard.

………………..

“I don’t need all this hovering,” she told me, once I started in on how she needed someone to keep an eye on her and Jasper just cocked an eyebrow at me as if to say, “I don’t what else you expected.”

Smart ass.

“I’m not hovering,” I started to tell her but she held a hand up. “Edward, I have enough problems without you going all…secret service agent on me.”

I was about to get defensive on her ass when I realized what she’d said.

“What do you mean, you have enough problems?”

“Yeah, what’s up, sis?” Emmett added and then mom heard what was going on and came over. “What’s the matter, dear?”

Alice and Jasper exchanged a look.

One that was a lot like the looks Swan and I gave each other, quite often, and without even saying her first words to us, I knew it was gonna be one of those, this is just not my fucking day, kinda moments for me.

She pulled a piece of paper out of her purse and held it up.

I couldn’t really tell what it was but it looked like a ticket or something and I thought hell, maybe it wasn’t so bad, after all.

“I was closed down yesterday.”

Or not.

“What?” we all pretty much said at the same time, except for Jasper, who already knew the deal.

He simply walked over to make himself another drink as Alice explained.

Quite animatedly, I might add.

“Some…inspector came in yesterday…told me I was violating this completely random, unheard of process in my dress making and shut me down…” she threw her hands up.   “No first warning, no fine…just…done.”

Jasper handed her a glass with some sort of clear liquid in it when she was done and she drank it down.

Gin, most likely.

And I let the crease form.

It was a given.

“This was…yesterday,” Swan said, matter of factly and Alice nodded, handing the empty glass back to Jasper, who blindly sat it down on a table next to him, for her.

“That’s odd, don’t ya think, Em?” I asked and he said, “Sure as shit.”

I’ll tell ya, if I had a nickel for every time I realized my family would be better off if I were still the black sheep, so to speak and not…well, speaking to any of them…I’d be a goddamn billionaire.

I suddenly felt like shit was getting hot, and I don’t mean in a good way, either.  James was taking down members of my family, one by one, in his own twisted kinda way and it wasn’t leaving me with the warm fuzzies but it was at least encouraging, in a warped kind of way, I suppose, to know he felt threatened enough to take some action.

I figured I was making him nervous, which couldn’t’ be a bad thing.

Yet.

To make things worse than they already were, the fucking Redskins lost, which pissed all of us right the fuck off.

Except for Swan, who could have cared less about the politics of loyalty within the NF-fucking-L and rooted for the goddamn Rams, just to piss me off.

She had a good laugh, though, which was a nice break from all the worrying arguing and shit we’d been doing, lately.

And to boot, she won a good pussy lickin’, later on that night, for winning our little side bet throughout the game.

So, in my mind, it was a win-win.

What?

After the game, while we were eatin’, Em excused himself and I slipped out to go see what the fuck he was up to and caught the guy, listening in on the police scanner he’d oh so conveniently forgotten to leave in his squad car.

“Dude,” I said to him, “What are you doin’?”

I practically laughed except I had to admit, the scanning of the inner workings of the police department could give us the edge we needed.

Which would be a nice fucking change of pace, for once.

“Shut up, Edward, I’m just wanna see what’s goin’ on, it’s killin’ me to not be in on things around there.”

There was your typical bullshit going on in the city.    You know, purse snatchings, vandalisms, shit like that…but the one that almost slipped by and in a delayed reaction, made Emmett turn the dial back some, was regarding a drug deal that was going bad…

And it’s was in Aro’s area of the city.

We both looked up at each other and listened to the exact location of the bust that was gonna go down.

“Aro’s deals don’t go bad.”

“Unless he wants them to.”

“Or unless someone else on the inside wanted them to.”

So many possibilities, so little fucking time.

We bolted outta his old Honda…you know, since his cruiser was taken away…and told the family we were heading out to pick up ice cream or some lame ass shit like that and Alice insisted we pick up something like fucking frozen yogurt for her.

For the love of all the whores in the City…

“Want me to drive?” Swan asked and I made a split decision to leave her outta this one.

“We won’t be long,” I told her, then kissed her forehead for a second or two longer than I needed to, then we were off.

We stayed in the background, mostly, trying to see shit the police wouldn’t, being all up close and personal like they were and the one thing I made note of that made it all feel a little too convenient, was that Muldoon wasn’t on site, which was a little odd to me with something like a drug bust…in Aro’s territory.

And that there was someone else watching the scene from the background, too.

“Em,” I jabbed at him and when he made eye contact, I nodded over in the direction of where I saw our perp.

“You take the south?”

“Deal.”

We fist bumped and then made our ways around the buildings over to where we met up and saw that whoever it had been, whoever was making sure that whatever was going down, was indeed, going down…was gone.

No trace, either.

No cars were moving and no suspicious characters were moving swiftly through the crowd.

Whoever it was, was on foot, and they were good.

“Shit.”

“Who do you think it was?” Emmett asked and my first instinct told me it was the person who suddenly, and without being noticed, showed up on the scene.

“Muldoon.”

I hadn’t meant to say it out loud like that, but figured, what the fuck ever, it wasn’t like I couldn’t trust Emmett.

“Seriously?”

“No, I mean, he’s here…don’t you find that…weird?”

“He’s pullin’ a Superman.”

More like Two-Face.

My mind was in full on paranoia mode. “We need to get Mom and Dad somewhere other than here for a while, I’m really not liking where all this is heading.”

Emmett agreed, which was a relief.

And very nostalgic.

Which was weird.

“Yeah, I was just telling Rose today, that I wanted her to take the baby to see her parents while we get this thing sorted out, but like I said, she’s stubborn.”

You know it’s goin’ down, when Emmett’s joined the band of crazy.

And yeah, tell me the fuck about it.

My curiosity was peaked at that point, so I asked him, “So, what’d you end up saying?”

“Pulled the baby card…told her Lilly wasn’t gonna know her other grandparents very well if she kept withholding her from them so much.”

No shit.  My brother, the sneaky little fucker.

“Really…did it work?”

He nodded. “Women, they have a serious soft spot for kids, especially their own.”

He winked at me.

Smart guy.

Sometimes.

“I don’t know if you should get knee deep in this fuckery, Em, and…” I started but he stopped me pretty quickly.

“Edward, nobody’s taking me down without my permission,” He eyed me.  The serious kind of eyeballin’ that reminded me of the powerhouse my brother really was. 

The guy that three tasers couldn’t take down when a couple of DC Police cars full of dirty cops couldn’t take down.

Then he finished with, “Don’t worry so much.”

I told him, I’d try.

By the time we’d gotten back to my parent’s house…with ice cream and the fucking fake shit…Swan was waiting for me.

“You forgot your cell phone,” she told me, holding it up but before I got over to her to grab it and say thanks, she also advised me that, “Seth called.”

That wasn’t bizarre in itself, except that she added, “You were his one phone call.”

Which meant, “He’s in jail?”

What the fuck?

That kid, I was pretty goddamn sure I’d said it before…but…he was definitely gonna be the fucking death of me.

“He refused a lawyer,” the guard dog told me, after I told him who I was there to see. “Wouldn’t talk to anyone but you, which is why he hasn’t been sent to county, yet, we were waiting to see if you were interested in posting his bail.”

Excellent.

Bail.

“How much?”

It wasn’t exactly a staggering amount, I mean I paid it, but what I was immediately regretting was the fact that Swan had called Seth’s parents on the way over to the precinct, because they were walking in, just as Swan and I were finished paying bail and making out way back to see him.

And it wasn’t so much Harry Clearwater that I was put off by, surprisingly enough.

“This is your fault,” Mrs. Clearwater snapped at me, “I do not want you around my son, anymore, much less speaking to him…anymore, do you understand me?”

“Hey now,” Swan stopped her cold before I even had a chance to tell her to fuck off.

Which was probably a good thing.

Right?

“If it weren’t for Edward, your son would probably be dead before you’d even had a chance to see him again…”

She was still telling Mrs. Clearwater off as I slipped down the hallway to see our little trouble maker.

He was quite the pitiful sight, sittin’ there in that jail cell, on the edge of the bench, his elbows on his knees, his hands holding his chin up.

Barely.

“I’m losin’ count of how many times your face has been busted up, Seth, what the fuck?”

“Hey, Edward,” he said, looking up and then I really saw how bad it was.

“You wanna tell me what happened?”

“Not really…”

I breathed out and squatted down a little, so I was sittin’ on my heels, frowing at his ass, trying to reign in the pissed of Dick and let out more of the…understanding, mentor shit Swan had been telling me to practice more with the kid.  “Tell me, anyway.”

He didn’t look at me.  “I was just trying to help, Edward.”

Uh oh.

This was not gonna be good.

“What the fuck does that mean, Seth?”

Understanding…gone.

Dick…present and accounted for.

He didn’t answer, so I threw out the one card I had.  “We don’t have a lot of time, ya know, your parents are out in the front, waiting for ya.”

He looked up. “You called. My. Parents?” he whined and I reminded him that they were legally responsible for him.

He told me, then, finally, everything I didn’t wanna hear, for like…the umpteenth fucking time of the day…About how he’d gone over to Titus Airlines and tried to get some information for me, only to be caught by the one and only, Alec, who kicked his ass and wasn’t even gonna get a fine for said ass kicking because Seth was trespassing and the douche was well within his rights to defends his employer’s property after hours like that.

“Jesus, Seth…do ya think you could use your fucking brain every once in a while?  I mean, shit, first you’re hanging out with hoodlums and whatnot, now you’re breaking and entering? What were you…”

“I got something,” he interjected, quietly, in the middle of my rant.

“Come the fuck again?”

“I said I got something…I think.”

Let’s fucking hope so.

I jetted my chin out at him.  “Spill.”

He breathed in, like he was readying himself for an Olympic game or some shit and then told me, “Well, when Alec caught me, I’d gotten as far as the offices in the way back of the place…”

I was, no way in hell gonna ask him how he’d gotten in there.  I knew better than to gain knowledge I didn’t need to know.

I waved for him to go on.

“He was typing up an email, I couldn’t see what it said, but I saw who it was to.”

“And?” I goaded…because Jesus Fucking Christ…

“He was writing Aro, Edward, he’s working against you…and Mendez.”

I held an elbow in one hand and put the other up to my mouth, thinking…and trying really hard to play the devil’s…devil’s advocate here.

Not an easy task for me, but it would get the juices flowing.

“He could just be communicating with Aro on Mendez’s behalf,” I said outloud, then I looked to Seth. “What’s your gut tellin’ you?”

He thought about it. 

“I think Alec set Mendez up.  Maybe he’s the one that took Kate.”

Not bad.

“He says he loves her, that they were dating behind Mendez’s back.”

“Coulda been his way of forming a bond of trust with her.”

I nodded.

“You did good, Kid.”  I told him and then the officer came back to let him out.  “Titus Airlines has decided not to press any charges,” he said and all that did was raise the little hairs on the back of my neck.

It probably meant they’d be targeting Seth, next.

And yeah, Jesus Christ was fucking me from all sides.

Again.

By the time we got out to the front where the Clearwaters were waiting, the Mrs. had calmed the fuck down and Swan was eyeballin’ her, arms crossed, intimidating glare and all.

And I had to work really hard not to crack a smile at that shit.

“Listen,” I said to Seth before he left with his mom and dad and he stopped walking, waiting for my onslaught.  But I didn’t have much for him except to say, “Don’t do that shit again.”

He nodded, disappointed, thinking I was pissed at him.

Which I was, but only a little bit.

“Look,” I said, “You keep stickin’ your neck out, Aro’s gonna chop it off, is all I mean, lay low for a while, and that includes not hangin’ out with your friend, Paul, got it?”

He let out that teen aged, frustrated like a motherfucker sigh but said, “Okay, Edward,” then he left, with his parents and I left with Swan, wondering what was coming next.

‘Cause we all knew, there would be something comin’ next.

There always was.

We were home, letting ourselves in, getting ready to let Pup out when Swan started in on me.

“I don’t like him,” she’d said after I put her up to speed on Seth’s adventure for the evening and I could just see all the riling up she was getting from the look on her face and tensing of her muscles…

All…over…the body…

“Such an…ASSHOLE,” he spat and I cocked an eyebrow at her as I opened the back door for Pup, who sneezed at me as he passed by.

Tell me about it.

She her Hechler out of its holster and checked everything she could on it to busy herself.

“I don’t either but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna go shoot his ass.”

Yet.

I mean, as much as I’d like to…I had a feeling Alec knew more about what the fuck was going on then he let on.

Seth was right.  The kid had good instincts and a hint of paranoia that I was freakishly proud of.

Swan rolled her eyes.

“I’m just sayin’,” I told her, “It’d be a whole hell of a lot easier to focus…on my end…if you weren’t…flying off the goddamn handle every time I turn around.”

This stopped her, dead in her gun toting tracks and I waited for it.

“I’m flying off the handle…” she said.

I swallowed down the urge to let Eddy Jr. out to play a little.

“Yeah.”

“Edward…you are the KING of flying off the handle…”

Down boy.

“No I’m…okay yes I am but it doesn’t diminish the fucking fact that I can’t concentrate when you’re doing it.”

“Well let me diminish this for you, Cullen, if I wanna fly off the handle, I’m gonna fly off the goddamn handle, I’m in this too, ya know, and when someone is beating the crap of out Seth, I’m gonna….”

She didn’t get anything else out, ‘cause that was about when I figured, fuck it, and pulled her into me…and kissed her ass.

What?

I needed her to stop talking.

It was a sure fire.

She tasted like chocolate, which, not that I was complaining, but it told me she’d been stressing the fuck out and yet,  I couldn’t quite bring myself to give a shit at the moment, since I was too busy sliding a hand up her shirt to feel her warm skin against mine.

And yeah, maybe a tit or two.

I’d missed that shit.

She took in a sharp breath when my hand found her nipple and my dick instinctively moved in a forward motion to attempt a closer relationship with its counterpart which meant I could feel the day’s activities just…washing the fuck away.

That was the point in time where I remembered, once again, that she was the one.

And all was good in the world of Edward Cullen.

For the moment.

“Mmmmmm, what was I saying?”  she asked when I was done with the lip lockin’ and I told her, “You were flying off the handle about flying off the handle.”

She grinned up at me and bit her bottom lip a little, before saying, “We need to talk.”

Which didn’t…ever…set well, when she said shit like that.

“Look, Swan, I was just…”

“No, I mean, about Charlie.”

“What about him?”

Turns out, Washington DC was the only place with bullshit fuckery going on.  Those texts she’d been gettin’ from Jake?

Somethin’ about bizarre shit happening at the Police station over there and the latest had involved Papa Swan.

Or rather, his car.

Which, the man took impeccable care of, according to Swan, so how anything fucked up had happened was beyond her comprehension and she was a little bit freaked out about all of it.

Not that I could blame her, but…

“Well, there’s not much you can do about it from over here…” I started to say, and even as I said it, I realized what she wanted to talk about with regards to the situation.

And that shit was not happening.

“No.”

She made a funny face at me.

“What you mean, no.”

“I mean the last thing we should be doing is separating…” then she let me mull over what I’d just said and I added, “I mean, more so than we did today, Swan, you’re talking across the country, where you’ll be what, a few hours from Seattle?  Where we just were?  Where a bunch of bad guys are hiding out?”

She waited and I shot my eyebrows up.

“I don’t think so.”

I wasn’t budgin’ on that shit, either.  Trust me.

But then, neither was Swan.

You know that woman is about stubborn as a goddamn…

“Cullen.”

Exactly.

“What?”

She let out just about the sexiest frustrated sigh I’d ever seen her let out and then I told her, “Look, let’s talk about it tomorrow, you’re tired, I’m fuckin’ tired…this case is makin’ both of wacked out and…”

I’m a little horny.

“Yeah,” she agreed and I headed for the bedroom and she followed, but instead of finding her spot on the California King...

Next to me…

She slid into the bathroom and said she was taking a bath before bed…which I smiled at, ‘cause I assumed that meant I was invited too, except that I heard the door lock shortly after she’d gone in.

“Huh.”

I fell backwards down onto the bed, tired as shit, and closed my eyes for a minute, figurin’ the bath would calm Swan the fuck down and then by the time she came out, I’d calm her the fuck down even more but the next thing I knew, it was morning, I was under the covers and there was no Swan to be seen or heard of throughout the whole house.

There was a note, though.

“Things to do today, will check in later, contact me via text if ya need me desperately.”

And I laughed.

If I need her desperately.

I always fucking needed her desperately.

It did strike me, odd, though, that I wasn’t privy to what exactly it was she had to do but then, Swan wasn’t the type to tell me every detail of her life that didn’t include me, either.

Probably taking Alice out to lunch, or somethin’, I thought and then I decided, that was a decent move.  Alice would be needing some bonding time or whatever after her place getting’ shut down and if Swan was taking care of that aspect, that meant I wasn’t.

Win, win…see?

After I showered, shit and shaved, I headed out for a day of checkin’ out the locations of the miscellaneous seemingly small time burglaries and figuring out a way to not only settle Swan’s nerves about her own fatherly issues, but keep her in close vicinity, at the same time.

Because at least together, we could handle the bullshit.

When we weren’t together, she worried, I worried, and we’d both ultimately fuck up.

That much, I knew.

Right?