Swan POV
“Me too…”
“I’ll take Pup out…”
“I’ll make sandwiches…”
As I laid there in bed, waking up, I rolled my shoulders and neck…curled my back, flexed my feet, stretching everything out.
Everything was tight. Sore. Moving made it better.
At first, it crossed my mind that Cullen had bent my body into some new positions, the night before, but then, I didn’t remember having sex with him…and doubted I could…so I searched my memory some more and realized, the last thing I did remember, was trying to finish my turkey and cheese sammy before falling asleep at the kitchen counter.
However, I was in bed, and I was naked.
In any other scenario, it would have been a mystery, to me…but since I knew better, I had to assume Cullen had put me there.
He didn’t like pajamas, much.
I felt like I’d caught up on a month’s worth of sleep, though, and wondered what time it was once I realized he wasn’t in bed next to me, trying to feel me up.
Ten-Fifteen?
Why didn’t he wake me?
“Cullen?” I called out but there was no response.
I figured, maybe he’d taken Pup out, so I grabbed a shower but when I was done, he still wasn’t answering, so I pulled some jeans and a button down on and started checking around the house for him.
A tiny part of me, wondered, if maybe he’d left me behind to go hunt down another lead and I decided to check my cell phone, next but then, as I approached the office, I laughed a little at myself and thought, that really should have been the first place I’d checked, because sure enough, that’s where he was.
The door was just slightly opened and I noticed that Pup was just on the other side, like a guard dog. His tail was whisking across the floor, back in forth behind him and his head was slightly titled.
I could hear Cullen, vaguely, but it didn’t really sound much like Cullen, so much as it sounded like a mad man, on the brink of insanity.
Dr. Frankenstein, to be exact and I giggled, silently, to myself, imagining Edward creating monsters.
Scary.
“Edward?” I pushed the door open, hesitantly and peeked in, to make sure it was really him.
And it was.
And I was a little…worried.
“Are you…” I started but then stopped myself, for the moment, unwilling to chance interrupting his train of thought.
He looked like Frankenstein, alright. Hair disheveled, Papers, strewn all over the floor around him…a map tacked up onto the wall with…all sorts of pins sticking out of it and notes written next them.
All he needed was a beaker and some lightening rods.
The other worry spot, was, that he was talking to himself…which is just…never good.
And he looked like he hadn’t slept.
At all.
"…Ping in Ocean City, Maryland, but when we get there, nothin'…"
"Are you okay?" I asked him, hesitantly but it was like he hadn't even heard me.
"…Credit card transaction in Annapolis…" he laughed at that, and reminded me of the night he’d thought I was impersonating his old friend, Jessica."…but sources say…zippo…"
And then, instead of a mad scientist, he sounded more like Alex Trebek.
You know, from the game show? Jeopardy?
"Do I need to call someone Edward? Because you're kinda freakin' me out."
"…Texts to a friend in Baltimore, but then we find out, she never got the texts…"
"Cullen," I said, a little more sternly, that time, and he snapped out of his personal debate, finally, looking over at me.
"I've been up all night, Swan…" he said, sounding as though he'd had ten cups of coffee, already.
And smelling like…
Tequila.
Of course.
"Uh huh, I see that." I told him, cautiously, so as not to alarm him, too much and then I walked over to where he was, trying to see what he was seeing…what he was doing and just what exactly it was that he was talking about.
Realizing my curiosity, he walked over to his bulletin board, too…slightly more excited than I was…much like I would imagine Christopher Columbus to have reacted when he first realized that indeed, the world was round…
Anyway, he and began pointing at each of his pin points, for me, reminding me of where we’d been over the past weeks. "We've been chasing this girl around like John Bobbit’s with our dicks cut off, Swan…”
I cocked an eyebrow at him and he said, “You know what I mean…” then cleared his throat and continued. “They knew we'd be keeping tabs on her cards, following her cell pings, seeing if they'd slip up…"
"Yyyyeah?"
He crossed his arms at me and then pointed to the board, speaking almost quicker than I could even understand. "So what do all these places have in common, Swan?"
"Ummmm." I took a breath, holding it while I studied his detailed contraption with pins and strings and notes and things and then just as I was about to take a crack at it, I gave up.
“Not following you, yet, Cullen,” I told him, defeated.
And I wasn’t, but I didn’t feel all that bad…not many people could keep up with him when he was in this…world that only Cullen understood.
I was learning to, though.
He sipped his coffee, pointing toward a section of the map that had absolutely no pins or strings or notes attached to it and I was even more confused than before.
"You…think…they’re…?" I started, coaxing him into telling me the rest of his theory.
"Hiding her in plain goddamn sight, that’s what,” he said with his eyebrows shooting up about an inch and his hands pointing to a specific area of the map while he swigged more coffee and I wondered which liquid dominated his system at the moment, the caffeine, or the tequila.
I squinted to see where it was, he was pointing to.
Western Maryland?
What’s even out there?
"Why?” I asked, as though I was in a criminal investigations class, as opposed to my own home…with my own…Cullen. “Why would he do that…and why hasn't Aro contacted anyone for ransom or…threats…or…"
"BINGO…Swan…that…is the million motherfucking dollar question," he told me, getting a little overly excited about it all.
But things started mulling together for me, finally.
At least I thought they were.
"You think he's…maybe…"
"Selling her to the highest bidder? Making a profit off of mail to order brides? Engaging in twenty first fucking century goddamn slavery?”
He barked a laugh at me.
“Yeah, you bet your sweet goddamn ass, I do.”
Oh lord.
“Edward, how much have you had to drink, exactly?” I asked, trying to plan out my morning…I wanted to know if there was a need to sober him up, before continuing on with any conspiracy theories but he assured me he was more awake than drunk, currently, so I went I convinced him he should shower, then meet me back in the office.
I’d made some more calls for him, based on a list he’d made of local business in the Western Maryland area and was pretty sure I’d gotten a decent hit on a few of them.
Edward took a look at the names of the businesses that had confirmed they’d seen a girl with a description that matched Kate’s and said, "Come on, Swan, we're goin'…" as he grabbed his Colt and jacket off of the desk.
"Going, where? Exactly?"
“Deep Creek Lake.”
…………..
In the car, Cullen seemed…nervous about something, checking his cell, every few minutes…dialing a number, listening, then hanging up again.
He always tried…so hard…to seem so together, but I noticed things.
His fingers tapped against the steering wheel, as though he had a song stuck in his head and he was trying to tap it out.
“What’s wrong?”
And I watched his jaw tighten, just before he’d answered me.
“Emmett’s…” he pushed air through his nose. “Fucking MIA.”
“What!?” I screamed, practically and Edward might have jumped a little, causing the car to swerve.
Okay, so, I freaked.
Sue me.
“Jesus, Swan.”
“Sorry,” I told him, calming myself down. “Just…tell me what happened.”
He took a moment.
“He texted me last night and said he was gonna touch base with me today about some fucking lead he thought he had and now, I can’t get a goddamn hold of him.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this?”
Annnnnd…I got the cock eyed look.
“I..am…telling you this, Swan, what the fuck do you think I was just telling you?”
Right…he’s right…
Calm down.
“Okay, okay…I just mean…well…does Rose know?”
I couldn’t even let my mind go there. If Emmett got hurt…and Rose had the baby all alone…and…
Oh my god.
Maybe Cullen was right to not want children, considering…
I closed my eyes for a minute, holding them shut tightly, trying not to let my heart break.
“I dunno,” he said, seeming like he was still trying to sort it all out in his own head.
Like he was attempting to remain, calm, himself.
Not go there.
“She’s still with her parents; I don’t think he’s been lettin’ her in on the fact that he was helping me out with this…bullshit.”
I immediately pulled my cell out and started calling around while Edward tried to keep his wits about him and drive.
I started with Alice, of course, who put Jasper on the phone after a few minutes and he told me that he hadn’t heard from Emmett, either.
He was in charge of Alice, per Cullen’s orders, so he wasn’t about to go gallivanting around, looking for the brother who was probably just too distracted with what he was doing, to call or...
“Maybe his phone is dead.”
And yeah, that was me…I threw it out there…couldn’t hurt, right?
But Cullen just cocked one of his eyebrows at me, in answer.
That would be his silent way of asking me if I was fucking crazy or something.
I tried Carlisle and Esme, next, but they said the last they’d heard from him, he was checking on something downtown at the precinct and that he needed to get in touch with Edward.
“That would have been before he called me,” he mused, to himself. “Fucking…idiot,” he added, banging a fist onto the steering wheel.
And then we were silent for a while, as we continued making our way to Western Maryland.
Every time one of our phones rang, I could see Edward’s face change and I studied his eyes as either he or I would exchange a few words with the person on the other end of the line.
Worry.
Anger.
Was he…scared?
“He’ll call,” he finally said, when we arrived at our first destination, to check the town out, near where Edward was estimating Kate might be. “He’s just getting the info, first, then he’ll call.”
I couldn’t tell if he was trying to convince himself or not, but I encouraged him to go with that train of thought.
“He better fucking call,” he added, slamming to the door shut.
“He knows what he’s doing, Edward, I’m sure he’s okay.”
And I was sure, the fact that they were just starting to get their relationship back on track after those years of bitter resentment over their friend’s death, was not making him feel better about the fact that his brother was missing.
But there was a task to be done, and Cullen was always perfect at pushing the things that bothered him down, in order to focus on his cases.
This would be no different.
For now.
The first couple of leads turned out to be dead ends. It seemed, anyway.
However, as Cullen liked to say, on many occasions…the third time’s the charmer.
Only, you know, with more “fucks” and “goddamns” in there…somewhere.
I knew it, shortly after we’d arrived.
I felt like there was something funny about the man we were dealing with, when we were questioning him. Something about the way he answered our questions, his body language…his shifty eyes.
But he wasn’t willing to cave for the sake of a girl’s safety.
Jerk.
Lucky for us, though, Cullen was smarter, keener, and more of a pain in the ass, when it came to pushing people’s buttons than this guy could ever dream to not have to deal with.
“So you’re fucking telling me…you’ve had no women check into your cabins in the past month or so?” he asked him after the guy had tried to tell us, he’d only seen men around.
I mean, really, even I’m not that naïve.
“No, sir, not that I’ve seen,” the clerk said, again, a tad bit of shakiness in his voice, and Edward exchanged a look with me.
“Because my partner here, spoke to someone earlier today who said he had seen a woman check in…with a man? About yay high?”
He held his hand up in the air, just below his own height, and then pulled Kate’s picture out and showed it to him. “A woman who looks like this?”
The guy barely looked at the picture when he answered.
Another tell tale sign that he was lying through his teeth.
“She didn’t talk to me,” he said, glancing over in my direction. “Must have been a late night employee, just gettin’ off work or something…”
Edward watched him for a moment as the man avoided any direct eye contact and I could have sworn I saw him start to sweat.
The clerk, not Edward.
Edward doesn’t sweat.
Not when he’s questioning dirt bags, anyway.
There was definitely something going on with this one.
Maybe he was being paid off by Aro to keep quiet…maybe he was just scared. But he was most assuredly, one hundred percent positively…
A big fat liar.
After a few more minutes of watching Edward, aggressively asking this guy about Kate, I realized, everyone has their breaking points as far as giving up and I was pretty sure, he had just reached his.
But, just when I thought he was ready to leave…re-group, leave, maybe even…
It happened.
See, Cullen has this way about him.
He’s usually extremely quippy, slightly cold, definitely standoffish and highly sarcastic.
He enjoys pissing people, like Muldoon, off and pushing the limits of his family’s patience, but sometimes, when he notices something, or someone…or if he’s suddenly figured something out that had escaped him before, maybe someone let something slip during a conversation…like just now…that they didn’t think he was smart enough to pick up on….there’s this look that he makes.
No one really notices it, typically, but I’d been with him and around him and had watched his nuances enough to know not only when it happened, but in the moments just before, I could almost feel it.
“I’m sorry, what was that?” he asked the clerk, after throwing out a completely off topic question, about hunters around the area.
We were nearly gone. One foot out the door, so to speak. This guy was almost clear…
But not now.
He stuttered, a little, but couldn’t seem to think up another lie, so he repeated himself, nervously as I closed the door that I’d just opened, to leave through.
“I s…said, we’ve been so slow…we’re um…” he swallowed. “lucky to have the one guy…that…we…”
He’d slowed as he said it. As though he’d finally realized he’d screwed up, himself.
“Only one rental’s carrying guns, huh?” Edward looked at me and smiled. “Weird, right?”
I pursed my lips to hide my own smirk.
“And…how long ago did this hunter check in?” Cullen asked him and he looked like he was about to go back to his non-answering answers.
But like I said, Cullen is smarter.
He pulled his Colt out…for show, only…and a wad of money and gave the guy a few hundred dollar bills.
“A…f…few weeks ago?” he finally said and then Cullen asked, “Keeps to himself, didn’t want any trouble, is all…” he stammered and I figured, yeah, whoever it was…probably had been paying this guy to keep his presence here, mum.
“How many cabins are rented right now…” Edward asked him, then he looked at the name tag, hanging limply from the guy’s shirt. “Ricky?”
“F…four?” he squeaked, putting the money Edward had handed him, into his pocket, sloppily.
Looking at him, he couldn’t have been but nine-teen? Maybe twenty?
Cullen and I looked to each other again and then he cocked his Colt and told the boy, “I think it’s time you clocked out, for the day, kid.”
“But I…”
“That wasn’t a fucking question,” he reiterated and the boy got the hint, grabbed his jacket and left.
Edward checked the windows to see if anyone was in the woods while I checked the registry for any names that looked suspicious.
Anyone in Aro’s organization wouldn’t have been so stupid as to check in under a real name though, so we went by process of elimination.
There was a family of four in cabin sixteen, a group of six men in cabin eight…possibly them…a single man in cabin twenty-six and another single in cabin four.
Except, the single in cabin four had a two bedroom cabin.
Making him suspect number one.
“Bingo,” Cullen said and practically left without me, to go find cabin four.
“Wait,” I said, studying the map of the resort and he stopped, waiting. “It makes more sense for it to be the single in twenty-six,” I told him, pointing to the cabin that was on the outskirts of the area.
Edward thought about it only for a second…he knew I was right. “Excellent, Swan, let’s head up there.”
That cabin was really far out with respect to where the other cabins had been located and I was more and more convinced that this was our guy.
The cabins were pretty far apart, on top of the fact that each one that had been rented, were not right next to each other.
“Okay,” he said, replacing the clip in his Colt with a fresh one. “You stay here, keep a look out and I’m goin’ up to scope the place out and see just exactly who’s in there.”
I screwed my face up at him and raised an eyebrow. “Excuse, me?”
And he laughed a little.
He always did that.
The little shit.
“Swan, if he’s not the only one we have to worry about, I don’t want us getting taken down because we didn’t see ‘em comin’.”
He started off again and I stopped him…again.
“Edward…Don’t you think you should…think about this, before you go storming up there?”
And the smirk.
Oh, I hated that smirk, sometimes.
“I am thinking about it, Swan, I’m thinkin’ I’m gonna go up there, find Kate and shoot the asshole who took her away from her family.”
I stared at him.
“And hopefully, the asshole is James.”
More staring.
“What?”
“Edward,”
“I know, look,” he finally said, ceasing with the teasing… “Gimme five minutes, Swan…five minutes, and if I’m not back out with here, with her, then you can come in after me and kick some ass, okay?”
I narrowed my eyes at him.
I hated when he did this but in all honesty, I understood why, this time, at least.
If anyone was outside, he wouldn’t see them coming and it was smart for one of us to remain behind to take care of business on this end.
I still didn’t like it.
“Bella?”
“What? No, sorry, yeah, okay, I can live with that…five minutes…”
I think.
“I’ll be fine,” he said and then he kissed me. “And so will you.”
Then he mumbled, “And with any amount of fucking luck, so will Kate.”
He took off, going full on stealth mode as he crept up to the old rental unit and fell back, hiding myself in the trees surrounding the place.
When I couldn’t see him anymore, I started the timer on my cell phone.
Cullen was quick and although he didn’t know how to pick a lock, he did know how to break a window and was too fast for most criminals to react; he’d be getting the jump on them, once he was in…
I was pretty sure, anyway.
I took a deep breath and let it out, pushing my nerves away.
This was it…hopefully…and double hopefully, Aro wouldn’t be surrounded by gunmen ready to shoot at anything that entered that house, because I had no idea what I’d do if Cullen’s life was lost.
It was too precious…and people needed him…
I needed him.
I was getting antsy just sitting out there, waiting…freezing…and there was no movement coming from around me, so I had to assume no one knew I was there.
“No gun shots…that’s good…right?” I asked myself and then checked the timer on my phone.
Unless they have silencers.
Two minutes had passed.
I scanned the area, just like Edward had taught me and although it was getting pretty dark, already, my eyes were adjusting and I was confident that I’d seen no one.
There were no cameras either…which was odd. I mean, nothing. Not on the roof, gutters, front porch…
I checked the timer.
Three minutes and ten seconds…
“No guards, maybe they didn’t expect him to figure it out.”
Waiting sucks, by the way.
I peeked down again.
Three minutes and forty seconds.
“There couldn’t have been that many, inside…he’s probably fine.”
Right?
I mean, the clerk surely would have mentioned, if there were more…
Unless he was smarter than we thought he was.
It was quiet around the lake. Like all the animals either left for the winter, early…or knew something was about to happen and they’d bolted before any stray bullets could get them.
Three minutes and fifty-four seconds.
I wondered how far apart the cabins were, I couldn’t see the neighbors on either side of the one Cullen had pinned down and the water was too wide across, I thought, for anyone on the other side to have heard, if we were to need to shoot anyone.
That was good.
Four minutes and sixteen seconds…
I bounced my foot a little.
Four minutes and eighteen seconds…
I bit my lip.
Four minutes and twenty-two seconds…
I hear glass breaking.
“Screw it, close enough,” I finally said, and then I sprinted for the front door of that cabin, in a crouched position, like Cullen’s life depended on it.
And it quite possibly could have.
No comments:
Post a Comment