A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed and put this story on alert. I realize the first chapter was a slow start, but things are starting to roll now. If you're reading, please review and let me know what you think. Reviews are love, you know. Speaking of love, my betas Evelyn-Shaye and MunkeeRajah worked their magic with this chapter too, although it's been so long since they read it that they probably don't even remember it anymore! (I took my time about getting this story up and running.)

Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer.

People that I meet and pass
In the city's broken roar,
Faces that I lose so soon
And have never found before,

Do you know how much you tell
In the meeting of our eyes,
How ashamed I am, and sad
To have pierced your poor disguise?

Secrets rushing without sound
Crying from your hiding places
Let me go, I cannot bear
The sorrow of the passing faces.

People in the restless street,
Can it be, oh can it be
In the meeting of our eyes
That you know as much of me?

Sara Teasdale

OFYL/OFYL/OFYL

Chapter 2

After hanging up with Carlisle, I flip to a blank page in my clue book and quickly note the description he's just given of his attire. Then I spend the next twelve minutes tidying my already neat-as-a-pin house.

Three minutes before Carlisle's anticipated arrival, I realize cleaning myself up might be a good idea, too. I rush into the bathroom and yank a brush through my long chestnut-brown hair. I glance down at my blouse to check for any food stains, rips or worn spots—there are none—and then I'm done. I'm not wearing any makeup that would need to be freshened, and even if I were, I don't own a mirror to help with that task.

I haven't looked in a mirror in years.

Long ago I got sick of seeing a stranger's face staring back at me every morning, sick of my toothbrush being more recognizable to me than the features of my own reflection. I don't remember my own face any better than anyone else's, but I do recall that I've always been plain. Bland brown hair and boring brown eyes. I think, now, in retrospect, that I have probably always been forgettable. It just took a brain injury to make me realize what everyone else had been seeing—and forgetting—for years.

The timid, tinny chime of the doorbell draws me out of my mental meandering. I move to the triple-bolted door and peer through the eye-level peep hole.

A tall, blonde, fiftyish man with a gentle smile and the first hint of laugh lines around his blue eyes waits on my front porch. His face is, of course, totally unfamiliar to me. His brown jacket and garish bow tie, however, confirm his identity, even as his much-loved voice carries through the door.

"Hello, Bella. It's Carlisle."

I open the door and step aside, waiting until Carlisle is fully over the threshold with the door closed behind him before I squeeze my eyes shut and accept his welcoming hug. It's always easier to touch him and Alice with my eyes closed.

Shutting out the visual distraction of images my brain can't interpret allows me to focus on the things I do recognize, like the scent of his aftershave, the gentle sound of his voice and the warm, familiar pressure of his arms. In fact, I don't recall the last time I've touched someone while looking at them, not even when I shake hands with a new person. I either close my eyes or stare at their collar. Surprisingly few people notice that I'm not looking directly at their faces.

Detective Masen noticed.

And while I can't conjure the details of his face, I do remember the way his body stiffened and his fingers gripped a little too tightly. He hadn't liked it that I didn't look at him when we shook. I'd have to remember to meet his eyes if he offered his hand again. It would be worth the moments of discomfort if it helped improve his opinion of me, even just a little. If he thought well of me, maybe he'd be more committed to pursuing Charlie's case.

I sigh and step out of Carlisle's embrace. "Hi yourself," I reply, pretending his bowtie needs straightening. Of course, he knows what I'm doing. I'm focusing on what's familiar as I greet him. It helps ensure the affection I feel will make its way into my voice.

"Punctual as ever," I gently tease, finally looking up into his blue eyes. "Thanks for coming, Carlisle."

"Of course," he replies easily, and moves past me into the living room.

He quickly scans the room before suggesting I sit in the armchair. He'll answer the door for the detectives, usher them into the room, reintroduce them, and direct them to sit on the couch. From the armchair, I'll be able to see them when they enter the room and when they sit down, all while maintaining a comfortable distance from them.

I perch in the chair and Carlisle begins leading me through our familiar routine, reviewing my notes from our meeting with the detectives. He's filling in any blank spots in my observations, helping refresh my memory of non-facial cues so that I can be a little less uneasy with the interlopers who are about to enter my quiet little haven.

The lack of detail on Masen's page has Carlisle raising an eyebrow at me. I'm only mildly embarrassed when my surrogate dad reads the words "fuck hot" in my handwriting; my anxiety over the impending intrusion into my home is superseding all other emotions.

When the doorbell tinkles again, Carlisle gently squeezes my hand where it lies on the arm of the chair. He knows my stress levels are soaring right now, and not only at the prospect of seeing again faces that I should remember—but never can. I'm shaken that I will have to endure that disconnected, helpless feeling here in my home, where I'm supposed to be safe and grounded.

"Deep breaths, Bella. You'll do just fine."

The front door is just out of my line of sight in the small foyer, and when Carlisle disappears around the corner to answer it, I mentally gird myself. I remind myself to focus on his tie when he returns with the detectives, so that I won't feel so much like I'm facing three strangers instead of just two.

He greets the newcomers, intentionally pitching his voice so that it will carry clearly to my ears.

"Good afternoon, Detective Whitlock. It's good to see you again."

Whitlock replies and I immediately recognize his lazy, smooth drawl. It makes me think of mint juleps, a shaded porch on an antebellum mansion, and Spanish moss draping from the low-hanging limbs of towering, venerable oak trees. He matches Carlisle's tone, making me wonder: Does he understand why my doctor is here? Why Carlisle has addressed him in that slightly elevated, projected volume?

"Good to see you, too, Doctor Cullen. Thanks for helping us out last week. Guess you're here to lend a hand again?"

Carlisle's reply is as genial as Whitlock's greeting. One would almost think the men friends, or at least mutually admiring of each other's gentility.

"Yes, Isabella contacted me after your partner called. I understood that Detective Masen would be here, too. Will he be joining us?"

I realize that Whitlock is alone. Where is Detective Sex-Voice? Maybe something came up at the last minute to draw his attention away. Strangely, perversely, the thought chafes.

"He's just in the car finishin' up a phone call," Whitlock explains. "He'll be in directly."

It's not relief I feel at this news, because I couldn't ever feel positively about a stranger entering my home, even one as intriguing—yes, that's as safe a description as any—as Detective Masen. But my bizarre disappointment dissipates at the confirmation that I'll shortly become reacquainted with the owner of that tingle-inducing voice.

Two strangers stop on the threshold of the living room. Rationally, I'm aware that one is the detective, whom I barely know, and the other is my doctor, who loves me like a father. It takes a moment, while they pause in the doorway, to focus on the familiar cues of Carlisle's tie and jacket. Both men watch me as I study them, and I can see Carlisle register the instant in which I've identified him.

"Bella, Detective Whitlock is here."

Even though I've had thirty minutes to prepare myself for this moment, my heart still pounds at the presence of this strange face in my living room.

Studying the younger man, I struggle to keep my mind focused on the cues from my notes on Whitlock. Curly blonde hair. Blue eyes. Tall and lean. Southern accent. It helps that his smile seems friendly and open.

" 'Lo, mam," he drawls. "Thanks for seeing us at home."

I strive for a calm, collected tone and marginally succeed. "No problem, Detective. Please have a seat."

I gesture to the couch, hoping he'll leave the end close to me for Carlisle. He doesn't. When he's done settling on the near end of the couch, he's less than five feet away, and seriously encroaching on my personal comfort zone. He's too close too soon. My composure is rapidly becoming as frayed and thread-bare as the couch upholstery.

He notices, and his already-courteous tone takes on an even softer, more solicitous shade. I appreciate the effort, but it doesn't really help. After all, it's not his voice that's freaking me out; it's the gut-clenching strangeness of his face transposed over my brain's conviction that I should know this man because I've met him before.

"You doin' okay, m'am?"

I don't want to admit it, but I'm not okay at all. I feel adrift and out of my depth, as I always do when forced to interact with anyone outside my tiny little comfort zone. I don't even have home-court advantage; experiencing these feelings here, where I should be safe and confident, only intensifies them.

Stress scurries up my spine, like a scorpion scuttling over shifting sand.

Whitlock must have some super-natural empathic powers because his expression conveys that he's completely clued in to my mounting anxiety. He's watching me with concern clearly written in his cerulean eyes. His well-shaped lips part slightly as if he's on the verge of speaking, but remains unsure what to say to the crazy lady who's about to lose it in front of his eyes.

Carlisle intercedes.

"Detective, Bella says you mentioned some new developments in her father's case?"

His question is obviously intended to distract me from my burgeoning meltdown, and it works. For now, at least.

"Yes sir. That's right," Whitlock drags his gaze away from the spectacle of my derailment to reply to Carlisle. "We've recently gotten a new lead, and some information that has us a little concerned about Miss Swan's safety."

"Bella," I mutter automatically, then cringe at my thoughtless encouragement of familiarity. I don't know this man. I don't care to know him. I never have any desire to get to know new people, because really … what's the point?

Whitlock grins boyishly. "Bella," he self-corrects.

Of the three of us in the room, only Carlisle seems concerned about the news that my safety may be in question.

"What are you saying, detective?" His voice is tight and strained. "Do you have reason to believe someone is after Bella? Is she in danger?"

Whitlock's voice takes on a soothing undertone, gently washing currents of calm past my ringing ears. "While we have no specific information at this time, there are rumblings among some of our sources that the men who killed Chief Swan have taken a renewed interest in Bella. Obviously, that raises some concern for her safety."

My heart is thudding loudly now, in direct competition with the ringing, buzzing clamor in my ears. I can barely hear my own weak, pathetic voice over my internal cacophony. Vaguely, it registers that Carlisle has come to stand beside me, still in my line of vision, his hand lying protectively on my shaking shoulder.

"Why would they be interested in me? I don't know anything. I'm no danger to them."

The sound of my front door opening delays Whitlock's reply and for one fear-filled wildly irrational moment I'm sure my father's killers have come for me at last.

Terror engulfs me and my throat closes, cutting off my oxygen with less than half a lungful of breath in my body. The buzzing in my head escalates as my anxiety eats up my meager air supply. My gaze is welded to the doorway that leads from the entry foyer into the living room, and I know my doom is about to step through it.

With an energy and will I'd thought long dead, I spring to my feet to face it.

"That'll be Detective Masen," Whitlock says.

He's turned toward the doorway, showing me his back, so he's missed my frantic leap from my chair. He's completely oblivious to the crushing weight of disastrous fate that's about to slam down on me. He sings out as if the world somehow isn't about to implode.

"We're in here, Edward."

Footsteps, light and quick, advance across the postage-stamp foyer and suddenly, the owner of the tread fills my living room door. Every atom of my awareness, the entirety of my existence, narrows to a basketball-sized focal point centered on the face of the man standing in the doorway.

The half-breath I'd held flees my body completely. The cacophony in my head stutters into abrupt sepulchral silence.

I am totally, mortally enthralled.

Whitlock and Carlisle fade into the background. They are muted white noise, as insubstantial as feathery brushstrokes of snowball white on a blank canvas.

All I can see is his face.

Every outrageously long eyelash. The commanding presence of each perfectly arched eyebrow, both three shades darker than the artful disarray of his bronze locks. The entrancing half parenthesis of the dimple nestled in the upturned corner of his mouth. The lush, verdant depths of his glittering green eyes.

He is excruciatingly beautiful to me, and suddenly, I am certain his is the only face I'll ever want to see again. I'd be happy to gaze at him for all eternity, because I know him.

I remember him.

For the first time in eight years, I recognize a face. Impossibly, his face is my one in a thousand.

It's not until he lunges toward me—arms outstretched, shock and concern blooming in his rainforest eyes—that I realize I'm falling. I'm collapsing into the darkness behind my eyes, my trip into oblivion courtesy of my vacationing lungs and oxygen-deprived brain.

His powerful arms close around me as I topple. His scent, musky and masculine, surrounds me. My last coherent thought as my eyes slide shut is a terror-filled question:

If I lose sight of his inhumanly perfect face in this moment of weakness, will I ever know it again?