Chapter Ten
Bella Swan was dead.
Edward wasted no time, and climbed off the couch to scoop her up in his arms. She hung limply as he carried her down the steps and into the workroom, where he passed Jasper, and laid her out on a table.
"You did it," Jasper observed from behind him.
"Of course I did. Were you really that concerned?"
"I will admit that I had my doubts," Jasper replied with a smirk.
"Now you see that they were unnecessary." Edward spoke without anger, but there was a tension in his steady voice. "I knew I would complete my task. Her scent had to be preserved and shared. A scent like that is wasted otherwise."
"You don't need to lecture me, Edward. I'm the one who introduced you to that philosophy, remember?"
Edward's lips stretched into a tight grin, "I remember. And if I remember correctly, my discovery of said philosophy was similar to the shock Bella had tonight."
"Only you were much less panicky," Jasper smiled fondly. "Although I think that might have had something to do with your dislike for the girl."
Edward laughed weakly, remembering. He'd only just started working for Jasper, hoping to pick up some extra money as a cashier, and stumbled upon Jasper's secret when Edward went down to the workroom to look for the broom that was usually in the closet on the main floor.
Instead, he found Jasper with Victoria, a women in her late thirties who'd been hanging around the store far too often for Edward's liking. He didn't know what it was about her, but she always managed to irritate him, much to Jasper's amusement. She had a way of speaking that grated Edward's nerves; her high-pitched bubblegum voice didn't match the mature woman she appeared to be, and seemed to him to reveal what a cougar she was.
He'd always wondered if there had been something going on between her and Jasper, but when he caught them in the workroom, it wasn't at all what he had expected.
While Victoria was in a state of undress, she was also not breathing. Jasper had just began to clean her when Edward discovered them, and instead of running for his life, Edward simply demanded to know what was going on.
Jasper explained while he worked, and Edward watched in morbid fascination.
Five signature scents later, Edward was comfortable in his work and his belief that beauty should be preserved and shared.
Jasper left him alone then in order to tie up loose ends and cover their tracks. It was routine by now, and though he really had little to do in this case, he knew Edward preferred to work alone at this stage.
As the door fell shut, Edward was left to work in solitude, with only the soft echoes of his footsteps as he moved for company.
First, he stripped the body bare for cleaning. He put the clothes in a trash bag to be burned later. After filling a large bowl with water and gathering a washcloth soaped up with Bella's favorite brand, he began to rub down every inch of her body. He'd preferred this sponge bath method to Jasper's more traditional bath because he felt that when the body soaked in the bathwater, it became tainted by the washed off filth. And he couldn't have anything taint his work.
He regarded the body in front of him clinically, marveling in the human form and admiring its curves and dips. Everything about it seemed soft, from the roundness of her face to the satiny feel of her skin.
The body was still warm and Edward needed to work quickly before it cooled too much. He had only a few hours before rigor mortis set in and noticeable decomposition began, and he needed that body in his vat before that could start.
Methodically he cleaned every part of her, saving the hair for last, taking great pleasure in tangling his fingers in the soapy strands.
When he was satisfied that it was sufficiently clean, he dried it off and wrapped her body tightly in a thin, cloth-like material to keep any contaminates out.
Before he finished, though, he watched her face for a long time, as if waiting for her to wake up. Logically, he knew that she never would, but she looked so peaceful and lovely that it reminded him of those times he snuck into her bedroom to watch over her as she slept.
Finally, with one last chaste kiss on her cool lips, he sealed her away.
He scooped her up, carried her over to the tank, and gently lowered her inside. The liquid barely rippled as he broke the surface. He waited for the body to settle, the weight he'd tied to her ankle pulling the body downward.
Once he was satisfied with the body's positioning, he consulted his notes and began adding and mixing various other extracts that he'd prepared earlier.
Then, the only thing left for him to do was wait.
The following few weeks, all he did was work and wait. There was a flurry of activity in the first few days directly following Bella's disappearance, but Edward all but confined himself to his workroom when not actively involved with the search.
Chief Swan interrogated Edward, Jasper, Angela, and anyone else who knew her, but never found any leads. On that day Bella disappeared, she left him a note telling him that she was going to a friends' house, but never mentioned which friend. Angela said she'd been out with her boyfriend, and Edward said he saw her earlier in the day, but the last time he saw her was when the parted ways after her class so that she could go to the doctor. Jasper backed his story up, saying they'd both been working, and they had security tapes to prove it. The police didn't know the tapes were actually fakes planted by Jasper to cover their tracks. This wasn't the first time the two men had needed to prove their "innocence."
As for Edward, he appeared to be heartbroken. He was never seen in the shop, save for the days he was working on or promoting Bella's perfume. He made it well known that her scent was dedicated to her and her memory and that he couldn't have made it without her. Bella's father did everything he could to find her again, and was initially very hopeful.
Chief Swan even went to the perfume shop of the day of the new perfume's release. Edward had told him that he had been working on a scent for Bella long before she disappeared and wanted to go through with it in her honor.
He was first in line, looking a little teary as Edward rung him up at the register.
"You did a good job, kid," he said roughly. "I can't think of anything but her when I smell that. I'm sure she'd love it."
"Thank you, sir. I really appreciate it."
Edward's face had been the perfect mask of a man doing business, but he allowed that mask to crack for just a moment, and Charlie saw the grieving boy behind it.
"Don't give up hope," he said.
"No," was all Edward replied, and Charlie wasn't sure if that was a "No, I won't give up hope," or a "No, there is no hope left," or something else entirely.
After accepting the bag with his purchase inside, he lingered in the shop just a moment longer, watching as others appreciated the memory and beauty of his daughter as he knew she always deserved.
Charlie couldn't ignore the way Edward completely threw himself into the search for Bella. It would have been almost easy for him to fall of the radar after the initial interrogation, but Edward was constantly calling the Chief, asking for any new information. Eventually Charlie had to request that Edward stop calling, and wait until he was contacted with any new information.
Edward obediently stopped calling, but became even more reclusive as the search continued.
Bella's truck had been found on campus a week after her scent's release, which sparked Charlie's hope again, but it proved to be nothing more than a dead end. It was clean of everything but Bella herself, and utterly useless in the investigation. It was in a busy parking lot, and no one knew anything about the driver or when it was left.
The investigation was at a standstill, and unlike all those shows on television, no leads were turning up.
The body found in the dumpster the day Bella had disappeared had initially led the police to be optimistic, but only proved to be another dead end. The body was too contaminated to determine what was actually evidence, and what had simply been picked up at the site. In the end, all it did was convince most people that Bella was dead and gone for good. Bella's body was yet to be found, but no one had much hope for its discovery. The other girls that had gone missing were still unaccounted for, after all.
Those that actually knew Bella also started to grow suspicious of the whole case, overly paranoid that things just didn't add up. Many found it hard to believe that so many girls could go missing without a substantial clue, and thought that Bella was too intelligent to be reckless with her safety.
Mike, in particular, was particularly harsh. He was overheard hypothesizing loudly in a local coffee shop.
"There's no way Cullen isn't involved somehow!" He all but shouted at Angela, drawing the attention of everyone in earshot. "You know how much she changed after she started dating him."
"Mike..." Angela sounded tired, as if they'd had this conversation a hundred times and she'd grown weary of defending Edward.
"I don't care if he's got an alibi. I don't trust that bastard."
Angela didn't have anything more to say.
It wasn't long before Edward and Jasper closed the shop and relocated to New York, where they'd apparently found a better business opportunity. Rumors floated around that he was simply too busy mourning over Bella that he needed a complete change of scenery. Others said that he'd simply used her and felt guilty for it once she'd disappeared.
But in actuality, Edward found peace in the streets of New York. He would prowl the streets at night, waiting for something, though he wasn't sure what.
Until one night, when a tall strawberry blond caught his attention.
He was sitting a coffee shop, one of those generic ones you can find on any corner, when she passed by him. She smelled like coffee and spice, and oozed flirty confidence. Standing up quickly, he quickly positioned himself in her way so that when she breezed by, she knocked into him and his coffee splashed out of his mug and onto his hand.
He hissed when the hot liquid made contact, and the blond spun around to face him.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," she hurried to say. "I didn't even see you there."
"It's ok," he swiped a napkin from the table and quickly dried his hands. "It gives me a chance to talk to a beautiful girl. I'm Edward."
She looked at him cynically, and he suspected that she realized she'd been set up. But he grinned innocently, and she felt drawn to him. "Tanya," she said.
"Nice to meet you, Tanya. And… this might be a little strange to ask, but what perfume are you wearing? It's divine."
"Divine, huh?" She raised an eyebrow. "Who talks like that? And I go au naturale, no perfume for me."
"Oh really?" He grinned again, "Well, you're a smart woman. I'd like to tell you about what I do for a living…"
The End
A/N First and foremost, I want to thank my awesome betas, Anechka86 and Adair7, and those of you that have stuck with me.
The point of this fic to me, was to highlight all of Edward's creepy characteristics. The stalking, the controlling, the obsessive over-protectiveness, it's all from the books. It's just not quite so charming when he's a human. And the same for the murders - canon!Edward has killed people, but that's so often just overlooked that I wanted to play around with all of that.
Secondly, I did something similar with Bella. My Bella didn't do anything canon!Bella wouldn't have done. She overlooked Edward's creep factor and ignored the fact that he was a killer. I just put a different spin on things and put them in a new light.
And lastly, I do have something in mind for a new fic. It's still very much in the works/planning stage, so I won't say a lot about it. But it is considerably lighter than this. I think I'm gonna go back to some fluff a la Red Strings of Fate for a little bit. :)
Once again, thank you so much for reading!