Eleven: Forged

Tuesday, March 1st
3:14 a.m.

Edward couldn't sleep. He left the quiet of the guest room, intent on going out onto the balcony, but had forgotten about Alice and Jasper sleeping a couple of yards from the door. He was afraid to wake them so instead, he went to the kitchen.

He paced and then stopped himself to lean against the counter and look at Bella's door. After that, he went back to pacing.

This is a bad idea.

This might actually work.

…

Jasper cleared his throat. "I think I can help you with that."

Alice didn't look surprised, but Edward and Bella did. "How?" She asked.

"I know someone; he owes my family a favor. He's in the business."

Alice opened her mouth, but Jasper shook his head.

Edward balked at the idea. He didn't want to lie and he didn't want to see Bella dive headlong into the fire, but she was determined and if he argued she'd probably go on ahead without him. Stubborn, he added it to the growing list of things he knew about her. When she sat down, he put his arm over the back of the couch. The best he could hope for would be to go and keep her safe as much as possible.

Alice found a notepad for Jasper while he asked Bella questions. "Birthday?"

"September 13th." When she told him the year he said she should make herself a couple of years older.

Edward gave the beach house's address when Jasper asked.

Bella told him her height and weight and he could see her hair and eye color. "What about my name? Swan is my dad's last name, but Demetri knows it."

Jasper wrote something down. "You're gonna be a Cullen."

"But Edward only has one sister."

"Not sister, wife. Don't worry, I'll make it look legal and its reason enough for you to be traveling together if anyone were to look at the flight manifest." He shrugged. "It happens."

Edward started thinking hard about what else he didn't know about his sister's boyfriend. He pulled her outside sometime well after midnight.

She squared her shoulders and was talking before he opened his mouth. "Don't get all high and mighty on me, Edward Cullen. Jasper didn't have the same kind of upbringing we did." Alice all but stuck her finger in his face. "Things were hard for him."

Edward looked down at his sister's fierce expression and put a hand up. "I'm not mad; I just wish you'd told me."

"He didn't want to tell you because he was afraid of how you'd react. He's a good man."

"I know." He made a face. "You sound just like mom when you use my first and last name like that."

"Just count yourself lucky I didn't throw in the Anthony."

…

"Shit."

Edward looked at the closed bedroom door in the darkness. Bella was awake and cursing, apparently. He gripped the knob, but then thought better and knocked as quietly as he could manage.

Bella appeared, standing on her left foot, her right elevated a couple inches off the ground. She whispered, "Sorry. Was that loud?"

He shook his head. "I was already up."

She opened the door wide enough to let him in and then hopped a couple of feet to the bed. "Stubbed my toe on the footboard," she sat back against her pillow. "Pacing, couldn't sleep."

Edward sat by her feet. "Jasper said it would take a couple of days."

"I know. But I feel like the longer we wait, the colder the trail is going to get."

"Are you going to hear from Rosalie again?"

Bella put her legs under the covers. "She said she'd call tomorrow – or today, I guess."

"That's something then." He toyed with the bedspread and with what he wanted to say next. "I know it sucks being stuck here," with me, "but we'll figure it out." He touched the top of her foot over the blanket. "You'll be back to your normal life in no time."

There wasn't anything Bella could think of to say to that so instead, she patted the empty space next to her and Edward crawled over. She lifted the blankets for him.

He leaned back against the headboard and waited, wishing he hadn't said anything about her going back to Washington for good. He didn't know what she would do, or what he would do if she left.

Bella kept her voice low, mindful of the sleeping couple in the other room. "I like it here…I lived in Florida for a little while with my mom. She had this place right on the water, we used to sit out on the patio when we couldn't sleep and just listen to the ocean. It's my favorite thing to do, I think."

She looked over so she was talking to Edward instead of the far wall. "This is going to sound stupid, but I feel like I have more of a life here than I ever did in D.C." She meant it, but had no idea what it meant for whatever future she had. "Not the hiding, just the Alice and Jasper part, and the you part." She blushed, just a little, something she hadn't done since high school.

Edward's mouth ticked up at the corner while Bella scooted down until she was on her side. She pulled the blanket up to her chin. "Do you want me to close the window?" He asked.

Bella told him no and that she couldn't sleep in a bedroom with no open windows because it made her feel like she couldn't breathe. He added it to his things he knew about Bella list.

"Will you stay?" She asked. "I mean, you don't have to sleep with – in here, but…?" She wondered when she'd gotten so tongue tied.

He said that he would before stretching out on his stomach, his face toward her. He closed his eyes and listened to Bella fall asleep. Edward stayed with her all night.

…

The next morning, they woke up together. Sometime during the night, they'd faced each other, but not quite near enough to touch. The dip in the mattress from Bella sitting up woke Edward, who was very aware of their closeness. They smiled and said good morning and then retreated to the kitchen.

"I almost forgot I need to take your picture." Jasper said. There was a camera on the counter, ready and waiting.

"Can't she shower first?" Alice asked. She glanced up to see Edward following Bella from the bedroom. Bella turned and left to get ready and avoid any awkward conversation.

Once she finished, Jasper took her picture against a blank wall and then left to do whatever it was he was going to do. Alice wanted to go, but Jasper kissed her and said no. Edward turned the television on to the news after Jasper left and Bella went outside, phone in hand.

She sat, bouncing her heel and trying to spin her phone on the seat in front of her, but it hardly moved. She flipped it over and tried that way, but it made no difference.

"Isn't there a saying about a watched cell never ringing?" Alice sat down in the next chair. "I know – watched pot, but whatever, there should be."

"Hey." Bella leaned back, pretending she wasn't crawling out of her skin, but kept her phone within arm's reach. "Where's -,"

"Inside, he's trying to look like he's not going crazy too. Are you waiting for your friend?"

"Yeah, we're kind of at a standstill until I hear something. Listen, Alice, is Jasper going to be okay doing this?" Bella worried about which laws they were all trampling on to help her. And that no matter how she tried not to, she kept pulling people along for the ride. She thought about throwing the flash drive into the ocean, and then about jumping in after it.

"He'll be fine. His family had some business connections with this lawyer back when Jasper was in school. This is on the lighter side of what Jasper has done," she lifted the corner of her mouth.

Bella frowned, unable and not completely willing to put the pieces of Jasper's old life together.

"It was bad," Alice answered the question Bella hadn't asked. "But he left when he turned eighteen. And then we met a couple years ago…," she smiled. "Things are better, getting better, I mean. Having Edward around is good too; neither of them are very social." She laughed. "I took them out to dinner when they first met; I think I was the only person to say a word all night.

"Bella," Alice changed the subject. "Edward likes you."

"I like him too."

"No, like – I feel thirteen again – likes you." Alice widened her eyes for emphasis. They were the exact same color as Edward's.

"Oh."

"I'm not saying it to give you one of those sisterly threat speeches; I just wanted you to know. And besides, I like you."

Bella smiled at that and felt a new kind of fluttering that had nothing to do with the senator or broken laws. She fiddled with her phone that had somehow made it into her hands again. "I've thought about it – what it might have been like if I was here, like a normal person. And we'd met."

"Well, get through this part. Then we'll see what happens."

Bella was going to say something about that being great in theory when her phone rang. It could only be Rosalie, so she waited and then called her back. Alice sat sideways in her chair, barely containing her wholly inappropriate excitement.

Rose answered right away. "Tell me I'm a -,"

"You're a genius."

"Thank you."

"I take it you found something?" Bella stood up, her body fidgety from nerves and impatience.

"You bet I did. Are you sitting down?"

"No, I can't sit right now."

"All right, so The Elite doesn't have an online presence, that's what I told you last night, right? Wrong. Sneaky bastards," Rosalie chuckled. She must have been impressed. "The Elite is part of a shell site for Building Bridges. They run this shit on a charity site for kids. Anyway, even if you can find it, you can't get on without a log-in and a password. I'm sending you the link for the charity site. Go to the Corporate Partners page and you'll see a period on the bottom left side, that's it. But you won't be able to get in without the log-in."

Bella memorized the instructions anyway. "Why all the cloak and dagger? These places aren't exactly secret, are they?" She had no frame of reference, but she'd seen enough of these scandals in the news to know an escort service wasn't difficult to find.

"No idea. Maybe it's an exclusivity thing." She was quiet for a beat, thinking it over. "Or maybe they offer something else? Anyway, that's not the best part."

"Best part?"

"This place is invitation-only."

"Okay." Bella didn't understand how that was a good thing.

"So, I got you an invitation."

"You…what? But how?" She'd known Rosalie for a long time, but she'd never really understood the depth of her friend's ability. It was intimidating.

"Not you actually, your boyfriend. I could probably have gotten one for you too, but it would be too risky. You're fun; I want to keep you around." She typed away on her keyboard like this work was an everyday occurrence.

"How?" Bella asked again.

"Hey, you have sources, I have sources." She cleared her throat. "I helped a guy hide some money last year, he owed me."

"A guy?"

"Guy, congressman, whatever. I was gonna ask for more help, but he's kind of a nervous one. I didn't want to chance it.

"Anyway, don't get on a plane yet. I'm going to overnight the invite to you and some other info. I had to make some new stuff for Edward to make him rich; this is just for Elite, so tell him to use his regular identification to fly. Do you need ID? I forgot to ask before."

She did that too? "Uh no, I'm covered." Briefly, Bella thought about how nice it was when she knew nothing and her biggest worry was repaying her student loans.

Rosalie told her to expect a shipping envelope in two days and that she'd call when it arrived to explain more. "It's hard to do without the paperwork sitting in front of you. Talk to you in a couple days." She hung up.

"So?" Alice asked.

Bella ignored the excitement in her voice. "I'm going to need to talk to Edward."

Author's Note: Thanks to my pre-readers. And thanks to everyone for being patient these last few weeks; I had some big girl stuff to deal with.

So, as a token of my appreciation, reviewers get teasers this week (and not the same teaser I post on ADF)

:)