Midday Clouds - The Charlie Swan Story

Chapter 6 (Twilight 6/11)

The next few days went by regular as an egg in a hen house, but I kept getting more and more worried about Bells going off to Seattle alone. The station had received a few more missing person reports than usual from out that way, and even a few homicides where bodies were found with, well, teeth marks. Of course, that wasn't exactly the kind of specifics the PD let out to the press, lest headlines run rampant with speculations about a cannibal killer, or what have you, but it made me all the more worried to think of Bells out there all on her own.

I finally decided to bring it up during breakfast a few days before the big trip.

"About this Saturday," I said.

She looked at me questioningly. "Yes, Dad?"

"Are you still set on going to Seattle?" I sure hoped things had changed. Maybe Mike Newton had asked her to the dance or something.

"That was the plan," she said. I'd interrogated the McElroy boys enough times to know when a teenager was avoiding some sort of truth, but I didn't want to push it with my own daughter.

"And you're sure you can't make it back in time for the dance?"

"I'm not going to the dance, Dad."

"Didn't anyone ask you?" I asked, Mike Newton's smug, easily-intimidated face swirling around in my head.

"It's a girl's choice."

"Oh." Well, maybe Bells wasn't into any of the boys at her school -- I could hardly blame her, there wasn't much to choose from in Forks. Hell, maybe Bells wasn't into boys, period, and didn't want the damn dance to be her moment to come out. I couldn't blame her if that was the case, either. I just knew that no matter who she might end up with, if anyone, I'd be there to love and support her.

Still, as I left for work I couldn't help but feel like something was different about Bells. She'd always been a shy, quiet girl, and even in the few weeks she'd been back in Forks with me she kept to herself for the most part, but now something seemed... absent, I guess. Like her mind was always on something else, even if you were standing right in front of her. There was nothing about this in the dang book, so I just figured staying the course and keep to the boundaries we'd established.

Though an idea came to my mind as I was driving to the station that I hoped might help get Bella out of her funk.

"Charlie! To what do I owe the honor of a call from the Chief himself?" Billy Black's heavy voice was always calming to hear, and I was glad that he seemed to have gotten past our little feud over Carlisle and the hospital.

"Well now, I ain't no chief in the real meaning of the word," I said, thinking of the history of the Quileute chiefs, their lineage dating back long before police officers had ever even existed. "But I was hoping that you wouldn't mind coming by today to watch the game? Maybe bringing Jake along?"

"You know, I think he wouldn't mind spending some time with that Isabella of yours, Charlie. He had a lot to say after his run-in with her at the beach."

"Yeah, I can only imagine," I said, remembering just how tight-lipped Bells had been about the whole trip. "Just do me one favor, hey? Don't make it seem like I asked y'all to come by, I don't want it to seem like I'm ambushing Bells with company or anything. Just make it seem like you decided to drop on in, alright?"

"Sure thing, Charlie, we can do that; but you owe us some beer for this one!" Billy's laugh on the other end of the phone was deep and joyful. He knew I never watched the game without a few Rainiers on hand.

"You know it, Billy. See ya round 6."

The rest of the work day went by just as usual. A few calls from Forks residents with complaints rather than emergencies; the mundane, small-town issues in stark contrast to the the now chillingly consistent reports from Seattle of the latest homicides. Detectives up there seemed to think that it might be another serial killer on the loose, something that hadn't been seen around Washington since the Green River Killer back in '01.