Chapter 30 | A TERRIBLE ACTRESS AND A LITTLE ASSISTANCE

He's had his hair cut since the last time I saw him, which was more than an hour ago. And, his beard is...no longer a beard, but rather medium stubble. At least, that's what I think it's called. Or is it called designer stubble? Who knows!

Either way, if I thought he was attractive before...

I start to feel nervous for some reason.

"Of course, join us," Richard says.

I can't help but just sit there, watching as he sits down. What is he doing?

"Thank you," Vaughn says, looking and acting as effortlessly intimidating as ever, if not more so with his looks being exceptionally obvious, now.

Also, now he has manners? Odd.

Richard holds out his hand to the man in front of me and introduces himself. After shaking his hand, my uncle's friend replies: "Vaughn Westergaard."

At this, Richard's head rises a bit in recognition and surprise, but before he can say anything, Roan laughs somewhat. "Sounds like a villain name."

That's what I thought! However, that's not what I say, because when Vaughn coolly gazes at Roan, I'm even intimidated. And, that very unimpressed look wasn't even directed at me!

"Who are you?" Vaughn asks him.

And I decide to take the opportunity to not look like an idiot and speak up. "Uh, Vaughn, this is Roan. He drove me here from Beaver Creek."

Vaughn finally moves his gaze to me, and I feel my heart start to race, for some odd reason. Then, he moves his gaze back to Roan, and for another odd reason, I immediately miss the eye contact.

Vaughn holds out his hand, "Roan, nice to meet you. Thank you for driving her here safely."

'Thank you for driving her here safely?'

Roan shakes his hand, "Yeah, no problem. Only had to suffer through a few miserable Taylor Swift songs." He laughs.

I bite my lip, ultimately ignoring him.

Vaughn doesn't say anything in reply to him, either, and Richard wisely decides to ignore Roan also, focusing his attention on the man who has just joined us.

"So, how do you two know each other?" Richard asks, referring to me and the man in front of me.

"She's an old friend of my sister's," Vaughn speaks up, lying easily.

Sister? He has a sister?

I make sure to not look too confused, though, because that would be dumb.

Richard just nods in response to him, and then, the attention is on me once again.

"So, Jane, may I ask why you hitchhiked here?"

The two other men focus their attention on us now, and I see Vaughn's eyebrows come together momentarily.

He better play along with the whole Jane thing, or else this will all fall apart. I mean, probably it will. But, still.

I smile, deciding to play an adventure-loving, risk-taking young girl who wanted to hitchhike to Alaska just for kicks.

"Well, I've always loved taking risks and trying new things, and so when I decided to come visit Vaughn here, I was like 'hey, why don't I do something incredibly stupid and hitchhike just for kicks?'"

"Just for kicks," Richard nods, smiling.

"Yep," I nod, hating my alter-ego already. I smile brightly, "Also I'm broke."

Richard and his son laugh, but Vaughn just smiles to not seem too out of place to them. And while it's a fake smile, it still shocks me. He's...smiling? It's a nice smile, I'm not going to lie. And as soon as his expression goes neutral again, I immediately wish he smiled more.

New goal: get him to smile more.

I continue on, "But it all worked out, actually. Only had to ride with one other person."

"And were they nice?" Richard asks.

"She was really nice, yeah."

"I didn't think Grace was that nice," Roan says, but we all just ignore him again.

"Well, that's good," Richard says to me. "How long do you plan on staying here for?"

"Actually, that's what Jane has been thinking a lot about recently," Vaughn says, looking at me when he says my fake name. "I told her about how dangerous it can be here, but she refuses to believe me."

Richard looks at me, "So what kind of dangers have you heard about? Over a decade here and I can tell you I've seen it all. I can verify any stories he's told you."

"Well," I start out, deciding to take the opportunity Vaughn most definitely purposely gave me. "I've heard about wolves killing people in their own yards, people losing eyes to twigs, and people just straight up disappearing."

"Ah, yes. All of those have happened here."

"Really?"

"Yeah, in fact, seven or so years ago, all three of them happened within a few months of each other."

"That's terrible, who was involved?"

Richard nods to Vaughn, "Didn't he tell you?"

I play dumb, looking at Vaughn. "Tell me what?"

"That his friend disappeared? John Agner. Not going to lie, never really liked the man, but he was respectable, I'll give him that."

I frown, "I can't believe someone could just disappear like that, I mean, does anyone know what happened?"

He presses his fingers to his lips for a split second, "Everyone believes wolves are to blame, actually."

"Really? And why is that?" I ask casually.

"Well, mainly because his camera was found on the outskirts of town, near the river. Wolves are known to pass through that area."

Before I can reply, he continues on. "And the guy who lost his eye? We call him Thor. He was out looking for John when he ran into a branch."

I notice that Vaughn smirks slightly, but it disappears not long after.

If John disappeared in town by the river, why was Thor out looking for him in Vaughn's general vicinity?

I make a mental note to ask Thor that the next time I see him. Shaking my head, I comment simply, "Ouch. Poor guy."

Richard starts to look solemn, all of a sudden. "And then, a little girl," he lowers his voice, "Nina's niece, actually, was said to have been killed by a nearby pack. Never found her body. Same thing that happened to Agner."

But if they never found her body, why do people think she was taken by wolves?

I voice my question, and Richard shrugs indifferently. "Wolves doing things like that? It's common here."

I nod, looking down at the table, but that way of thinking...to me, it just doesn't feel right.

We don't talk about any of those three things again.

As soon as the topic entered, it was gone, and it would've been suspicious to keep bringing it back up again. So, I, along with Vaughn, continue to suffer through an insufferable amount of boring conversation.

Well, I'm assuming he's finding most of it as painful as I am, even though he doesn't show it.

I swear, it's like he's become the total opposite of what he was like before.

He used to be as conversational as he is short, and now...he's charismatic.

He used to never really acknowledge me with a name directly, but now he won't stop calling me Jane. And, yes, it's getting annoying. I think he's doing it on purpose, to be honest. He has this slightly amused glint in his eyes whenever he refers to me as my alter-ego.

I swear if he doesn't stop, the Wilson's are probably going to find out sooner rather than later.

Or maybe not.

Maybe one's too busy telling a boring story and the other's too busy not caring about it.

"So then this detective comes out, and he sees me with this bail jumper. And, his ears start to get bright red, and you can see how noticeably pissed off he is that I beat him to another one-"

Vaughn holds up his hand, successfully appearing apologetic to the two other men as he glances at Roan. "Sorry to interrupt, but I need to speak with Jane about something. Would you excuse us for just a moment?"

Huh?

"Oh yeah, no problem," he replies, and so Vaughn pushes back his chair and stands up from the table.

No! I don't want to converse, I'm too tired and drained from listening to Roan's incessant monologue to talk.

I tiredly furrow my brows as Vaughn inconspicuously nods for me to get up, so I slowly peel my right cheek from my tilted hand where it was resting, slide my elbow off the table, and stand up.

Then, I follow after Vaughn, who confidently and swiftly walks past the bar into the room with the fireplace and rocking chair. Keeping his back to me, he stands in front of the fire.

I'm the first to speak, "Y'know, I didn't think I could find a story regarding law or law enforcement lame, much less one told by a bounty hunter, but wow. I've actually been proved wrong."

Silence.

I don't expect Vaughn to continue with his conversational, likable facade once it's just him and me, and he doesn't fail to meet my expectations.

"Find a way to get yourself invited to Richard's home." His voice is back to being lower.

I frown, "Me? How? You're the one who can act like you enjoy their company."

"And I'm going back tomorrow. You're staying here for a week," Vaughn says.

"Do you honestly think he did it?"

"Well, he's at least a little suspicious, wouldn't you agree?" He answers, and I think back to Henry mentioning Richard. I also remember Henry trusting Vaughn with his friend's cabin.

So, maybe Henry told Vaughn the same things he told me, and Vaughn trusts Henry, so he's taking his word for everything.

"Is this you and your reasoning talking, or is this you trusting someone else's intuition?"

He pauses, turning around. "What?"

"Did Henry mention Richard to you?"

He nods, slowly, seeming confused. "Yes."

"And did he vaguely give you reasons to suspect Richard, one of the so-called reasons being hearsay?"

He shifts slightly, seeming interested. "Do you not trust Henry?"

"I'm not sure," I shrug, deciding to be completely transparent. "I just think that there's no real reason to even remotely suspect Richard right now."

"Then where will you start with all of this?"

"I don't know," I sigh, starting to think out loud. "Okay, and if Richard did do it? I'm just supposed to go alone and hope something bad doesn't happen? Just hope for the best?"

I watch as his silhouette pinches the bridge of its nose for a second. "Have someone go along with you. Nina."

"And what do I do once I've infiltrated his home?" I ask, sounding dry.

He walks forward until he stands in front of me, fixing me with his intimidating eye contact. "Do you not have a plan?"

"I'm having multiple different things thrown at me at once, of course I don't have a plan."

"I suggest you change that."

Seriously?

"How?" I ask because I can't think of anything else to say, but I'm not yet ready to go back and pretend to be interested in Roan's stories.

Vaughn shakes his head lightly. "Think, Mikaere."

Wait...

Did he actually use my name?

Wow, and here I was starting to wonder if he'd kept forgetting it.

Glad to know he didn't, I guess.

Ignoring the way I like how he says my name, I ask: "Why are you doing this?"

Because, while I do think I might actually have an idea as to why he's doing this, I'm still a bit curious as to what he'll say.

I almost expect him to say something like, 'use your brain,' but instead, he replies: "How far do you think you'd get by yourself with all of this? Because, while I'm not too fond of conversation, that doesn't mean I'm bad at it. You, on the other hand, don't necessarily hate it--you're just not the best at it."

Oh. I really wasn't expecting that.

But, well...

I mean, he's not wrong, for the most part.

And, how does he have me pegged so well already? Is he really that observant?

The only part he was off about was the whole me-not-hating-conversation thing. But since I talk so much around him, he must think I like speaking.

I'm not sure what to say, so I resort to asking another probably very dumb question. "Okay, so you think I'm incapable of finding out what happened to John all by myself?"

I mean, I know he basically just insinuated that, but I still want him to elaborate.

"I just think...you could use a little assistance, Mikaere. That's all," he explains, still using his same old softer voice.

Wow, using my name twice within a couple of minutes? Who would've thought?

I consider what he says for a moment, deciding to not be offended at all. I mean, why would I be? He just suggested I could use a little help. Not that big of a deal.

And, I mean, in a way, I guess I am a total charisma vacuum. I could use his help.

So, I nod slowly, "Alright. Thanks, I guess."

However, I'm not going to be totally naive and just think: It's nice he's helping me, blablabla...No.

I mean, it is considerate if he's helping me merely out of the 'kindness(?)' of his 'heart(?)'. However, the cynical part of me is set on the notion that he just wants me out of his life, (which is entirely understandable), and by helping me with this, he's one step closer to achieving that.

"So what do you plan to do regarding Henry?" He asks me.

I ignore the question, as I don't know the answer to it. "Will you tell him about this conversation?"

"No," he tells me, looking slightly confused as to why I would even ask that. "I'm not that close to Henry, Mikaere."

I nod, feeling relieved. Vaughn scans my face for a second, almost as if he's trying to guess what I'm thinking, and then wordlessly nods once, letting me know the conversation is over. And with that, he's walking back out the door, abruptly heading to the table once again.

I follow back after him, putting everything in my mind aside except for one main goal (plus the other one where I try to get Vaughn to smile more): to get myself invited over to Richard's house.

Even if Henry is wrong...it still can't help to find out what Richard has to say. He has lived here for eleven years, after all. He knows everyone.

Meaning...maybe he'll even tell me some things about Vaughn.

Sitting back down in my seat, Roan immediately launches back into his story, and I find myself having a bit of fun pretending to actually be interested this time.

"So, he literally yelled at you, just like that?" I ask, sounding slightly aghast.

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Vaughn glance at me. And, though I can't really read his exact expression at the moment because I'm busy pretending to be enamored by Roan's story, I have a pretty good idea as to what he's thinking.

It's official.

He definitely thinks I'm a terrible actress.

Roan nods, "Just like that. I was having the time of my life, though, jogging down those police steps with that bounty."

Well, he totally has no clue that I don't care. Let's hope his father falls for my act, too. That would be great!

We all continue sitting there, with Nina occasionally bringing us refills of drinks and sending me looks that scream, 'Why are you still sitting there listening to him?'

Him being Roan, who is, in fact, still doing most of the talking. And, out of all his stories that are supposed to be funny, I notice Richard and Vaughn never laugh once. I, however, feel a disgustingly pathetic obligation to fake amusement once in a while.

Speaking of laughter, though...