Chapter 10

"You're her cousin?" Edward was confused, he thought Bella didn't have any relatives left.

"Our mothers were nieces of the woman who lived here."

Bella decided to join. Her lawyer mentioned a cousin, this must be him.

"Hi, I'm Bella." She shook his hand. Looking him in detail, he had the same coloring than her.

"Why don't you come in, we can talk more comfortably inside."

Emmett went to take his wife from the car. She had a box in her hands.

"Hi, I'm Rosalie. My mother told me to never come empty-handed, so we brought beer."

Soon they were chatting amicably.

"So what's your story Emmett?"

"Well, Rosie here was engaged to Mr. Royce King."

Rosalie interrupted him. "Royce was a fifty year old widower looking for a wife. My parents thought 'he has money, we have a daughter, let's trade."

"But Rosie had her eyes set in this hunk of a man." He pointed to himself, while Rosalie rolled her eyes. "I was a modest homebuilder, not good enough for her parents. So after they announced she had to marry the old man... the lawyer called me, to tall me dear aunt Prudence died, and she left us all her moth-eaten belongings and the bit of money she had. Well, we saw it as an opportunity. We eloped and ran from Kentucky to meet our stranded family." He winked to Bella.

"We decided to move to start fresh our lives." Rosalie said in a serious tone. "And yours?"

"You won't believe us. It was the same!" Bella laughed, she had drunk three beers by now.

"My mother thought it would be in my best interest to marry the annoying daughter of her friend. We disagreed. She cut off all the money, we eloped and left."

Rosalie looked at Edward "Yeah, like the money would stop us, right?" And they clinked their beers.

Emmett smiled mischievously and said "Wait, neither of us had a wedding party, right? No toast, no music, no alcohol..."

Edward knew where he was going. "Let me pull out the big guns." and he left to the kitchen.

"So Bella, how did you two meet?"

"We were at the same class in college. At the time, I had a boyfriend, Riley, and Edward was dating the most annoying girl, Angela."

"Hey, Riley was also pretty annoying." Edward was back with a couple of bottles of tequila and rum.

"Anyway, it was the first class we had together. One day the professor asked us to search from something very unusual, so we went to the library at the same time. There was only one copy of the book we needed, so he offered to let me use it first."

"And she told me we better work together so we could finish soon. So we stayed in the library 'til they closed."

"Talking, we didn't do anything for our research."

"That day I knew it, she was so special. I had to know all about her. So the next day I dumped Angela."

"And I broke up with Riley; but we were too scared to ask the other about our relationships."

Edward laughed. "Since then we were always together, but only as friends."

"You never asked her out? What if someone else did it?" Rosalie asked.

"Nope, I never asked. I thought she still had something with Riley. We fought once. He was bitter because she was with me the whole time. That way no one else could come close to her."

"Angela and her cronies always were trying to bother me. Too bad I never had the patience to listen to them."

"How long did you stay as friends?"

"A couple of years." Bella blushed. "But one day, Colin, a guy with a crush on me, asked me out for a New Year party; and I thought it could be the incentive Edward needed to finally say something. It went wrong, because his mother forced him to take Miss Mallory, another bimbo, to their company New Year's party."

"What happened?"

"I stood Miss Mallory... and we've been together together since then." Edward kissed Bella, he was very happy to be here with her now.

"Emmett, have you been in the house before?" A very tipsy Bella asked.

"Yeah, my mother came from time to time to check on Aunt Prudence. You see how shabby is the house, aunt Prudence wasn't young anymore and liked to live alone. Mom thought one day she could have an accident."

"you're right, the first week here we were supposed to sleep upstairs, but the floor collapsed and our bed fell to the first floor. Which reminds me, go fetch your things, we have to prepare your bedroom."

"Bella, we don't want to intrude, we have a motel's room."

"Nonsense. You're family, you stay here."

Edward left with Emmett to get their stuff, while Bella and Rose kept talking.

"It's kinda creepy here, Emmett told me a couple of stories about the house."

"Sometimes it gets really scary. We heard a noise, like a cry. First I thought it was an animal trapped here, but Edward checked the whole house and he found nothing."

"It must be the famous hidden room."

"Oh God! There's a hidden room?"

"That's what Emmett said. Don't you know anything about your ancestors?"

"No, my mother ran away and cut all contact with the family."

"Emmett!" Rose yelled.

"Yeah sweetie?" They were back carrying two suitcases.

"Bella doesn't know the story of the house."

"Oh Bella! Let me remedy that. They say that Captain Brown, our great great grand-father, was a morphine addict. That's why he really retired. When they built the house, they built a special room, a secret basement, where they put him when he was irascible from the withdrawal."

"But we never saw it, and I checked the whole house twice!"

"It's because it's secret. Later, the family became famous for smuggling drugs and alcohol. Imagine the twenties here! The police raided the house many times, but they never found a thing."

"We have to find it!" Bella wasn't the only drunk in the room.

"All I know it's that the room was like a basement, because when they needed to get rid of things, the room had a trap door that led directly to the sea."

"But then how they kept water out?"

"The door led to one of the rocks on the cliff, it wasn't visible from the outside, though you had to be very close to the cliff to verify it. No one ever saw it."

"Emmett who told you this?"

"One of the gardeners, Aunt Prudence lived alone, but people from town came to help her to keep the house clean."

"Well, let's do it."

Edward took a hammer, same as Emmett. They were knocking on the wood of the floor, but three hours later they found nothing but the bottom of the tequila's bottle.

"Shh, I hear something." Rosalie said, she was equally drunk.

But the sound was real.

"What if it is the ghost of the writer who lived here?"

"You have to take me with this Mrs. Sue, I want to know more."

"Shh, you're scaring it. Hey Mr. ghost, say hi!" Bella was a happy drunk.

Knock, knock, knock.

"See, he's saying hi."

Four very drunk people, started to kick the floor. Bam, bam, bam.

"Owwwww"

"See! That's the noise we heard at night!"

"Hey Mr. Ghost, where are you?"

"Owwwww" Knock, knock, knock.

"Wow, he has lots to say."

Esme Cullen was terribly mad. In a rushed decision, she came to Forks, Washington. Let's see what will she find out when the plane lands.