CHAPTER TEN

Bella took the elevator up to her floor rather than the stairs, picking up large cup of strong coffee on the way to her lab. Leah looked up from her desk as she hobbled by.

"Are you okay, Bella? You looked like you've been kicked by a horse."

"I'm fine, Leah. I slipped on the stairs and landed on my butt. Just give me a few minutes and I'll come over to see you. I need your advice."

Bella sat down carefully and tipped her handbag out onto the desk. She knew there were some pain killers in there somewhere, so she poked about among the candy wrappers and other bits of rubbish that had accumulated since her last clear-out. Eventually she found two Tylenol and knocked them back, hoping they would ease the delicious pain in her overstretched muscles.

She sat at her desk sipping her coffee with both hands wrapped around the warm cup, recalling the events of the last half hour in total disbelief.

"What the hell just happened?" she asked herself as every second of her encounter in the janitor's cupboard repeated itself in her brain. What she couldn't fathom was how Edward had turned from being totally disinterested in her, telling her that "they were living different lives, three thousand miles apart," then seconds later, wham, bam, he was all over her, kissing her passionately then exquisitely fucking her into the next century. She was under no illusions; there was no romance in that encounter. No words of love or devotion were exchanged. What they had was rampant sex, pure and simple, and it was amazing.

She covered her face with her hands as she felt her cheeks burning bright red at the thought that she had allowed Edward to have her without any promise of 'tomorrow'. He apparently had a long term girlfriend and that, coupled with living on the other side of the continent, convinced her there was no hope of a relationship. But she had known that when he started kissing her, and she had still let him ravage her with no thought of the long-term consequences. She had lived for the moment and consequently had no regrets. However, she imagined with a grimace what Angela would think of her now.

Leah and Quil were giving her funny looks from their side of the lab, so to distract herself while she was waiting for the chemical cosh to work she resumed reading Jacob's notes on victim number eight, or V8 as Leah called him. She tried to concentrate on the words that were written in Jacob's untidy script, but holding his notebooks and reading Jacob's words made her feel uncomfortable about what she had just done, even though she didn't feel guilty.

She could still smell Edward's cologne and feel his strong hands gripping her body and her mind kept wandering from the task in hand. She stuck her fingers in her ears to block out any sounds around her and forced herself to read every page carefully, until she reached the page where he had made comments on the CCTV footage stored on the DVDs in his bag. Against each numbered DVD there was a short note about anything worth following up and against DVD number five were the words that Bella remembered seeing before; 'Flash on screen - investigate'.

She picked up Jacob's backpack and took out the DVDs from the side pocket. DVD number five contained footage taken from a camera on a building housing a business called Cullen Finance Consultancy. Their camera was a static type that gave a fixed view of the street below, recording whoever was approaching their office door from the sidewalk directly in front of their building. Bella looked up the company address on their internet webpage and confirmed it was definitely on the same street where Jacob had been attacked, and where V8 had disappeared. V8's office was 100 yards along the same street and he had been abducted in the few moments between leaving his building and walking to where his car was parked in a public lot less than one minutes walk away.

Bella stood up slowly. "Ouch" she grimaced under her breath, then walked as normally as she could manage over to Leah's bench.

"Any chance you could examine this one again for me, Leah?"

"Sure. Take a seat and I'll put it up on the screen. What are you looking for?"

"A flash of some description."

"Like lightening, or like the one I saw?"

"I don't know; Jacob mentioned it in his notes."

Leah put the disc in the machine, and after a few seconds the first image appeared on a large plasma screen in front of her.

"This disc is four hours long, Bella. Can you narrow the time down a bit."

Bella looked at the notes again for anything that would help.

"V8 allegedly left work at 6.30 pm, so if we presume it was near the time when he disappeared, it would be around then I guess. Jacob didn't mention a specific time in his notes."

"Okay, we'll start it off at twenty past, just in case their CCTV clock is out by a few minutes."

Leah hit fast forward and the images flew past quickly until it reached 6.20 pm on the time counter. It was dark that night for the time of year and the sidewalk was illuminated from above by street lighting, plus light filtering out from the office window below. The camera was situated high up, so its field of view was wide, probably about 25 to 30 yards along the sidewalk and about 10 to 12 yards across the street. Bella and Leah patiently watched the real-time action of cars driving past, people walking by, one small dark haired girl or woman leaving the office next door at around 6.25 pm, a dog out on its own, the victim in a dark overcoat coming along the street, and then a flash appeared across the screen.

"Stop!" Bella shouted. Leah hit the pause button. "Go back, go back," Bella said excitedly as she stood up so she could lean nearer to the screen. "Ouch!" she said, totally forgetting her backside was on fire.

"Play that bit again please, Leah."

Leah hit the play button and they watched as the man in the overcoat walked along the sidewalk until he had passed the front of the office, then there was a flash and the sidewalk was empty.

"Did he have enough time to walk out of view of the camera before he disappeared?" Bella asked, as Leah rewound the tape again.

Leah went back to when the man came into view, but before she hit play she made a note of the time on the screen. She stop/started the disc until she could register the exact fraction of a second when he first appeared and then stop/started it again on the last frame when he disappeared. She got her calculator out of the drawer and started scribbling on a piece of paper, then she looked up at the screen, hit the play button and then scribbled a bit more. After a few seconds of thought she turned to Bella and replied, "No, I don't think so."

"Right, Leah, we're getting somewhere. Can you go back to just before we saw the flash. Is there any way you can slow it down even more?"

"It depends on the quality of the recording. I'll have a go, but I'll need to take it to a different machine. Follow me."

Leah extracted the disc and went into a small room off the main lab. Bella hadn't been in there since some new high-tech equipment had been installed about a month ago as this wasn't her usual field of work. She remembered Jacob being really excited about Leah's new toy when it arrived, but she couldn't get excited about gadgets. However even she was impressed by the sight of the electronics deck in the middle of the room, as it looked as though it had come from the set of the Starship Enterprise as there was a mind-boggling array of technology laid out on its surface.

Leah jumped into what would be Chekov's seat and told Bella to pull up what was probably Sulu's chair so she could sit next to her. She slid the disc into the only piece of equipment that looked recognizable to Bella, and a static image was projected onto a massive plasma screen in front of them.

"Okay, Bella, I'm going to slow this down as much as this baby can manage, so watch the screen carefully." Leah bent forward over the deck and pressed a number of buttons, then hit the large green one that Bella presumed was 'play'.

The man in the overcoat was already in front of the business; his movements were now so slow that the delay was at least eight seconds between each step. Bella knew that he only had to take four more steps before he disappeared from view, so she focused on what was happening on the sidewalk, what was reflected in the windows, what cars were driving past; trying to spot anything that she hadn't seen before. The man was just taking his fifth step which was right before the flash, when something appeared on the screen from the top of the frame, then the man was gone.

"What the fuck was that?" Leah exclaimed.

"Something dark came down from above. Go back, Leah."

Leah took the disc back about a half a second of real time and hit play, keeping her finger hovering over the pause button.

"There it is, do it again."

Leah tried again; this time she hit play, then immediately hit pause. Success. On the screen was a black shadow that looked like the shape of a man who was hanging about ten feet off the ground, blocking the view of the victim from the camera. But that was impossible they both thought. The camera was situated above the second floor windows. Someone would have to jump at least three floors to create that effect.

"Can you tidy that up, Leah?"

"I'll do my best," she replied as she commenced pushing the controls up and down which sharpened the image in one way and toned it down the next. It reminded Bella of her own computer program she used at home to tidy up her own amateur photographs, but this software was in a different league.

After a couple of minutes, Leah hit the button that would have been 'save changes' on Bella's laptop, and the hunched frame of a man in mid flight appeared on screen. His back was to the camera, but thanks to the street lighting on the opposite sidewalk, they could describe his clothes and that he was probably Caucasian. His hair was quite long and thin, and either dark brown or black. It was difficult to be precise about his body shape but he looked quite slim. They ran the film forward frame by frame, but his image had only appeared for a fraction of a second and there was no record of how the victim was accosted; they both had disappeared in the blink of an eye.

"Can you see any ropes or wires?"

"No, there's nothing there."

"How did he move so fast? That's impossible; it's not natural."

"I don't know, Leah. I can't understand how he did it."

"Jesus Christ, Bella. Can you guess who we're looking at?"

"No."

"Fucking Superman!"

"Nah, more like Spiderman"

"Actually he's our Serial-Killer-Man. We've got to show this to Victoria."

Bella sat down in Sulu's chair and gazed at the image on the screen. Had Jacob seen this and was this the reason he was outside this particular office the day he died? It seemed pretty obvious to her now that it was.

"Did Jacob know now to use this equipment?" she asked Leah.

"Yep. He came in here a few times to look at stuff. I taught him how to use it," Leah replied proudly.

"Do you know whether he looked at these CCTV images?"

"I think he did. I know he was looking at some DVDs to do with the case and I asked him if he wanted any help. He said he would give me a shout if he needed any. One day he was in here for over an hour."

"When was that?"

"About two days before ... um, before you-know"

"Okay."

"Victoria is in court today, Bella. We'll have to show her this tomorrow."

"Fine, that'll give me a chance to do some research on this building, who works in it, and who has access to it. In the meantime, Leah, don't say anything about this to anyone, understand."

Bella wanted Victoria to have the kudos of being able to tell James they had a lead. She had taken so much shit from that man in the past few weeks that she deserved the chance to deliver some good news for a change.

"Alright, Bella. It's our secret for the moment," Leah agreed.

She saved the frozen image of the jumping man onto a separate disc and gave both originals back to Bella. It was getting late, and Bella wanted to get home and sit in a hot bath for two hours, so she gathered up her bags and left before it got dark.

As she drove home, she wondered whether Edward was back in Hartford or still in the air. It would be night time by now on the East coast as they were three hours ahead of Seattle, and she imagined him being met by his girlfriend at the airport. She tried to dismiss that thought in her mind, and as a distraction recalled running her hands over Edward's smooth (but not too muscular) chest, licking him, then listening with satisfaction to him groaning in appreciation. Her muscles clenched in her abdomen when she recalled every moment of their encounter. She could still feel the burn inside her and had to concentrate hard on her driving as her heart had started pounding in her chest.

Even though Jacob was dead, she believed that what had happened between her and Edward that morning had vindicated her decision to break off the engagement, even though the timing couldn't have been worse. She was truly sorry she had caused Jacob distress on what was his last day on Earth, and now wished she had broken it off months earlier, but she felt now that she could live the rest of her life with a clear conscience as she had been honest with Jacob before he died.

As she pulled up in front of her apartment, she whispered aloud to herself, "You did the right thing today." She couldn't have foreseen this happening she reflected as she gathered her bags up, and now their paths had crossed again, totally unexpectedly. He had kissed her, and, yes, it was as good as she remembered. Now of course they had taken it a stage further and, to be totally candid, they had fucked. There was no love or affection between them in that room, just pure unadulterated lust, and it was 'fucking marvelous' she thought as she squeezed her legs together, remembering the feel of his body locked between them.

She knew when he spun her around in the parking lot and kissed her like he had kissed her before, that she was not going to pass on the opportunity to have him completely if he wanted her. He had ruined her with his kisses ten years before. Now he had obliterated any chance of her receiving satisfaction with any other man in the future, as he had taken her to the edge of heaven this morning and she was still coming down from the experience.

She didn't know if Edward was 'the one', as their encounters from the Prom date onwards had been carnal and animalistic. He turned her on, and she knew she did the same to him. That sort of passion couldn't be faked. Whether they were soul mates as well was yet to be ascertained, but she knew she wasn't prepared to give him up. He was her drug of choice, and until she found an alternative that didn't have a girlfriend and lived three thousand miles away, he was 'it' for her.

Molly met her by the door as usual and when they had both been fed and watered, Bella filled up the tub with every relaxing concoction she had in her bathroom and gently lowered herself in, wishing she had a Jacuzzi. She didn't want to totally sooth away the sensation of Edward's assault, but she had to work tomorrow and walking around like you had just taken part in a Rodeo wasn't acceptable on any level.

Edward sat in the smart business class lounge at SeaTac waiting for his midday flight to Hartford. His head was in his hands as he recalled the events of that morning and the inevitable repercussions following whatever decision he took about the future.

"Why did I do it?" he asked himself. "I'd been able to resist Bella, okay with difficulty, when I first walked into her lab with the samples. I'd managed to take her out to lunch yesterday without jumping her, even though I wanted to, so what the hell happened today?"

A waiter brought over a whiskey and soda and Edward took a long drink. He was going to need a few more of these before he faced Annabel. "Oh God, Annabel," he thought, shaking his head. He'd been unfaithful to her and he was disgusted with himself.

He had always hated listening to the lurid tales that some of his married or 'attached' male colleagues would relate, usually with pride, about their affairs or one night stands, and he always felt sick to his stomach because he knew most of their wives or partners very well. They were lovely, devoted women, who were either at home with the kids or following their own careers, or both, totally oblivious to the fact that their husband or partner was a complete shit. He never imagined he would join their cheaters club one day.

He wasn't actually married to Annabel, but they'd been living together for about six months and their engagement party was due to take place in two weeks time at her parents' house in Rhode Island. He wouldn't be able to look her in the eye tonight. She would know straight away he'd strayed he guessed. She would be waiting for him at the airport, and he knew she had a 'special night' planned for him as she had been sending him risqué text messages while he had been away. He knew he would definitely have to shower for an hour first, because he imagined he had Bella's scent all over him.

His flight was called, so he picked up his carry-on bag and the samples and made his way to the gate. One advantage of business class was that he would be first on the plane, so would not have to queue up with the rest of the passengers, who probably had higher morals than he had he thought. The flight attendant showed him to his seat and the next whiskey and soda was put in front of him within a minute.

He closed his eyes and an image of Bella's naked body appeared in his subconscious and he groaned. The memory of when he thrust into her for the first time came back to him vividly, and he was glad he had a table over his groin area. His hand went up to his hair and he gripped a handful, tugging it forcefully. He didn't know whether this was a sign of stress, or whether he was reliving Bella doing just that to him when they were in the throes of passion.

"Are you alright, Sir?"

The flight attendant had noticed he was looking agitated, as his other hand was gripping the arm of his seat so tightly that his knuckles were white.

"I don't like flying," Edward lied. He downed the whiskey and gestured that he would like another one. The attendant disappeared to get him a double.

He tried to analyse what had made him act the way he did, and came to the conclusion that he just 'needed to know'. The events of Prom night with Bella had affected his sex life ever since he left Forks on the morning after the Prom. Bella's kisses and her response to him that night were the bar that all his girlfriends over the past ten years had fallen short of, even Annabel. She was the closest, but the all-consuming passion and total connection he had felt with Bella just wasn't there.

He couldn't put his finger on why. He thought he loved Annabel, in fact he did love her as a person, but their sex life wasn't perfect and it wasn't for want of trying. Annabel had a high libido and wanted him practically every night and sometimes in the morning as well, which could be quite exhausting. But the overwhelming desire that drove him to be intimate with Bella just wasn't there with Annabel. Their love-making this morning, if that's what it was, was honest and natural, and he felt no need to 'perform' with Bella. They had both just reveled in the intensity of the experience.

It was because he 'needed to know', that he had given in to temptation and reignited the flame that had been lying dormant inside him for the past ten years. The flame was now an inferno that was raging painfully in his gut. He had seen Bella naked and had held her while she came apart in his arms, and he knew without doubt that he wouldn't be able to walk away from her as easily this time.

Could he go ahead and marry Annabel, knowing that Bella was living and breathing in Seattle, he asked himself. It was obvious that Bella wanted him as much as he wanted her. It was too early to tell whether they would be compatible as life-partners, but their compatibility as sexual partners was not in doubt. Even now he was tempted to get off the plane and go back to that laboratory, drag her willing or unwilling down to the janitor's cupboard and do it again and again. As he was contemplating that idea he felt the plane move, so his chance to do just that had disappeared.

As the plane taxied towards the runway, he understood now why Bella had broken off her engagement. She hadn't been prepared to commit to a man who was not passionate enough to satisfy her sexually, and she had had the guts to do it, even though she had no guarantee that she would meet up with him, or anyone like him in the future. She had made the decision that she would be living a lie if she had married Jacob, which is exactly what he would be doing if he married Annabel.

"Oh Dear God" he said out loud, but fortunately business class was almost empty, so no-one heard him.

Edward had whiskey number four in his hands, but the previous three hadn't gone any way to blot out the exquisite memory of seeing Bella coming apart in his arms and the feeling of pure ecstasy that raked his body when he came inside her this morning. As the plane's engines roared, the recognition that he would soon have to make the decision whether to devastate Bella again, or let down Annabel and her lovely family, hung over him like a thunder cloud.

Edward's hands gripped the arms of his seat as the plane's wheels left the ground, and he knew that when he landed he would have to come face to face with the girl he was due to get officially engaged to in two weeks time, and he would have to decide.

Whiskey number four had been consumed before the plane broke through the clouds and number five was already on its way.