Warning: I wasn't kidding when I said Edward had a dark side, in the summary. People have different ideas of what constitutes dark, and I have seen darkwards that make mine look like a youth minister at bible camp (uh...bad example?) but he's dark. The possessive, controlling, domineering Edward that makes us swoon in fanfic would have us calling the cops in real life - that's the kind of darkness I'm trying to convey.
There will also be the occasional lemon, and some content that might be disturbing (I will remember to post warnings). The M rating will be deserved.
Disclaimer: I neither own, nor did I create the characters and concepts of the Twilight Saga. They are the sole creation and property of Stephenie Meyer. And unlike most people, I DON'T wish I owned them. I DO wish I had an original idea and characters of my own, though.
Smooth Criminal
The rich, smooth tones of Ella Fitzgerald drew me slowly out of the most restful, untroubled sleep I'd had in a long while.
Summertime and the living is easy, she sang languidly.
I snuggled deeper into the soft, lavender-scented sheets, humming contentedly.
Fish are jumping
I cracked open one eye and slammed it shut with a grunt, painfully blinded by the morning sunlight glaring off the white floorboards.
and the cotton is high
It took a few more seconds for me to realize that Ella Fitzgerald shouldn't currently be singing in my bedroom, and if there was music playing, it must be my cell phone.
Oh your daddy's rich
It was someone's ringtone. Someone important. I wracked my sleep-addled brain.
and your ma is good looking
The answer rose slowly into consciousness. It was my partner and mentor Jasper Whitlock's ringtone.
So hush little baby
After our last encounter, he knew better than to call me unless it was really, really important. I rolled on to my back, twisting my legs up in the bed sheets in the process. My eyes still squeezed shut I reached blindly for my phone, almost knocking it off the night table.
Don't you cr-
Ella's mellow voice was cut off when I flipped my phone open and held it to my ear. "You'd better have a damn good reason..." I slurred, still half asleep.
"Masen's escaped," he interrupted me, his voice grim.
"What?" I shrieked, coming awake suddenly and lunging upright. "How?" I swung my legs to the floor and stood, but the sheets were tangled around my legs and I tripped as soon as I tried to take a step. As the floorboards rushed toward me, I let go of my phone and put out my hands to stop myself from falling on my face. My cell skittered across the floor and cracked against the baseboard and I landed with a thud and a groan, banging my knee painfully and quickly limp-crawling out of the bedding on all fours to retrieve it.
"Jazz?"
"What the hell was that?"
"I tried to get out of bed and fell," I explained sheepishly, rubbing my right knee. Sitting on the floor, I leaned back against the wall and pulled up my leg, inspecting it for damage. My knee was going to be sporting one hell of a bruise tomorrow.
Jasper snorted. "Only you," he said, fond amusement coloring his tone.
You don't know the half of it. I'd gone to bed naked the night before, and must have presented quite a visual, falling forward with my legs swallowed up in bed sheets, arms flailing, only to land on the floor with my bare ass up in the air. "Yes, well enough about me," I said briskly, feeling my cheeks heat up a little. I headed for the bathroom and turned on the shower, firing questions at him without giving him a chance to answer.
"What the hell happened? How did he escape? Why the hell would he do something so idiotic?" I was starting to rant, pacing back and forth in front of the vanity. Edward Masen had been lucky – he had received a sentence that amounted to a slap on the wrist, and was up for parole in just a few months. This stunt could add years to his sentence, and I couldn't understand what motivate his escape. "The judge is going to throw the book at him this time. Dammit, how could he be so…so…criminally stupid?"
I finally paused, to deafening silence on the other end of the line.
I stopped pacing. "Jasper? Are you still there?"
His voice, when it finally came…well, let's just say that I had never heard Jasper speak to me in what would from that point on become known as his "military voice". I could practically feel myself standing up straighter.
"Bella, I am done pussy-footin' around with you. I want to know what's going on with you, and you're not getting out of telling me this time. You were full of fire when I took you on, and I want to know where the Hell it went. I want to know why you let things get so bad that you were forced to take annual leave, I want to know why you still haven't come to me with any of it, and more than anything else, I want to know what the deal is with you and Masen. Now start talking."
"I feel like I should salute you or something, Major," I quipped.
He would not be deflected this time, and ignored my attempt at humor. "I'm waiting," he said, clearly not amused.
I sighed, digging through my toilet bag with one hand and pulling out the things I would need for my shower. "Jasper, can we just talk about this later?"
You could almost hear him rubbing a hand over his face. "Bella…" he started wearily.
I interrupted him. "I'm not trying to get out of answering you!" I cried. "Not this time. I just want to take a shower and get back on the road. We can talk when I get home, ok?" I injected a pleading note in my voice. For some strange reason, Jasper had a problem resisting my pleading. It was his kryptonite.
Unfortunately, it didn't work this time. "Whoa. Hold up there, honey. You're not coming back. You're on leave, remember?"
I was absolutely speechless for a moment. "You can't be serious," I cried as soon as I'd found my voice again. "Jasper, it's my case!"
He put me right back in my place. "It's our case, Bella, and I am the lead investigator on it."
"But…but…you need me!" I sputtered. "I'm the Edward Masen expert! No one knows him like I do!" I tried to modulate my tone to sound less frantic, but it was too late. I caught sight of myself in the mirror and my eyes were wide and crazed. No wonder Boss had sent me packing for a month. I really was losing it.
There was another loaded silence. When he finally spoke, his voice was very serious. "Bella, are you hearing yourself? You're coming unglued. You have a very promising career, and you're putting it in jeopardy. I want to know what it is about Masen that has you tied up in knots, and I want to know now."
"Jasper, I…I don't want to talk about this over the phone. I'll tell you about it when I see you again." There. That should buy me some time. One month to be exact.
He sighed. "Ok, we'll talk next time I see you."
Yes! "Thanks, Jazz," I said, feeling light-headed with relief. It still didn't solve the problem of how I was going to explain my almost preternatural connection with Edward Masen, but at least it would give me time to come up with a plausible story.
My relief was short lived. His tone, when he spoke again, was smug. "You're welcome. I'll be there in an hour..."
The phone slipped from my nerveless fingers landing on the bath mat with a soft thud. Unaware, Jasper kept talking, although I couldn't hear his words as I scrambled to pick up my phone again.
"…That'll be our first order of business, you hear?"
My knees went weak. "I'm sorry, did you say an hour?" I quavered, closing the toilet lid and sitting down. "Where the hell are you? How did you know where to find me?"
"Yes I did, in my truck, and I called Emmett. You may be off the case for now, but you're right, you are the Masen expert. I'd be a fool not to consult you. But first you're going to tell me what's been eating at you; you're not getting out of that. Oh, and Bella? That pleading thing with the doe eyes that you do? It's not going to work this time. I won't accept anything but the complete truth from you.
"Yes, Sir," I muttered, disguising my panic with sarcasm.
Jasper, having gotten his point across, was all Southern Charm again and simply chuckled. "All right, I'll see you in sixty."
"Yeah," I said with zero enthusiasm, stabbing my finger at the disconnect button.
I put the phone down and chewed on my thumbnail, thinking quickly. How could I possibly tell him the whole truth about Edward Masen and me? And yet, how could I avoid it? Jasper was a renowned psychologist so attuned to body language and facial expression that he was practically an empath; I didn't have a snowball's hope in hell of placating him with half-truths. Damn, maybe I should have done this on the phone after all. I would've stood a better chance of fooling him and getting away with it.
My heart sank as I remembered his last words to me before I left on my imposed vacation. Jasper had made it very clear that my partnership with him was in jeopardy, and the conversation we'd just had told me he wasn't going to let it go, which frankly I should have expected. I had stretched the boundaries of his goodwill about as far as they would go; he was obviously at the end of his patience.
Well, there was nothing I could do about it now. Fate was barreling toward me in a pick-up truck; all I could do was to shake off my blue funk and gird myself against the unpleasantness ahead. I squeezed toothpaste on my toothbrush and stuck it in my mouth, stepping under the stream of hot water and tipping my head under the spray to wet my hair. My mind was going in circles as I vigorously brushed my teeth, remembering my last face-to-face encounter with Jasper, just a few days ago.
After a boring morning of playing solitaire on my computer instead of working on my backlog of paperwork, I was summoned to the Assistant Director's office. It came as a shock to me, which was ridiculous; it was clear that Jasper and the AD, affectionately nicknamed "Boss", had both noticed that I hadn't been myself for quite some time. I had however hoped to delay the inevitable long enough to get my head straightened out myself, without their well-meaning interference.
It looked like my time had just run out. The moment I'd been dreading had arrived. Sighing, I closed my browser window and stood, heading slowly to the Assistant Director's office.
I didn't know exactly what was coming, but I knew it wouldn't be pleasant. After the high of chasing (metaphorically speaking), arresting, and putting Edward Masen in jail had waned, I suddenly found myself with absolutely no purpose in my life. I had very few friends, besides Jasper, to fill the hours left empty now that Edward was finally behind bars. Never totally invested in my other cases to begin with, I'd completely lost interest after the Masen case had been closed. I started coming in late, my reports were sloppy, and my work suffered.
Jasper grew suspicious, then worried. I caught him watching me often, and he never bothered to hide it. It made me nervous. Eventually he tried to talk to me about it, but I always changed the subject or deflected his attention on to something else, and so far he had let me get away with it. I had a feeling that my good luck in that regard wasn't going to last much longer.
I knocked softly on the Assistant Director's door, waited a beat, and then let myself in. To my surprise Jasper was there, leaning against one of the filing cabinets with his arms crossed over his chest. He made no move to leave, a fact that didn't reassure me.
"Hey Boss, you needed to see me?" I said, pleased to hear how steady and professional my voice sounded.
"Sit down," he said kindly, indicating one of the chairs in front of his desk.
I took a seat, smoothing my skirt, trying to keep my hands occupied as I waited for the axe to fall.
"I'm going to get right to the point, Bella," he started, looking me over the top of his glasses. "Jasper and I have been talking," - I shot my partner a dirty look which her returned with an impassive one, one of his eyebrows slightly raised - "and I have decided to make you take a vacation." I noticed the emphasis on the "I" - he must have caught the look I'd given Jasper. "You have six weeks accumulated leave, and you are taking four of them."
No. No way. I opened my mouth to protest, but he continued speaking, ignoring me. "It hasn't escaped my notice that your heart isn't in the job anymore. I'm not going to ask you what's going on - although I am pretty sure your partner won't be as accommodating - but you're going to take some time to get your head straight. You can't go on like this. You haven't taken a single day since you started. You worked tirelessly on the Masen case, and I think you need a break. I'm going to see to it that you take one, whether you like it or not."
That's what I loved about Boss...he didn't ask for explanations, or try to get into my head and find out what was wrong with me. He was a man of few words, and he wasn't one to pry. Not right away, anyway. That would come later, if I returned from my enforced vacation with the same attitude of disinterest in my job.
Nevertheless, I was completely humiliated. I'd always prided myself on putting my best effort into anything I undertook. Everything I had done most of my adult life had been geared toward getting to the FBI, and I had dreamed of it for a lot longer than that, all through high school to be exact.
Ever since I had found out that Edward Masen actually existed, and was not just a product of my over-active imagination.
I had no desire to argue with Boss, just wanting to get out of his office and back into mine so I could fall apart in privacy. "Fine," I said, my voice surprisingly steady despite the fact that I could feel my eyes starting to burn, a precursor to tears. Standing, I kept my face averted from Jasper and turned away just in the nick of time. My eyes welled up as I left the room, walking swiftly to the space I shared with him and shutting the door behind me.
I was a mess, and though upset about being forced to go on leave, I couldn't disagree with the AD's actions. I would probably have done the same thing if I'd been in his shoes. He'd cut me more slack than I had the right to expect, but even his patience had an end. With a shaky sigh, I turned away from the door and walked to the window, staring sightlessly at the skyline, fat tears spilling over and running down my cheeks.
When Jasper's gentle hands closed over my shoulders, I jumped. I hadn't heard him coming in behind me.
"I think it's time you told me what is going on, Bella," he said softly, "and don't insult my intelligence again by telling me it's nothing."
I didn't say anything, trying to discretely wipe the tears off my face, but Jasper turned me around to face him. I resisted just enough to let him know I didn't want to turn around but he overrode me, using gentle force to get me to comply. I stared straight ahead at his sternum, studiously avoiding looking him in the eyes. When his fingers touched my chin - his attempt to get me to look at him - I pulled my head to the side, staring at the wall over my desk through blurred eyes.
He released me with a sigh. "All right," he said tiredly as I turned away from him and headed to my desk to tidy up in preparation for my month long exile. "Let me tell you what I know for a fact. When we arrested Masen, he recognized you." He held up his hand when I opened my mouth to deny it. "Don't," he said sharply, holding up his hand to stop me. "I saw his face, Bella. And for the record, I saw yours too. You've had an unhealthy obsession with him for as long as I have known you, and I suspect you've had it for a lot longer than that - leave that." He interrupted himself when I started shoving my copy of the Masen file into my briefcase. "You're on vacation, and that case is closed."
I pulled the file back out and slapped it on my desk with a little more force than I had intended, still not looking at Jasper. I shouldn't have been surprised that he'd noticed as much as he had, and was afraid he would read a lot more than I wanted him to in my face.
"There is something between the two of you," he continued. "Now, I know your personal life is your business, but when it starts impacting your job, it becomes my business too. Whatever it is, I can tell it's big. It's important to you, and therefore it's important to me. But unless you let me in and tell me what it is and why it's affecting you so, I'm not sure we can work together anymore."
I froze in shock at his words. It felt like my heart had been ripped out. I had always looked up to Jasper and admired him, and it pained me deeply to disappoint him so badly. My eyes filled up again, and I had to bite my lower lip to keep it from trembling. The silence grew as he waited for me to comment on what he'd said, which of course I didn't. I couldn't.
He sighed again, and then I heard the door open. "Bella?" This time he waited so long, I had no choice but to look at him. His expression was angry, hurt, and resigned, and my heart broke a little more. In addition to being my mentor and partner, Jasper was also my best friend, and it killed me to shut him out like this. "I'm letting this go for now because clearly you don't trust me enough to let me in, but we will be having this conversation before you start working with me again." He didn't ask what I was going to do with my time off, or say goodbye. He just turned and left the room, shutting the door behind him.
When I heard the soft snick of the latch engaging, I dropped my head into my hands and sobbed.
Shaking off that most unpleasant memory, I stepped out of the shower and wrapped my hair in a towel, throwing on a robe as I walked out of the bathroom. If I was going to have any hope of withstanding a talk with my partner, coffee would be essential, and lots of it. I pushed my feet into some flip-flops and headed downstairs into the cool, cavernous darkness of the shuttered house.
I'd arrived late yesterday, and had gone straight upstairs shortly after unloading the car, without opening the shutters. After the blinding sunlit whiteness of my sanctuary under the eaves, my eyes needed to adjust to the blackness. Stepping into the hallway, I felt my way carefully toward the entryway. The massive wooden front door opened with an audible groan, laying a patch of sunlight on the polished stone floor, and a balmy late spring breeze rushed in, chasing away the musty air born of months of disuse.
It was a beautiful day.
In the kitchen, I unpacked my Java accessories, filling the espresso pot with coffee and water. I screwed the top on and put it on the stove over a low flame, along with some milk. Only once this most important ritual was underway did I move through the house, my flip-flops slapping against my heels as I walked, opening windows and throwing the shutters wide. By the time the house was open and airing out, the sputtering of my espresso finishing up drew me back to the kitchen, to find the milk on the verge of boiling over. I snatched it off the stove, and quickly churned the hot milk to foam it, assembling my cappuccino in a large mug. A sprinkle of sugar and cinnamon on top, and I was ready to sit for a spell before getting to work on unpacking the rest of my stuff.
The screened-in porch was bare, the furniture being stored in the small bunkhouse off in the trees – Emmett's former teenage lair, taken possession of by him when I staked my claim on the gabled attic – so I went down the steps and walked to the end of the wooden dock, kicking off my flip-flops to sit and dangle my feet into the cool green waters. Tiny fish started nibbling at my toes while I took a sip of my coffee and looked out over the lake, enjoying the silence and solitude.
It had been too long since I had visited my childhood holiday home, and even longer since we had been here as a family; my parents, my older brother Emmett, and I. My mother had inherited the house shortly after my birth, and it became our escape when the dreary wet summers in Forks grew too gloomy to bear. It was right on the edge of a small crescent-shaped lake and was quite isolated; the only other house on this side of the lake was a five minute walk through the trees. In all our times here, I had never seen nor heard any sign of life from over there, so it had seemed like we were always completely alone.
The isolation of this place had always appealed to me. I fondly remembered cool evenings and the smell of pine, the golden light of waning summer days, silent hours broken only by the mournful cry of the loons, and when night had fallen, the sonorous musical grunting of bullfrogs.
I snorted at my romanticism, also remembering screaming fights with Emmett over his idiot friends, loud music and obnoxious teenage ways, and the raised voices of my parents as they argued over something trivial when they invariably got tired of having no other company but each other. Those two loved each other, but what made their marriage really work was that they had separate interests. They both enjoyed their time apart with no guilt and always came back to each other renewed.
Clouds drifted slowly overhead and I watched their broken reflections moving across the water. I wasn't wearing a watch, but by the time I finished my last gulp of cooling coffee it seemed like an hour had passed since my call with Jasper had ended, which meant I should probably get my butt in gear and dress. Climbing to my feet, I headed back inside to make the house livable for the foreseeable future, since apparently I would be staying here despite the fact that my presence was needed back in the city. My large suitcase was still downstairs, so I pulled out a pair of denim cutoff shorts and a white tank top and dressed right there in the hallway, braiding my damp hair as dappled sunlight played across my wet legs. It was a bit cold to be wearing so little, but I'd be working up a sweat as unpacked and dusted.
My docking station and iPod set up midway between the kitchen and the living room, I selected my cleaning play list and tucked the remote in my pocket. The fridge would be cold by now, so I headed for the kitchen to unpack my cooler and the few groceries I had brought from my apartment. By the time everything had been put away, Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff" had given way to "Lady Marmalade". Arming myself with a Swiffer duster, I sashayed into the living room, not even trying to sing; there was no way I could hope to do Labelle justice. But I lip-synched for all I was worth, swiveling my hips and shaking my booty, dusting my way through the room and pulling dust covers off the furniture as I went. By the time I got to the hallway, I didn't care how bad my singing voice was. The Weather Girls and I were half-way through "It's Raining Men" and I was in mid shoulder shimmy when a loud knock sounded out behind me.
I screamed and spun around, holding the duster out in front of me like a weapon.
Standing in the doorway wearing an incredulous grin, was Jasper.
