"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened." –Winston Churchill.

Chapter one:

In which feathers are ruffled by a reporter, who knows not what she has stumbled across, nor the scale of it, nor the consequences.

"Calm down."

"Calm down? Have you read the report?" The voice over the phone frantically demanded. The senator's usual polished demeanour, and level headed approach had flown out of the window apparently.

"I have the report in front of me."

"Then surely you can understand why I am more than a little concerned," The senator continued.

"I understand. I'll take care of it."

"Thanks."

He placed the phone down on his desk, his eyes flickering towards the computer screen, which held the news article in question. It was a simple interview in the Seattle Times. Standard stuff really. A reporter interviewing the newly elected Senator and his wife. It wouldn't have caused any alarm if the reporter hadn't been so interested in the Senator's wife.

They were fairly innocent questions. Nothing too invasive, or insightful. But they were questions asked, none the less, and so they needed seeing to.

"Garrett!" he called. Moments later, the door to his office opened and he was joined by another man.

"You needed me?" he asked.

"I want everything you can find on Isabella Swan. And when I say everything…"

"You mean everything from today's internet history to her parent's medical records. Got it." Garrett smiled.

"Have it on my desk by close tonight."

"Anything else Mr. Whitlock?"

"Call Peter. Tell him this might be a good time to visit home."

"You think it's that serious?" Garrett frowned.

"I think it's best to be safe," he sighed, "Senator Davis seemed unusually unnerved. He's not a man who is easily worried."

"Do you want me to start damage control?"

"No. Not yet. It could be nothing. But Peter has always had good instincts on this kind of thing."

"He's got a sixth sense," Garret nodded in agreement, before getting to work.

Jasper sat back in his desk, an air of determination about him. Perhaps the reporter knew nothing. But he would be damned if he allowed one woman to tear down all that he'd worked so hard to build.

Bella sat on her couch, numb with shock.

Linda Davis didn't exist.

She had put feelers out, and had different sources searching for over a week, but they had found nothing. Nothing but a marriage certificate. It was as if she didn't exist before her wedding day, and since then she only existed on the arm of her husband.

There had never been any suspicion surrounding Linda Davis, or her husband, the newly elected senator. In fact, his whole campaign was picture perfect. Democrats with traditional American good looks, the entirety of Washington State had fallen in love with the Davis', resulting in one of the most sweeping majority votes the state had ever seen.

Her paper had been elated to book an interview with the couple. Her friend Angela, who had been chosen to interview them, was more than excited. It wasn't just that she was a fan of the First Couple of Washington, but that she was excited to finally get an article that would gain her some readership. Unfortunately, Angela had a death in the family the night before the big day. Much to her surprise, it was Bella's name that was put forward to replace her. As an investigative journalist, it was an unusual assignment for her; the majority of Bella's articles were based on months of work looking into corrupt politicians, corporate fraud, and businesses dumping waste into the Puget Sound. Frankly, the interview was far too close to 'celebrity news' for her taste, and she would have turned it down if it weren't for Angela.

So dutifully, she went and asked the questions which her friend had thoughtfully emailed to her. The interview was straight forward, easy, and utterly uninteresting, though she smiled, laughed and made pleasantries. That was until she turned to ask Mrs Davis a question. She had only asked her how the couple had met, but her reaction was far from what she would have expected for such a question. Mrs Davis visibly tensed, her knuckles white and the colour draining from her perfectly painted face. Then Senator Davis chipped in with a sweet little story about love at first sight that Bella didn't believe for one second. After that, she was unable to help herself from directing the odd question at the now nervous wife. The strange thing was that Linda Davis never once answered. Her husband always spoke for her.

That night she couldn't stop thinking about it. It drove Jake crazy, but her fiancée affectionately rolled his eyes and endured her ranting and rambling with good grace. She had met trophy wives before, women who looked the part on their husband's arm, but had little to say that wouldn't cause embarrassment if printed in the papers. She had also met women who were incredibly shy, and mumbled answers and made excuses. This was nothing like that. Linda Davies looked genuinely scared. The source of her fear was what intrigued Bella.

She lasted all of two days before looking further into the background of Senator Davis and his Wife.

The Senator's background was everything you'd expect it to be. Born into money, he'd attended a top fee paying school, before moving onto Princeton, where he graduated top of his class. His career afterwards was all geared towards the overall aim of political success, which he was now achieving.

His wife, however, did not exist. It was impossible.

Now she just needed to decide what to do about it.

After calling around her connections at various different newspapers, Bella had a list of almost a dozen interviews similar to the one she had conducted. She thoroughly background checked each of the women, and found two more whose only recorded existence was after their marriage. It made no sense. All clearly American, the only thing they had in common was marrying into wealthy families. In fact, all of the men involved came from the 'old money' families, the kind that were beyond rich, and likely would be for the foreseeable future.

While it was true that the uber-wealthy carefully vetted and controlled what information was in the public domain about them, they all left some kind of a paper trail. So why didn't these women?

Her next step was to contact all three of her targets. The guise she used was unoriginal, but hopefully believe able; an article on the representation of women in the media. Somewhat unsurprisingly, all three of them declined to meet with her.

Bella was running out of options. Her usual sources were completely dry of in/formation. Without knowing more, or even knowing what exactly she was looking at, there was little she could do. With no real evidence of any sort, she couldn't even go to her editor with it. There was only one thing left to do. She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket, typing in a number that was as familiar to her as her own.

"Hey Dad."

"What can I do for you Bells?"

"Say I needed to scan some faces through the databases. Would you be able to hook me up?"

"Sure. Is it for work?"

"Yes," she lied easily.

"Fax them to my office and you'll have them back by the end of tomorrow."

***

The information came quicker than Bella had expected. The paperwork was faxed through, as well as a scribbled note from Charlie.

"Bells,
If you know something about the whereabouts of any of these women, please let me know. Their cases have gone cold, but their families still hope.
Dad."

It intrigued her, and she wasn't entirely surprised to find three missing persons reports from three different states. All three women had been college students at the time if their disappearance. They had all been doing day to day tasks, one dog walking, another grocery shopping, the last on her way to work. So how had they ended up with new names, married to some of the wealthiest men in this hemisphere?

With the new details of their real names, Bella was able to dig deeper and find out more about the women in question. They had different majors, went to good colleges, and had good grades. Another similarity was that they all came from middle class homes, with parents who cared enough to try and find them, but lacked the financial backing to fund the kind of search that would have turned stones over. Really, they were fairly unremarkable people who likely would never have found themselves in the public eye.

There was something suspicious about their sudden lifestyle changes. None of them had told their friends of a partner or a lover, yet they had all been married within a month of their disappearances. Bella could have understood an elopement, but not why not a single one of them had told anyone, nor why they'd need to change their names entirely.

Convinced that there was something more than what she was seeing, Bella prepared her evidence and took it to her editor. David Banner, who usually allowed her free reign in her choice of reports, for the first time turned her down.

"The Seattle Times tries not to publish these kinds of stories," he gently warned her.

"But think about the readership, and the acclaim if it's true..."

"But what if it's not?" He returned, "We cannot afford the consequences if you have misinterpreted this information."

"Am I expected to just turn a blind eye to this?" Bella asked indignantly.

"What you are expected to do is your job. And this is not it," he told her firmly.

Bella left his office with a new assignment, and a determination to not let her investigation be quashed. After all, curiosity was her begetting sin. On this occasion, she would indulge.

***

Jasper's week was not going as he had planned. He sat at his desk, whiskey in hand, looking at the photograph of the woman who was disrupting his life. He'd had multiple phone calls from the Senator and two other friends, whose growing concern stemmed from phone calls from one Isabella Swan to their wives. None of them had actually spoken to her, the calls having been handled by representatives, but the fact that she was trying was bad enough. She had stirred up the hornets' nest, the worry spreading throughout the network. His phone had rung non-stop for days. Until he had unplugged it, that is.

Peter sat down opposite him, helping himself to the decanter that was still open.

"I've spoken to Garrett,"

"And?"

"She's found the missing persons reports."

Jasper cursed, then took a long draw from his glass.

"I always told you they would be a problem."

"Destroying them would have caused greater problems when people realized they were missing," he replied.

"But now they've resurfaced, and with the Davis right in the limelight..."

"We're wasting our time resurrecting this stupid argument, when we should be deciding what to do next."

"What would you suggest?"

"I think we don't decide until we find out how serious she is about this."

"A bribe?"

"A bribe." Jasper nodded, "if she's no threat, then this will all be over. If she is determined to continue, we can decide which action to take."

"I don't know. My instinct is that this is serious. A bribe might make her look harder."

"I want to see how she responds to the bribe."

Peter paused thoughtfully before responding.

"Is this about business, or something else?"

"I'm simply curious."

Jasper cut his brother off before he could open his mouth.

"Don't read too much into this. Arrange for someone to contact her and make an offer, then we can decide what needs doing."

A/N: This is a taster of a story that's been banging about inside my head for some time, which I'm not sure whether to continue with or not. Review and let me know what you think.

Oh, and I'm obviously not Stephanie Meyer. I just put her characters to use for my own nefarious purposes.