A/N: Thank you all so much for the reads/reviews! I had a blast last weekend at the Heroes and Villains fan fest. I have a few pictures up on my Instagram (name is zimphella), and I got some crappy video footage from the wine party that Stephen Amell hosts. I recommend searching on Youtube for the Nocking Point Party in Chicago. You can see Stephen Amell singing and boy, is he amazing.

A huge thanks to my beta, Heather, for her amazing beta skills!

Now, on you go.

…B…..

I was tired, sore, and dying of boredom. The constant humming and beeping of machines in my room were driving me insane, and all I wanted was to go home. But no, I couldn't leave for another week, at least, and I was fairly certain I would die of boredom before then.

After that, it would be weeks, if not months, before I would be up and about and back to work. I wasn't looking forward to just sitting around for that long.

A knock on the door to my hospital room had me looking over from the ceiling where I'd been counting tiles.

I beamed when I saw Edward walk in with Emmett behind him, but my smile faded when I saw the serious expression on their faces. Something was definitely up, and I had a feeling that this wasn't a social call.

I'd seen Edward a few times since I'd woken up, but it had never been for long. The doctor's had insisted that I needed my rest since I'd had major surgery.

"What's going on?" I asked, shifting slightly in my bed, only to wince in pain as the tender area area around the stitches pulled a bit.

"Emmett caught the person who shot us," Edward said quietly as he sat down on the side of my bed, picking up my hand and giving it a slight squeeze.

"Who?"

"James Tracker," Emmett said, and my mouth dropped open. That was not the name I expected to hear.

James was a dumbass kid who liked to smoke weed and burglarize properties, but murder wasn't his game.

"Are you sure?" I asked him, and he nodded as he pulled one of the chairs in the room closer to my bed.

"But that's not what he does. He's a petty thief."

"Demitri Voltaire paid him ten thousand dollars to shoot up the diner and to aim for the first booth in front of the large window. The booth you and Edward almost always sit at."

I opened my mouth to speak, but Emmett kept going. He explained how Demitri had found out that James owed some guys a bit of money, and he used that to his advantage.

"So, there's a warrant out for Voltaire's arrest for his involvement in the shooting, but I've got more news. Mr. Watgrove was found murdered in his house in Atlanta. The ten million dollar coin that everyone is looking for was sold at a private auction a while ago, and we believe that Aro Caius thinks Edward must have bought it."

"Why did they kill Mr. Watgrove then?" I asked. "He no longer had the coin."

Emmett shrugged. "From what I can gather, Watgrove had been trying to find out who stole it from him, and he must have come close to discovering something."

"Okay, so why does Volturi think Edward has the coin?"

"Because I did buy some coins from that auction," Edward explained. "It was back in Chicago, and I'd been invited, along with several other antiquities dealers in the area, to a small private auction. It had been attended by about thirty people, and they were selling coins and a few other items."

"Wouldn't you have remembered a ten million dollar coin being sold?"

"I left about halfway through the auction because I got a text telling me that Mom had been in a fender bender and had broken her arm. I paid for what I'd bought and arranged for shipping, and then I left."

I pondered over what he said and what Emmett believed.

"Could the coin have been shipped to you by mistake?" I asked after a few minutes.

"Believe me, Bella, I'd know if I had that coin sitting around."

"Okay, yeah, but did you receive anything in your shipment that you hadn't bought?"

The thumb that had been lightly stroking the back of my hand froze before he spoke.

"A small porcelain china dog."

"What?" Emmett and I both asked.

"There was a small china dog in the shipment. It couldn't have been worth more than twenty bucks. I remember calling the auction and telling them. They told me it was an accident, and I offered to send it back to them, but they told me I could keep it since no one had bid on it and the original owner didn't want it."

"Where is it?" I asked.

"In a box in my storage unit on Fifth Street. It's just filled with some childhood awards and junk like that," he told us.

I looked at Emmett and told him they needed to get over to the storage site and to take backup with him.

Edward gave Emmett the key and the security code for the storage unit after telling him he wasn't sure what box the porcelain figurine was in.

Emmett stood up as he called for some backup to meet him at Fred's Storage, shooting us a wave as he left.

"Is it possible that this could all be over soon?" Edward asked, and I shrugged, wincing as I did so.

"God, I hope so. I just want life to go back to normal although the two of us aren't going to be normal for a while."

"We weren't exactly normal to begin with," Edward said with a smile before leaning down and placing a gentle kiss on my lips.

It wasn't enough. I wanted one of those deep passionate kisses that left me wanting more, but Edward pulled away.

"Hey!" I protested.

"You need your rest," he told me, and I pouted. I was tired of resting. It was all I did, and I told him that.

"Yeah, well, wait until you start physical therapy. Then you'll prefer the bed rest."

I wasn't so sure about that.

Almost an hour later, Emmett called Edward, saying they'd found the small china dog and were taking it to the station to examine it. He wanted Edward to be there when they did, and I was annoyed that I wasn't able to go; however, I made Edward promise to keep me in the loop because even though I was out of commission, this was still my case.

Less than twenty minutes later, my phone rang, and I eagerly answered when I saw it was Edward. He told me he was at the station and that they were about to break open the china dog to see what was inside.

I had him put me on speakerphone, and I heard Archie tell Edward we should Skype since he knew I would want to see what they were doing.

Thankfully, my tablet was close to me, and I was able to grab it without too much struggle. Minutes later, I was watching as the crime scene techs finished photographing the little dog.

"All right, Ed, have at it," Emmett said, and I watched as Edward picked up a small hammer and gently tapped the porcelain figurine.

It cracked immediately, and with one more tap, it opened, and there, nestled inside the dog, was a small square case which housed a coin. A very rare coin. A coin worth ten million fucking dollars.

"Holy shit!" Edward said in a whisper as he stared down at it.

A pair of latex gloves were handed over, and Edward put them on before reaching down to pick up the small case.

Very carefully, he opened it up and took out the coin, turning it over in his hands.

"Is it the real deal?" Emmett asked.

"I'm no coin expert, but I think so. It sure as hell looks like the real thing, and who would hide a fake coin?"

The coin was put back in its protective case, and Edward handed it over so it could be catalogued as evidence.

"What do we do now?" Edward asked.

"We find Voltaire and bring him in," Emmett said, and I mentioned that someone should go talk to Eleazar Denali and find out what his role was in all of this.

"I can talk to him," Edward said, and all of us said no. I didn't want Edward involved any more than he already was. Besides, we didn't know how dangerous Denali was.

"I'll call Portland P.D. and have them bring him in for questioning. We can do a Skype interrogation. While we're at it, we might as well have Tanya and Aro Caius questioned, too."

"Talk to me, McCarty," I said into my phone as I sat up in my bed with Edward by my side.

I'd been released from the hospital earlier in the week, and Edward had volunteered to stay with me and help me out. I'd been hesitant at first, not because I didn't want Edward there, but because I was used to being on my own and taking care of myself.

My dad and Sue had dropped off a ton of food and frozen casseroles for me to make for dinners, but they had made me promise not to overdo it. Granted, they'd both felt a lot better when I told me them that Edward would be staying with me for a week to help me out. Although, the poor man was still in pain himself. We were quite the pair.

"So, we talked to Denali," he began. "As you know, he was M.I.A. for a week. Turns out, he was on a hunting trip in Alaska, but as soon as he arrived back in Portland, the police picked him up and brought him in for questioning."

"What did he have to say?"

"Oh, he denied knowing anyone named Demitri Voltaire, but he did admit that he knew Aro Caius. At first, he tried to deny that one as well, but when we pointed out that his daughter was married to the man, he finally admitted that he knew him.

He claims he doesn't know much about Caius, but that Caius asked him to leave his Rolls Royce in a parking garage in downtown Portland."

"Why would Denali agree to do that?" I asked.

"He claims Caius told him if he didn't help him out, then something would happen to his daughter. I'm not sure if I buy it, but I don't have anything to hold him on, so he was cut loose."

"Did you talk to Tanya?" Edward asked as he played with a strand of my hair.

"I did," Emmett confirmed. "She claims to know nothing about her husband's coin collecting hobby, and she finds it irritating that he wastes so much time on it. I questioned her about Demitri Voltaire's whereabouts, and she told me that she'd seen him a couple of days ago when he came to their house in Chicago."

"So, he's still in the country?" I asked.

"We think so. We've got a nationwide alert out on him, but he's got money and resources. As far as Aro Caius goes, he isn't returning our calls, and according to his wife, he's away on business."

"So, we've basically hit a dead end," I muttered, flopping back on the bed and then regretting it. My side hurt like a bitch, and I was trying to tough my way through it without taking any pain meds, but I was about at my wit's end.

"Bella, take the painkillers," Edward said, and I let out a huff as he got up off the bed and grabbed the bottle of medication, tossing it onto the bed next to me. He then went into my bathroom and filled up a glass with water.

With some reluctance, I took the pills as I listened to Emmett snicker a bit at our exchange.

"To answer your question, yes we're at a bit of a dead end until we can catch Voltaire, but I promise you both, we will catch him."

We talked for a few minutes longer, and when we hung up, I felt exhausted.

"Why don't you take a nap?" Edward suggested. "I'll run out and pick us up some Thai food for dinner and maybe a movie from Redbox."

"You need to rest, too," I told him. "You've got physical therapy in the morning."

Leaning over, he placed a kiss on my lips, and I moaned at the feeling. Sadly, we hadn't been able to do much more than kiss because of both of our injuries, and I was missing the feel of Edward.

a/n: As always, let me know what you thought!