Real life Rose here. After several days on prescription painkillers I'm back.

Enjoy!

Chapter 10 – I See You

I gather my wits, "What makes you think that about Rose?" I'm almost too scared to know.

"The feeling I got from Rosalie was that she is someone that can't or won't progress through normal life. She carries herself like a mature woman, but spends far too much time on her appearance for that level of maturity. Something about her can't or won't move forward, she's stuck somewhere."

"Unbelievable. Do you do this with everyone you meet?"

"It's a sub-conscious thing; I can't control it, so yes. I can only pay attention to it."

"What's my phrase?"

She freezes for a moment before pursing her lips. "Can we keep this to ourselves?"

"Sure, but why?" She's getting nervous now? Should I be nervous?

She places her hot cocoa on the counter. "Whenever people find out I do this, they always ask about their own phrase. It's really hard when their first phrase is unflattering so can you keep this private?"

"No problem, now what's my phrase?" I blurt out. I feel torn between a kid in a candy store and a driver getting a ticket on the side on the road.

She took a deep breath, "Bait."

Yes… I'm in trouble.

"Could you explain that?" I respond as calmly as possible.

She closes her eyes and tilts her head back slightly. It looks like she's in a trance. That's really not fair…

"I remember when I met you that the whole idea in my head was that you made me want something… you're supposed to make me want something. It felt like bait or a lure of some kind."

That's what she was thinking as I left our first meeting. She can see through me in a way I didn't know was possible.

Now I have to know them all.

"Will you tell me about my family? What are their phrases?" I reply with unbridled anticipation.

She smiles, "People rarely ask about any other phrase besides their own. Which ones are you interested in?"

"Jasper."

"Sentry. Something about him always watching or waiting for something."

"Alice."

"Ethereal. She feels like she floats over the rules or reality."

"Emmett."

"Hulk. He does nothing halfway."

"Esme."

"Respite. She makes a sanctuary."

"Carlisle."

"On his shoulders." He bears something, but bears it well.

This is magnificent; she's truly a gem. She's a danger to herself and my family, but a jewel nonetheless.

"Bella, you are quite the dilemma." I say with completely sincerity.

She blushes again and looked down, "You scared yet?" she says with an almost child-like tone.

I don't know how she doesn't see herself for what she is, but I will not be part of the world that tells her she's a freak. She is so much more than she gives herself credit for and I'm going to be there when she figures it out.

I lift her chin with my finger.

"You have no idea."

And I kissed her.

XXX

BPOV

He kissed me.

He kissed me!

The best looking, most interesting guy in the world just kissed me!

"Am I dreaming?" I say aloud to myself as Alice pulls away.

My gimpy ankle twinges, "I guess not."

The past 48 hours had been whiplash, starting with my first date in 6 years, moving to one of the scariest cases I've ever worked on and what might be the most dangerous case to boot. Then I embarrassed myself on a level I had not known was possible without liquor, and spent the night at a hot guy's house with nobody trying to make a pass at me and breaking my record for longest stretch of time alone with anyone.

I guess he's passed the creep test.

This was a good thing, because after getting kissed by GQ himself, I would have had a hard time telling him to get lost.

It was weird having breakfast with anybody, let alone who might be the nicest woman alive. I tried to apologize profusely for freaking out like I did, but she wouldn't hear of it and repaid me with a huge breakfast. Maybe she's used to feeding Emmett.

I didn't even realize I still had that reaction problem. It had only been triggered a handful of times after I left home; it tended to surface in situations where I was at ease and unexpectedly grabbed or held. I guess it's been a long time since anyone got the drop on me, I didn't even hear her come up behind me.

I am so defective.

Why didn't Edward or Esme just let me go home? The last thing I planned to do for a family game night was whine about my childhood. I thought the pain killer was way less potent than it turned out to be; injections must work differently than pills.

They probably just feel sorry for me. This honesty policy is getting depressing.

If honesty gets in the way of a friendship, it's not a genuine relationship.

"Can't anybody just deal with reality and move on?" I huff aloud.

I glance to book shelf to see if the owners of the house left anything worth reading. Much to my delight, there is a whole section of Tom Clancy novels.

Guess the husband liked strategy.

I hop over to the shelf and pull down "Executive Orders." Throwing it to the couch I make my way to my bathroom drawer and pull out the Deep Tissue Repair Oil.

Ah, one of the few useful things my mother taught me.

I move over to my bed and unwrap my ankle. "These bruises would look awesome on my sparring partner," I laugh to myself.

I coat my ankle with the special naturopathic treatment that has saved me more time recovering than I care to count.

Slideing on my butt down the stairs is a great way to move around. On a regular weekend I would normally go dance or practice my kenpo, but I'm lame at the moment so I'm relegated to the couch.

There's more than one way to be lame.

I really hate the pity looks. That's why Edward helped me today; I'm a charity case to him and his perfect family.

Then why did he kiss me?

I remembered what he said to me this morning.

You are the most fascinating and alluring thing I have ever seen.

That's not something you say to a charity case. You also don't kiss charity cases unless you have to.

Could it be possible he's telling the truth?

There's a whole new concept. Did I find someone who I don't scare?

Maybe I'll see where this can take me.

I pull out my laptop and look for something nice I can send to Esme.

A flower bouquet and forty dollars later, Sumatra lilies are on their way to Mrs. Esme Cullen. I hope the card makes her laugh.

Bed was just as good a place to read as any so I retrieve my book from downstairs and reapply my 'witch doctor juice'. That's the guys at the dojo call it. I'm one of the few customers that buy in bulk from the website.

I finish "Executive Orders" when the sun is almost touching the horizon. Checking some pizza delivery numbers is interrupted when my phone rings with a number I don't know.

"Hello?" My voice sounds alien as it hasn't been used all day.

"Hi Bella!" A familiar voice squeaks.

"Oh, hi Alice… to what do I owe the pleasure of the call?"

"I just wanted to say hi and ask when you can go shopping this week?"

Shopping? I don't go shopping with people.

"Um, I'm not a big shopping fan Alice. Thanks for the invitation though."

There is silence on the line.

Alice whines, "You can't just stay cooped up in your house all the time, can you?"

"Alice, I don't mind staying home; I'm enough of a nomad as it is and I don't even know where my kind of stores are." I don't remember her being a difficult kind of person; in fact she's kind of lively.

"You're in luck there; I totally have the inside track in that department!" She says like she's trying to sell me something...

I'm running out of reasons to decline."That's tempting, but I think I should wait until my ankle is less busted for an on-my-feet-all-day shopping trip, don't you?"

"I suppose, so Saturday then? I promise I'll go easy on you."

"Uh, I'll think about it. Can I call you later this week when I know how my ankle is doing?" I could find worse things to do I guess.

"Yay!" She nearly wails into the phone. "I'll see you Saturday!"

"Thanks Alice, I'll let you know. Good night."

What just happened?

Did I just get tricked into saying yes? Alice is perplexing.

Ethereal. Her phrase comes back to me.

She plays by a different set of rules.

I order pizza and eat about a quarter of it before stuffing it in the fridge. That can be dinner for half a week.

I grab another Clancy book off the shelf and go back to my room. The swelling and throbbing is already dissipating; I think I might be able to walk on it by Saturday. At 10:30 I call it a day, having never changed out of my pajamas. While drifting off, my brain swirls through military commando units, suspect interviews, and a great kiss.

Hobbling into the office Monday morning was just as humiliating as I remember. Everyone gawks at me the same way people rubberneck at a car wreck and right as I sit down the phone rings. It's the front desk with a courier delivery for me. I limp towards the door to take the package.

10 long file boxes. On two carts.

"Are these full?" I ask. I'm gonna need a bigger boat.

"They feel like it mam." The courier says. "Can you sign here?"

He follows me into my office, stacks the boxes by the map and leaves.

I knew I cast a wide net with the search parameters, but I didn't think it was this wide. Locked in a staring contest with cardboard, another knock at the door startles me. I look up to see Edward smiling his ogle-worthy grin. "Good morning Bella, how was your weekend?" He says with his honey smooth voice.

"Very relaxing, thank you" I reply. I have no idea how to date you, but I'll enjoy my morning dose of you just the same.

"I brought you come hot cocoa." He says as he holds out the ubiquitous coffee cup found on everyone's desk at 8:30am on Monday morning.

"Wow, that's really kind of you." I feel the warm liquid slide down my throat and I start to wake up a little more. My eyes roll back in my head just a little bit.

"What's all this?" Edward says as he motions over to my jailer for the near future.

I groan, "Related cases to this one. I expanded the search parameters for similar factors and this is what shipped from the database. I have to go through each case file and look for similarities to the current cases. With this load, I'll be tied up for at least a week, maybe more."

His relaxed demeanor fades. "I hope those are not all connected."

"I don't think they are, I just have to sift through them and that takes time."

He stares at the boxes for a moment longer before turning to me and smiling, "I'll have to stop by to make sure you don't get too lost in here."

"I'll see you later."

I struggle to control my breath, which wants to leave my lungs.

Am I even capable of acting like an adult around him?

He laughs softly as he turns to leave.

"Um, Edward?" I say as he reaches the door.

"Yes?"

"Just so you know we're not dating until the third date is successfully completed so if you come to your senses after that, you'll only be able to get store credit."

It's only fair to give him ample warning.

He looks at me with a puzzled expression for a moment before laughing out loud.

"Oh Bella, I'll never get bored with you! And I count game night as a date, so I only have one more to go before I get to tell everybody you're my girlfriend."

I don't think I'll get bored with you anytime soon either.

"See you later Edward." I say as he closes the door.

I turn my attention back to the paper tiger in the room and begin my sentence.

They've been shipped organized by date, as usual. Unfortunately I need to group them by date and location, which means lots of sorting. Three hours later my office looks like Kinko's threw up on it. There are cases ranging from Delaware to Toronto to North of Quebec. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia also have their names in the files. Even though New York is in the radius, it has a disproportionately small number of cases.

It's not rural so they wouldn't ship missing persons. It's not like they could anyway, that would require a semi-truck.

Each individual file is a painstaking process. The most recent files were from Canada and I have to read through the whole file looking for clues that match the details from my locations. The pose of a body, the location of the dump site or the evidence around the body; I'm looking for something close enough to my cases that I can trace where these guys have been and what else they might have been doing there. Did one of them enroll in school or take a job? If they settled down for a while and remained actively killing, the spike in deaths or missing persons reports will stand out. If I'm lucky and it's not a cult; I might even be able to find a home town or base of operations, maybe some family.

The sheer lack of evidence makes comparing the lab results a waste of time, but the types of people found outside make narrowing the victim pool much more manageable. Since the defining physical location of my cases are the outdoor settings, missing cases of hikers and homeless people are far more likely to be connected to this killer than a mother of 3 with an angry ex-husband. Since exsanguination homicides cases are so rare those are automatically included in the pool.

That means I have to read through every case and classify the victim by their lifestyle. Hiker, biker, homeless, pizza delivery, dog walker, farmer, hunter, if they didn't live close to a metropolitan area and they didn't find a body; I include them.

Around two, Edward stops by with a chicken sandwich and fries from Wendy's.

"Hey Delicious, how's your day in the free world going?" I say as I extricate myself from my paper prison.

He gives me a puzzled look before laughing out loud. "And here I was thinking I'm having a rough day because I'm on call for a double."

I laugh, "You know, if you roll three doubles you go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass go, do not collect $200."

Edward explodes into a huge belly laugh. I love that sound.

"I'm just visiting" he quips.

"I would ask you to stay, but the delivery spew has infected every chair." I say.

"I understand." He replies. "I'll just leave you with your delicious food."

Uh, I wasn't talking about the food.

"Yeah… that's right… the food" I say mockingly.

He smiled at me, "I just found my first phrase for you. I dub thee, delicious."

"Delicious bait, it fits!" I shoot back.

This is way better than hyphenating my name like a ridiculous teenager.

Edward's eyes widen for a couple of seconds before I see a glint in his eye, "Let me know what you reel in" as he closes the door.

Hot.

The guy and the food.

XXX

A wonderfully brainless night graced me as I finished up another Tom Clancy book, Edward had texted me saying he would call me later; he had a few pickups to do. That's a nice way to refer to body collection from hospitals and nursing I keep up the oil treatment of my ankle I might be able to wean myself off of crutches tomorrow or Wednesday.

Tuesday was more of the same as I continued my analysis of the files. Edward wasn't due until 4 as he was working swing shift but around three-thirty a knock at the door startled me out of my concentration.

Jessica looks miffed as usual as I wave her in.

"Hi Jessica, how can I help you?" I say with very welcoming body language to match. I don't need her to as an enemy and I would just as soon get along with her... If she can.

"Hey" She replies as she looks at the files everywhere. "What happened in here?"

"I'm trying to see if any other open cases in the FBI database could be connected with our case. I cast a wide net and I'm sifting through the data."

"Oh." She countered. "I came to tell you that there is a man here that may have seen something connected to the case."

A witness! Finally a break.

"Has anyone else interviewed him yet?" I ask Jessica as I stand up to get prepared for the interview.

"He's in an interview room right now; he told the desk clerk he wanted to talk to someone about a suspicious looking van in the industrial section with some homeless people getting in the back." She offered. "I realized that he might be talking about the vagrants we found and I figured you would want first crack at him."

"Yes, and thank you." I respond.

Game time Swan, let's see what he saw.

I take the elevator to the interview rooms with Jessica and she leaves me for the observation room. I prop my crutches outside the door and walk in.

"Hello sir, I'm Detective Swan, how are you today?" There's no reason to let a witness know the FBI is involved… it tends to panic people.

"Fine." He replies. "Just fine." He's clean shaven and pale with long blond hair and brown eyes. He's wearing a biker jacket and jeans.

"What might your name be sir?"

He smiles at me and his eyes don't move. "James Dixon, mam."

Something is wrong here.

He's very still. There's no fidgeting or ticks. He's got no anxiety posture.

I make a note to run his name through a background check, it seems like he's been in a police station before.

"So Mr. Dixon, why don't you start with what you saw?" I say as I pretend to focus on note taking.

He pauses, never shifting in his seat. "I was riding my motorbike through the industrial area and I saw a white van parked by an alley used by some homeless people. I saw two of the bums talking to the driver and they hopped in the back."

He's there quite a bit if he knows where homeless people hang out in a secluded area.

"What do you remember about the driver?"

"It was a van. You know, like the ones businesses use."

That's vague. And I didn't ask about the van, I asked about the driver.

"Why did you think that out of place?" I ask. It's good to see what kinds of things he thinks are so out of place they would take him to a police station.

"There are some wide open roads I use for amusement out there and I've never seen a van like that out there before or since when I ride."

He looked up and to the right… he's lying… badly.

"If we ran through some pictures with you, could you recognize either the homeless people or the driver?" I reply. That's a standard question he should have no problem with.

"I didn't really see the driver" he clarifies. "I just saw the guys talking towards the driver.

Wow, not even willing to try. This man is not what he seems.

I quickly form a battle plan in my head; it's always better to get the benefit of information, rather than give the benefit of the doubt.

Let's see where his head is right now.

I alter my body language to convey dominance and hostility while keeping my voice calm. "Can I ask what you do for a living Mr. Dixon?" Let's see what he does with a little pushback.

He catches the cue by mirroring my own posture back towards me, which is a typical sub-conscious aggression response to a challenge. He can't abide feeling second in command of this situation, or likely any other.

"I do odd jobs here and there; I'm not a working stiff if that's what you're asking."

Well Mr. Dixon, that's not what I'm asking, but you have an interesting choice of words.

Adjusting my posture to reflect disinterest and boredom I pretend to make notes. "No sir, I just need a way to contact you if I have any additional questions." I reply. Let's see if he's here to feel important.

He takes a deep breath in and stiffens. "I'll leave you my cell number. I need to get going anyway; I need to be somewhere soon" he says hurriedly as he stands.

Bingo. That rattled him.

I give him a blank sheet of paper and he writes his number. I write my name and office phone number on the back of a generic Portland police department business card. He moves to leave when I open and hold the door for him. He pauses in the doorframe, looking my body over before leaving. A sideways smile tugs at his lips as he turns and I follow him out.

This man came here with his own agenda. There is something here for him; he gave up some information to get some information. What's he interested in here?

As we walk up to the elevator I hear a familiar yet strained voice call me from the hallway we just left.

"Bella, what are you doing down here?" Edward asks. He stops next to me and looks at my interview with the most disturbing look I've ever seen on him.

"I'm just walking Mr. Dixon here out." I reply. "What about you?"

He refocuses on me with a stressed expression. "I had some news for you and Mike said you were down here. Do you mind if I walk with you?"

"Sure." I'm relieved to have an escort with this witness.

The elevator opens and Edward moves to the center of the car, forcing me onto one side of him and James onto the other. It's an awkwardly silent ride up to the main floor and Edward waits until James leaves the elevator before moving. We walk in silence to the main entrance.

"Thank you for coming in and I'll be in touch if you can be of further service." I say in a formal tone.

He flashes a creepy smile and tips his head slightly saying, "Yes mam." I'll see you when I recall anything." He replies and walks out the door.

It might be just that simple.

Edward turns toward me, "Bella are you alright?" he says as he blows out the breath he was holding. Why is he stressed?

"Sorry Edward, I have to go. I'll call you later" I say curtly. I need this while it's still fresh and Edward doesn't look in a condition to deal with what's involved in serial killer poker.

As fast as my injury will let me, I limp to my my office, swing around the door and close it quickly. I walk over to my desk, pull out a voice recorder, turn it on, move to the blank whiteboard and whip out a blue marker.

Edward knocks on my door and walks in.

"Edward, if you want to be here you need to sit down and shut up. Can you do that?" I say flatly without looking at him.

Silently he closes the door and takes the closest seat.

The blank whiteboard starts disappearing with thoughts, a raw, unprocessed brain dump.

"What's here to see Swan, he came to get something, not give."

It's the equivalent of dumping the pieces from a jigsaw puzzle onto the table; the first thing you do is make sure you keep all the pieces on the table.

He was too still when I walked in… didn't adjust his personal space for normal social interaction… gave just enough info to interest police…calm…purposeful… Lying about basic information… No job, no valid reason to be where was and no reason to tell us about it... It didn't help him at all and he didn't express any concern for anyone…used a description of death in reference to himself… responded aggressively to a sub-conscious trigger…

"What about him?"

He's naturally aggressive… he didn't move… he's too calm… he's a predator…. stalking predator… merciless… poised… could strike… was ready to strike…like a snake… he has a plan…

Edward interrupts, "Bella what's going on?"

"Shut it, I'll explain later" I snap.

He sucks in a breath and continues looking at me.

Is he involved in this case though? He could just be a wannabe informant.

Why refer to death to define his job… his identity… his meaning… his business is death… This isn't New York… murder is not a common thing here… Yes, this man is involved.

"Why come here, why now?" I say aloud.

Something has changed his perception… changed his plan… we have something in his plan… he came because he wanted something for his plan… did he get what he came for?

"He has no intention of stopping; this is an escalation. Something has changed him from opportunity to intent. Why now?" I say.

He killed police officers on his turf… It wasn't his plan but that is bigger game than he's taken down before… he won't go back to the previous MO, it pales in comparison to what he's hunting now…

Time stands still as the puzzle pieces fall into place.

He killed the cops…

He came to me…

He looked me over…

He said he would see me…

"Dear God"

"I'm the new prey."

"What makes you think that Bella?" Edward says as he jumps up. His voice is steeped in fear.

The fear washes over me as I close my eyes as I point to my enemy's first phrase on the board…

Merciless.

The hunt is on!