Design For Life

Chapter 21

A/N: As always, thank you so much for all the wonderful reviews.  

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"There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those we spent with a favorite book." ~ Marcel Proust

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EPOV

We had just settled in on the couch when Bella's phone rang. The caller id showed that it was Charlie. She answered the phone before putting it on speaker.

"Hi, Charlie. Edward's here with me," she told him.

I was unsure of speaker-phone etiquette, but I felt that I should say hi.

"Hello sir."

"Hello, Edward," the gruff voice over the phone asked. "Are you taking good care of my girl?" he asked.

I gulped looking over at Bella. If he saw the state of her face, he certainly wouldn't think I was taking good care of her.

"Uh—she, uh . . .  takes care of herself pretty well," I stammered out, face flushing.

Charlie barked out a laugh. "That she does."

"What did you find out about Jane?" Bella asked.

I heard him let out a heavy sigh. "Not a whole hell of a lot. Jane Volturri. Born January 3, 1987 in Boston, Massachusetts. Her mother was a homemaker and her father a teacher. She was an only child, and here's the kicker. She was killed by a drunk driver four years ago."

It took a moment for me to process what he had said. When it hit me, I realized that Bella was either working with a zombie, which was rather frightening in itself, or she was working with someone claiming to be Jane Volturri. Apparently, Bella came to the same conclusion.

"You're telling me that the real Jane Volturri is dead?"

"Yes."

"So, who the fuck am I working with?" she asked angrily.

"No idea. Can you get me a picture of her? If so, we can try and run facial recognition on it."

"I can try or have Jake or Seth do it. Oh, God! I need to let them know."

"Call them. Better yet, give me Jake's number and I'll talk to him. I'm going to see if he has any other information he can give me. Now, Bells. I need you to be careful around her. We don't know who she is."

"Yeah, about that."

Charlie let out a sigh. "What happened?"

"I kind of, sort of, beat the shit out of her. She was talking shit about me and Edward!" she explained.

"I hope you got her good," Charlie said, surprising me.

"Of course I did. You taught me how to fight, remember?"

"Well, no more fighting with her. Stay out of her way as best as you can. She could be dangerous," he warned.

"Can't we just have Jake fire her?"

"We could, but I'd rather know where she is than have her take off."

Bella talked to Charlie for a bit more before giving him Jake's number. After they hung up, she sat back with a sigh, rubbing her head.

"This is a fucking nightmare."

"I know, love," I told her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

Seeing the bruise and cut on her lip really bothered me, and it terrified me that those monsters on the loose would get a hold of her. It hurt me to see her hurt.