Seeds of Doubt Who: Valen and Charlotte When: Afternoon Where: Their house
It had been a tense day or so, dealing with reporters and police officers out of Valen's jurisdiction. Isadora had been a bundle of nerves since they received that first phone call, and like a caring, dutiful husband, he had accompanied her to St. Mary's Hospital, where his wicked step-daughter had been admitted. His name pulled some weight, even in Saginaw, and Valen had managed to get a few details from the assigned police officers that had avoided answering most of the parents questions. As inconvenient as it was, they had stayed over night, and once Charlotte was well enough to be released, Isadora signed the proper papers, and the three of them were on their way home. He remained silent, and did what he could to distract himself. Being in the same vicinity as Charlotte for more than a few minutes tended to grate on his nerves, and by the time they entered Scarlet Oak, his knuckles were white with tension around the steering wheel.
Once they were home, Valen unlocked the door to let the two women inside. He had been thinking about who was responsible for the attack, and he had his guesses, but no one had made Valen aware of what was going to go down, and that wasn't pleasing to him at all. "You'll probably have to answer more questions once you feel up to it," Valen informed Charlotte as he shut the door behind him.
Charlotte was an absolute wreck, and pitched no small fit at the idea of having to go home and leave everyone. Earth was pitted against Earth in that stand-down against her mother, and predictably, Charlotte had lost. Heck, she lost that argument before it even started. That 'little snag' aside, her mother had been pretty emotional and hovering for all she was worth. Charlotte was so happy to see her mom again, but by the time they were back in Scarlet Oak, she really just wanted to get away and be with Ransom, or at least one of her remaining friends. They would understand.
The minute she walked in the door she was bombarded by animals, and she promptly plopped down to the floor to greet them all. She looked up at Valen, nodding slightly. She wondered if this was driving him crazy, technically being on the victim's side for a change. "Whatever I have to do."
"This is going to get a lot of press," Valen said, sitting down on the sofa and watching the wretched animals start to smother the girl. "I'm sure you're a smart enough girl to realize it would be a bad idea to talk to any reporters until the police come to a conclusion in this particular case, whatever that may be." More than likely the teenagers would be dead before they were found. How sad. "How many people did you tell about your camping trip?" Valen's tone took on a professional slant, as he sunk into detective mode, but he was more curious about who was responsible rather than where the missing teenagers actually were.
Again Charlotte nodded. Yes, stay away from reporters. Her name wasn't in the media right now, but it might not stay that way. She winced slightly at the question, recognizing the slightly professional tone. She did not want to answer this question. She expected she'd get pretty much the same reaction she had from the police already, only worse. "I organized it on the internet. A lot of people knew we were going." The officers in Saginaw hadn't said it was her fault, but she had a feeling they'd all been thinking it loudly.
Valen didn't say a word, although the mildly exasperated look on his face spoke volumes. He wanted to ask Charlotte if she realized how brainless that had been, but the last thing Valen needed was to insult Isadora's daughter with her within earshot. "Did you organize it in a public way? Or was it private, between you and your friends?" It was easier to narrow the entire thing down, if there was only a handful of people to speak to. Not that this was Valen's case, but he'd be damned if he didn't get involved. He was almost pissed off that he hadn't thought of it himself.
Charlotte wasn't the type to hide behind her mother, but she really hoped her mom didn't go too far right about now. Charlotte saw her pass through the foyer again and head towards the kitchen, probably to feed all the animals. "It was on my LiveJournal," Charlotte started. "Mostly it was private e-mails, but I did one post just to see how many people were interested, and another for any last-minute joiners. I didn't post an exact map to where we were going or anything, just a general area, and at the time I figured... you know, who in the world is going to see it other than friends and people from school." At the time. Now Charlotte felt very, very stupid, and she'd certainly never do it again, but the damage had been done. Another wave of anxiety fell over her, her heartrate picking up rapidly, and she tried to focus on breathing and not looking like the absolute mess she felt inside.
"Your Livejournal. If it was a public journal, anyone could have come across it," he pointed out. "Especially coming from a girl who's made a name for herself, albeit a very small name, in creating that little club." Students for Unity or whatever the hell she had decided to name it. "You're not entirely subtle about what you are, Charlotte. Any of those anti-supernatural fanatics out there would have immediately seen an opportunity had they come across your journal. A group of kids going camping, without adult supervision, there's little doubt that one or more of those kids would be... different." Surely she knew all of this by now, but he wasn't concerned about that. He just wanted to twist the knife in a little deeper. "Of course, there's the possibility that this wasn't an outside job. Is there anyone who went on that camping trip that you never met before, or perhaps didn't know very well?"
He was doing an excellent job of twisting the knife until that last bit, and Charlotte felt something inside of her start to snap. "It wasn't one of them," she snapped. Which kind of meant that the short answer was yes. There were a few kids on the trip she didn't know so well, and the one who was brand new to Scarlet Oak... she'd told the officers and agents in Saginaw that too, but that was before she fully realized they were asking in terms of suspects. "None of my friends or anyone who associates with them would do something like this."
Cocking an eyebrow at her attitude shift, Valen merely studied her, assessing this new information. "I know you want to believe it wasn't one of them," he said simply, "but that doesn't mean it wasn't. I'm guessing by your defensive tone that the answer to my question is yes. If you don't know these people, Charlotte, you don't know what they're capable of. And I don't believe you should be so naive to believe that you do. How many of them on the trip had you never met before?"
Charlotte grit her teeth and counted to ten, before taking another deep breath. "Just one," she admitted. Several she didn't know very well, but she'd seen them around school and they were either related to people she knew or had grown up with them. Hawk, unfortunately, she didn't know at all, and to her knowledge no one but Tilly did. And Tilly was gone. She did not want to believe anyone on the trip could have been involved, and Hawk had seemed like a really nice guy. But was she betraying her friends by not looking at him as a suspect? Crap. The more she thought about it, the more she realized her conflict must be showing on her face.
Valen was excellent as masking his emotions. While he remained cool and collected on the surface, he was smirking on the inside. There was immense satisfaction in riling up the girl. It was almost worth being in her presence for this long. He noted the look on her face, could practically sense her inner turmoil, and he leaned forward a bit, his voice lowering as his gaze locked upon hers. "One is all it takes. I've been doing my job long enough to know that the best con artists, the most violent offenders, could seem like the nicest, most down to earth person on the outside. They're adept and skilled at fooling anyone and everyone." Ironic, coming from him. "Did you give his name to the police in Saginaw?"
The part of Charlotte that utterly loathed Valen wanted to believe he was doing this to her on purpose. It couldn't be Hawk. She'd seen him at the hospital and he'd been genuinely upset. "Of course I did," she answered. "I'm not stupid." Though she sure as heck felt like it as far as this went.
"Now Charlotte," Valen said, his tone taking on tender, yet condescending tone. It was like he was talking to a bloody five year old. "No one called you stupid. I know you must feel a lot of guilt over what happened to your friends. And I know you want to believe the best of everyone, but in this case, you need to realize that the people you felt you trusted could be responsible for what happened. If you want to continue denying it to yourself, then by all means. But you must also realize the first forty eight hours of an abduction are the most crucial. Any chance of your friends being alive after are pretty slim to none."
The sound of his voice made Charlotte's skin crawl, and as he said what he said she wanted to be sick. She wanted to cry, but she refused to do it in front of him. Anna lay down next to her and put her head on Charlotte's leg, and Charlotte tried to focus on her. She knew what people were suspecting right now, for blood hunters to have taken them to drain, but she refused to acknowledge that as a possibility. She didn't know what to say, she felt hopeless and weak, so she didn't say anything.
Valen's smile was small and sympathetic. Or appeared to be. "I'm sorry about your friends. If I were you, I would maybe start planning your trips a bit more privately. With the social climate change, you can never know who's watching, or reading, as the case may be." He pushed up from the couch, still watching Charlotte and her cat. "If you remember anything from the last few days that might have been... out of the ordinary, make sure you let me know."
Charlotte couldn't stay down here, even if he was leaving. She wanted to go to her room and let everything out in privacy. So she nodded and picked up the cat as she stood and headed for the stairs. Her skin was still crawling, and Valen had officially planted the seed of doubt in her brain.