"Cullen, got it."
I watched as he dialed, easily picking out the number. Well, I could call J. Jenks myself if this didn"t work.
"Hey J, it"s Max. I know I"m never supposed to call you at this number except in an emergency..."
Is there an emergency? I heard faintly from the other end.
"Well, not exactly. It"s this girl who wants to see you..."
I fail to see the emergency in that. Why didn" t you follow normal procedure?
"I didn"t follow normal procedure "cause she don"t look like any kind of normal-"
Is she a badge?!
"No-"
You can" t be sure about that. Does she look like one of Kubarev" s-?
"No-let me talk, okay? She says you know her sister or something."
Not likely. What does she look like?
"She looks like ..." His eyes ran from my face to my shoes appreciatively. "Well, she looks like a freaking supermodel, that"s what she looks like." I smiled and he winked at me, then went on. "Rocking body, pale as a sheet, dark brown hair almost to her waist, needs a good night"s sleep-any of this sounding familiar?"
No, it doesn" t. I"m not happy that you let your weakness for pretty women interrupt- "Yeah, so I"m a sucker for the pretty ones, what"s wrong with that? I"m sorry I bothered you, man. Just forget it."
"Name," I whispered."Oh right. Wait," Max said. "She says her name is Bella Cullen. That help?"
There was a beat of dead silence, and then the voice on the other end was abruptly screaming, using a lot of words you didn"t often hear outside of truck stops. Max"s whole expression changed; all the joking vanished and his lips went pale.
"Because you didn"t ask!" Max yelled back, panicked.
There was another pause while J collected himself.
Beautiful and pale? J asked, a tiny bit calmer.
"I said that, didn"t I?"
Beautiful and pale? What did this man know about vampires? Was he one of us himself?
I wasn"t prepared for that kind of confrontation. I gritted my teeth. What had Alice gotten me into?
Max waited for a minute through another volley of shouted insults and instructions and then glanced at me with eyes that were almost frightened. "But you only meet downtown clients on Thursdays-okay, okay! On it." He slid his phone shut.
"He wants to see me?" I asked brightly.
Max glowered. "You could have told me you were a priority client."
"I didn"t know I was."
"I thought you might be a cop," he admitted. "I mean, you don"t look like a cop. But you act kind of weird, beautiful."
I shrugged.
"Drug cartel?" he guessed.
"Who, me?" I asked.
"Yeah. Or your boyfriend or whatever."
"Nope, sorry. I"m not really a fan of drugs, and neither is my husband. Just say no and all that."
Max cussed under his breath. "Married. Can"t catch a break."
I smiled.
"Mafia?"
"Nope.""Diamond smuggling?"
"Please! Is that the kind of people you usually deal with, Max? Maybe you need a new job."
I had to admit, I was enjoying myself a little. I hadn"t interacted with humans much besides Charlie and Sue. It was entertaining to watch him flounder. I was also pleased at how easy it was not to kill him.
"You"ve got to be involved in something big. And bad," he mused.
"It"s not really like that."
"That"s what they all say. But who else needs papers? Or can afford to pay J"s prices for them, I should say. None of my business, anyway," he said, and then muttered the word married again.
He gave me an entirely new address with basic directions, and then watched me drive away with suspicious, regretful eyes.
At this point, I was ready for almost anything-some kind of James Bond villain"s high- tech lair seemed appropriate. So I thought Max must have given me the wrong address as a test. Or maybe the lair was subterranean, underneath this very commonplace strip mall nestled up against a wooded hill in a nice family neighborhood.
I pulled into an open spot and looked up at a tastefully subtle sign that read JASON SCOTT, ATTORNEY AT LAW.
The office inside was beige with celery green accents, inoffensive and unremarkable.
There was no scent of vampire here, and that helped me relax. Nothing but unfamiliar human. A fish tank was set into the wall, and a blandly pretty blond receptionist sat behind the desk.
"h.e.l.lo," she greeted me. "How can I help you?"
"I"m here to see Mr. Scott."
"Do you have an appointment?"
"Not exactly."
She smirked a little. "It could be a while, then. Why don"t you have a seat while I-"
April! a man"s demanding voice squawked from the phone on her desk. I"m expecting a Ms. Cullen shortly.
I smiled and pointed to myself.
Send her in immediately. Do you understand? I don" t care what it" s interrupting.I could hear something else in his voice besides impatience. Stress. Nerves.
"She"s just arrived," April said as soon as she could speak.
What? Send her in! What are you waiting for?
"Right away, Mr. Scott!" She got to her feet, fluttering her hands as she led the way down a short hallway, offering me coffee or tea or anything else I might have wanted.
"Here you are," she said as she ushered me through the door into a power office, complete with heavy wooden desk and vanity wall.
"Close the door behind you," a raspy tenor voice ordered.
I examined the man behind the desk while April made a hasty retreat. He was short and balding, probably around fifty-five, with a paunch. He wore a red silk tie with a blue- and-white-striped shirt, and his navy blazer hung over the back of his chair. He was also trembling, blanched to a sickly paste color, with sweat beading on his forehead; I imagined an ulcer churning away under the spare tire.
J recovered himself and rose unsteadily from his chair. He reached his hand across the desk.
"Ms. Cullen. What an absolute delight."
I crossed to him and shook his hand quickly once. He cringed slightly at my cold skin but did not seem particularly surprised by it.
"Mr. Jenks. Or do you prefer Scott?"
He winced again. "Whatever you wish, of course."
"How about you call me Bella, and I"ll call you J?"
"Like old friends," he agreed, mopping a silk handkerchief across his forehead. He gestured for me to have a seat and took his own. "I must ask, am I finally meeting Mr.
Jasper"s lovely wife?"
I weighed that for a second. So this man knew Jasper, not Alice. Knew him, and seemed afraid of him, too. "His sister-in-law, actually."
He pursed his lips, as if he were grasping for meanings just as desperately as I was.
"I trust Mr. Jasper is in good health?" he asked carefully.
"I"m sure he is in excellent health. He"s on an extended vacation at the moment."
This seemed to clear up some of J"s confusion. He nodded to himself and templed his fingers. "Just so. You should have come to the main office. My a.s.sistants there would have put you straight through to me-no need to go through less hospitable channels."I just nodded. I wasn"t sure why Alice had given me the ghetto address.
"Ah, well, you"re here now. What can I do for you?"
"Papers," I said, trying to make my voice sound like I knew what I was talking about.
"Certainly," J agreed at once. "Are we talking birth certificates, death certificates, drivers" licenses, pa.s.sports, social security cards... ?"
I took a deep breath and smiled. I owed Max big time.
And then my smile faded. Alice had sent me here for a reason, and I was sure it was to protect Renesmee. Her last gift to me. The one thing she would know I needed.
The only reason Renesmee would need a forger was if she was running. And the only reason Renesmee would be running was if we had lost.
If Edward and I were running with her, she wouldn"t need these doc.u.ments right away. I was sure IDs were something Edward knew how to get his hands on or make himself, and I was sure he knew ways to escape without them. We could run with her for thousands of miles. We could swim with her across an ocean.
If we were around to save her.
And all the secrecy to keep this out of Edward"s head. Because there was a good chance that everything he knew, Aro would know. If we lost, Aro would certainly get the information he craved before he destroyed Edward.
It was as I had suspected. We couldn"t win. But we must have a good shot at killing Demetri before we lost, giving Renesmee the chance to run.
My still heart felt like a boulder in my chest-a crushing weight. All my hope faded like fog in the sunshine. My eyes p.r.i.c.ked.
Who would I put this on? Charlie? But he was so defenselessly human. And how would I get Renesmee to him? He was not going to be anywhere close to that fight. So that left one person. There really had never been anyone else.
I"d thought this through so quickly that J didn"t notice my pause.
"Two birth certificates, two pa.s.sports, one driver"s license," I said in a low, strained tone.
If he noticed the change in my expression, he pretended otherwise.
"The names?"
"Jacob... Wolfe. And... Vanessa Wolfe." Nessie seemed like an okay nickname for Vanessa. Jacob would get a kick out of the Wolfe thing.His pen scratched swiftly across a legal pad. "Middle names?"
"Just put something generic in."
"If you prefer. Ages?"
"Twenty-seven for the man, five for the girl." Jacob could pull it off. He was a beast.
And at the rate Renesmee was growing, I"d better estimate high. He could be her stepfather....
"I"ll need pictures if you prefer finished doc.u.ments," J said, interrupting my thoughts.
"Mr. Jasper usually liked to finish them himself."
Well, that explained why J didn"t know what Alice looked like.
"Hold on," I said.
This was luck. I had several family pictures shoved in my wallet, and the perfect one- Jacob holding Renesmee on the front porch steps-was only a month old. Alice had given it to me just a few days before... Oh. Maybe there wasn"t that much luck involved after all. Alice knew I had this picture. Maybe she"d even had some dim flash that I would need it before she gave it to me.
"Here you go."