CHARLIE SWAN WAS AN EASYGOING MAN WITH TOO MUCH TIME ON HIS HANDS. The time that he spent on the force was rather boring, given the nature of his hometown. The worst that he'd get was the regular vandalism from edgy teenagers and, God forbid, the average fight down at the High School.

When that had changed, he didn't really know. Scratch that, he knew, but he didn't want to remind himself that it could have been prevented. Carlisle Cullen seemed like a nice enough man. His children, the ones that Bella had become so close to, that was another story. Emmett was always speeding and he'd given various citations for it. Jasper was so reserved and would vanish out of thin air, often having his (adoptive sister? girlfriend? Charlie couldn't figure out which one it was anymore) -- Alice, running right after him.

Billy never liked them, but Billy was a cautious person by nature. Always looking for a reason to stay away since Sarah died. Charlie had first believed that it was because of that. After all, he didn't like doctors at all, and archeologists had always irked him, so of course Billy would be keeping his distance. That was, until Jacob found a girlfriend who'd left her phone in the cafe where Charlie had his lunch.

A sweet girl with a mysterious backstory wasn't new for Charlie anymore. He'd seen it enough in the novels his daughter had on her shelves (which he'd started to read when she stopped calling him back) and in the movies. Forgetful at times, always checking behind her back, Charlie knew it was best to let her have her space with Jacob and call it a day.

Until he'd noticed she hadn't come back for her phone. She looked tired in there, having lunch and glued to her phone, so it didn't make much sense that she'd left it. So, in his good natured fashion, Charlie had picked up her phone and told the waitress he'd bring it by her house before his shift started down at the station.

He didn't like to invade people's privacy at all. It felt wrong, even when it was his duty to do so. Unless there was some warrant on a device or a piece of property, he didn't want to touch it. Charlie figured that he wouldn't enjoy someone's nose in his personal cell, so why would he do it to someone else? So, when the phone began receiving calls, he ignored them. At first it was rather easy to do it, have a little bit of music as he focused on the road and getting onto the reservation and to Billy's house.

The issue was that the calls didn't seem to stop. He had to double back to pick up gas, much to his annoyance, and the song was getting rather old. He could only listen to 'Forever Young' so many times before he wanted to rip his hair out. And really, who needed to get a hold of Chrissy so badly anyways? From what he'd overheard she didn't have contact with her parents, no contact with any family, really, and had a few friends who were all far away from Forks.'

"Damn it," he'd cursed as he carefully pulled over onto the side of the road. Only half way to Billy's and he'd given up. Maybe he could pick up the phone and explain that Chrissy had forgotten her phone and would get back to them later. Maybe it was one of those spam calls that go and go and go until you block them.

Except he knew the name on the screen.

Carlisle Cullen.

Now, Charlie didn't think before that moment that he could ever be drawn into the idea of any conspiracy. He was a man who'd lived in the same place practically his whole life. Had managed to make something of himself there and lose what he loved most there. Bella was missing, last seen by Edward Cullen.

He didn't know enough about Chrissy to know everyone she knew. She was the newest member of their population. The little marker on the road sign would go up by one now that she had changed her address. Charlie liked to think that since Carlisle left, his family and everyone who the reserved man had known would leave too. How would Chrissy know him if this was her beginning in Forks and on the Reservation?

The entire situation did not make sense to the sheriff. Bella had gone missing, that had been on his mind for weeks. One day she was talking to him about potentially going to college and the next she was gone and would not answer any of his calls. Straight to voicemail now, but it had gone through until two weeks ago.

He had even filed a missing persons report. His daughter had gone missing.

Charlie suspected Carlisle's son of being responsible. He did not like the way he'd treated Bella at all. She'd nearly lost herself in the fallout of their relationship and a single trip to Italy had somehow changed that? How could that have changed things? It didn't make any sense, especially when she'd gotten so close with Jacob. The sheriff wished she could have just gotten with Jacob instead of Edward, or really anyone else. Some of the kids at the high school would have been better than one of the Cullens.

He'd turned off the phone before coming into the house to give it to her. He didn't stay long. How could he? All he could do was wonder how the hell this random girl knew Carlisle Cullen.

All sense of privacy had been thrown out the window after that incident. Charlie hated that he'd turned into some kind of stalker, but his daughter was missing. It didn't make sense at all. The other officers knew something was wrong, but frankly, no other department did. Moving away with your creepy boyfriend isn't exactly a high priority missing persons case, even if Charlie thought it should be. So he would have to do the leg work on his own, using every single piece of information he came upon.

There was obviously a link between Carlisle and Chrissy, so what was it? Nothing in the general Forks database, but since Charlie was a police officer, he could find some things that others couldn't. His daughter was legally missing, he was on the case, and Carlisle's son was a prime suspect in why she was missing. Getting information from New York actually wasn't that hard when he mentioned that she had not been seen by anyone in multiple weeks.

Turns out, there was someone who had seen her. Not in New York, but in Seattle.

She'd fucking married Edward without telling anyone.

Which threw a wrench in his plans before he realized that she had gone missing after the marriage, legally, which meant that he had more to stand on when he sent out a Freedom of Information Act request about a police report filed in New York by Chrissy. He almost wished he hadn't read any of it when he got the email with the copies. Injuries everywhere found on two missing women abducted by a man who'd they'd been in a relationship with. Harm so dangerous that they'd needed multiple surgeries, including a hysterectomy, to handle the fallout.

River, the other girl's name was River.

Carlisle had found them out in the woods, taken them to the hospital where he worked, and scrubbed in for their surgeries. Chrissy's previous address after she was found was the same as Carlisle's and the rest of the family. River's as well, though now she was living in Italy under a work visa.

Her employer? A confusing company named Volturi Industries that seemed to dabble in a bit of everything. They did have a CEO listed named Aro Volturi, but they had to CFOs named Caius and Marcus Volturi. Both Aro and Caius Volturi, with a bit of digging, seemed to have just recently been through divorces where their wives, as according to two prenups, got absolutely nothing when they were left.

He couldn't get much further on the Italian front due to their privacy laws being different than the United States, but he got enough. Their divorces seemed to coincide with River's work visa being issued. Where was this job site for Volturi Industries? Volterra.

Bella had gone to Volterra. Edward had gone there too. They met up, fell back in love, and came back acting very strangely around Charlie. He'd hoped it was just because Bella and Edward both knew he didn't like their relationship, but now he felt there was something more. Edward had to know Chrissy, they were living in the same house at one point. That meant that Chrissy knew Bella-- or at least knew of Bella before ever moving to Forks and meeting Jacob.

How could he have missed all of this? So many dots were connecting between these people. Everything was a strange circle in terms of who knew who. Most importantly, Charlie wanted to know where Bella was, what was going on with all of them being so secretive all of a sudden, and why she was ever brought into it. Bella is just a girl from Arizona who moved back to her father's small town. No backstory, no insane moments in her life. To Charlie, his daughter was smart but not a genius. She had good grades but wasn't ever going to an Ivy. He liked that. He liked that he had a well-rounded daughter who he could relate to. Even if she had a hard time of understanding where he was coming from, he thought he was within reach of getting her.

Now he couldn't find her. How could he not think of the worst? That she was in danger.

People were clearly trying to cover something up. Charlie knew in his heart that Bella was still alive. She was somewhere in the wind, just out of his reach. Why wouldn't someone tell him what was going on? Why did Billy, his best friend, stop telling him everything? Could it be that bad? Could his daughter have gotten into something that Billy didn't want to tell him about? How could his daughter, a girl who didn't shine bright in a crowd but when surrounded by those who she loved, be in danger that he clearly wasn't being told about?

It was maddening. He couldn't sleep at night anymore. The days were blurring together.

The entire community had shifted at some point. Whenever that happened, he wasn't allowed to know. Parents were keeping their children at home, the community center was full, and so many of the boys he used to watch coming into town to buy things had left. Left to where? Charlie had been told that they were going on a trip by Jacob, but Chrissy had been talking on the phone with someone about sending them money from 'the fund'.

So, they had a fund. River was dating a very rich man in Volterra. Where did this fund come from? Further research? Volterra.

How did it all come back to Volterra? What was so great about a small, coastal Italian city with a nice tourist industry? Maybe it was the small forum online that he'd found when researching. A small forum talking about how their friends had gone to Volterra and had never come home. There was something shady about the place that some people couldn't put their finger on. They and a festival every year that plenty of people had come for. Based on the time that River went, that was what she was there for.

People going missing was one thing. That happened to tourists all the time. Easy targets, especially if there were issues with poverty in a region. Yet Volterra had money. Old money that was clearly invested back into the community.

Enough that they could send a lot of money over to this secretive fund.

Charlie had become rabid when he found the money. Half of the shady things he'd seen on TV and heard of from the Seattle PD was because of money. It all leads back to money. Volturi Industries gave money to the Reservation. For what? Bella wasn't a member of the Reservation and neither was he. Neither was Chrissy even if she lived down there.

Jacob's graduating class and the young adult men on the Reservation had... vanished on this trip they were taking. Only he remained.

He'd never been a great liar, Jacob. Even as a boy if he was caught with chocolate crumbs on his face, he'd deny it poorly. Always giving himself away on accident. Charlie had admired Jacob's honesty. It didn't seem like he was suspicious in a negative way, more like he was forced to be quiet about whatever was going on. He'd heard Jacob ranting quietly in the house, sometimes Bella's name left his mouth. For some reason Charlie actually believed that Jacob didn't know where she was, but knew something that happened to her.

Why couldn't they just tell him? Charlie wondered if they'd been paid to stay quiet, if whatever had been done to Bella was requiring something like that. It did seem like a bribe, but before he'd seen that name on Chrissy's phone he hadn't felt like there was anything malicious in his community. Everyone was a bit distant, sure, but never cruel. Not cold at all. The warmth was still there like it had always been. Chrissy seemed very kind and he'd been helping her clean up. She didn't seem to be physically that well, which after he read the police report made sense. It wasn't too long ago that she'd been beaten and starved in the woods.

All of it was whiplash, really. One piece of information he gathered would make him feel better about what was happening at home and then another filled him with pure dread.

The worst of the information was on his computer. The forums had mentioned missing people, but one girl had mentioned a woman who had saved her from her abusive boyfriend one night, only to find that her boyfriend went missing right after. She said that the woman she'd met seemed really strange, talked quietly and kept on looking at her boyfriend like he was the devil himself.

People wore black capes over there, the ones that worked at Volturi Industries, and nobody could apply for any positions within the company without a referral from someone who already works there. Strange, very very strange, and Charlie decided that this would be his next point of research.

This was where he went too far.

A picture, one that someone had uploaded to a forum dedicated to 'doppelgängers' in Italy.

1921, Aro Volturi.

2005, Aro Volturi.

The same fucking person.