28.

Jake had put on cologne.

Edward, who opened the door to him, just stood there with his arms crossed, judging him and making sure Jake knew it. True to form, of course, Jake just preened a bit more obviously, even doing a little twirl to show off his clothes… which were different from what he'd been wearing that morning—a well loved leather jacket, over a nice shirt and artfully distressed jeans—clearly he'd put in some effort here.

"Nice, right?" he grinned, seemingly oblivious to the death glare Edward was sending him. "I bet you're feeling sorry you weren't born with style like me. It's ok, you got lucky cause Bella likes you like this…" a derisive wave over Edward's body. "She's not a fussy kind of girl, don't worry. But I'm young, and Alice likes fashion. I have a responsibility to be the eye candy here. Nope, I'm ok being objectified if she wants to do so… she deserves it! Poor girl had to live with a psychopath all these years."

He airily brushed past Edward without ceasing his chatter. "Do you think she still likes vintage clothes? She told me she did, but that was years ago, you know? Anyway, my aunt has a whole hoard of fancy old clothes, Alice would enjoy digging through that, right? I can take her to my place tomorrow. You don't need to go back to Westport yet. You should stay and make eyes at Bella. Alice and I will stay out of your hair."

Edward gripped his arm and waited till he stopped trying to wriggle away. "That's my sister," he reminded Jake with a grim smile. "She's been through enough. She needs a friend, and I know you can be a really good friend, but if you're seriously trying to hit on her, Jake, please just… don't."

For once, annoyance flashed over Jake's face. "For fucks sake, you guys need to grow up," he huffed. "Of course I like Alice, she's the prettiest girl ever, okay, but I'm not like that Assper person she married. I have a brain, and morals, and things like that. I'm just happy to see her again, ok? And you're damn right, I'm a great friend, and I will be a great friend to her! But if she hits on me, don't blame me, man." He ended with a wink and a shoulder bump that startled a laugh out of Edward.

"Why did I even try," he groaned, watching Jake strut into the living room.

"Older brother rules, I guess," Rose said, patting him on the back. "Come on, and don't worry too much about them. He knows Bella and I will give him hell if he does anything anyway."

…

"Alright, so who's spoken to Esme lately?" Jake asked, once they were done with dinner and had all said goodnight to Seth, who seemed to quite enjoy all the attention.

"I haven't spoken to her, exactly," Alice said with a slight frown. "She's been sending me texts… every other day, there's a burst of them on my phone. She tried to call the day I landed, but I didn't want to talk so I never took the call. So… I haven't actually spoken to her in a few weeks."

"What about you, Edward?" Jake asked turning to him. "Anything from her in the last couple of weeks?"

"Not a word," Edward shook his head. "But that's not unusual. I'm more likely to hear from dad every few weeks, actually." He frowned. "It's weird, but he hasn't called at all in the last couple of months. I've been so caught up in everything that I didn't realize."

"Let's call him tomorrow," Alice suggested, a spark of enthusiasm in her eyes.

"That's a great idea," Jake agreed, tipping his chair back to sway on its back legs. "In fact, after some of the things I found out these last few days, I have a whole list of questions for him."

Edward kicked at Jake's chair, making him wobble precariously before he landed all four legs firmly on the ground again. "Why would you want to ask him anything? What could he possibly tell us? You can't just go around interrogating him," Edward seemed perplexed.

"Who said anything about an interrogation, geez! Anyway, you'll understand in a few minutes," Jake said. "Alright, so I'm just going to share what I found out, and then you tell me what you think we should do about it. Ok?"

There was a hum of assent from the others, with a few nods and a general sense of anticipation.

"While you guys were in Westport, I had some free time on my hands and thought I might as well look into Bree Tanner," Jake began. "I thought I'd try to see when she came to Forks, what she did here, that kind of thing." The others nodded, clearly intrigued by where this was going.

"At first I couldn't find anything at all. That was weird, because we had a point of reference, after all… the hospital where she met Esme. From what we learnt, Bree had run away from an abusive home situation, and was rescued by someone from Forks who took her to the hospital here," he quickly summarized for Alice. "There should've been a record of her admission and treatment, but there was nothing. That implied one of two things. One, Bree isn't her real name, and she adopted it after she got here. So maybe her rescuer had used her actual ID and information when they took her to the hospital and that's why I couldn't find any records for 'Bree'. Two, that she somehow got those specific records destroyed."

He looked around the table with a frown. "To be honest, neither of these possibilities is very convincing, but I couldn't just dismiss them. So I thought, no harm going over Esme's diary again, in case she mentioned the person who had helped Bree. I didn't really think there was much chance I'd find something, but big surprise, I actually got a name. It was old Mr Newton… you guys remember that tool Mike? His grandfather."

"Wow, that's unexpected," Bella agreed. "So then what?"

"So then I went over to visit," Jake said with a grin. "He wasn't exactly friends with my dad, but they were both fishing enthusiasts. He was always nice to us as kids, anyway. He doesn't go out so much anymore, so I took him some fresh fish and we had a nice chat."

"He's how old, like 98?" Rose asked skeptically. "You're saying he still remembers something that happened so long ago?"

"He's only just turned 85, and aren't you supposed to be the one with some medical knowledge here?" Jake scoffed. "Even with dementia people are more likely to remember things that happened in the past much more clearly than something that happened like last week. And old man Newton is still sharp as a tack!"

"So he really remembered Bree?" Edward asked, absently spinning a spoon that was lying on the table.

"Yup," Jake said. "From what he said, he seemed to have been visiting his sister in Portland when Bree dashed out from nowhere right in front of his car. When he saw how battered and bruised she was, he panicked thinking he had hit her. He didn't stop to ask questions; as soon as he saw that she could still stand and hobble around he bundled her into his car to take her to a hospital. She didn't protest or anything, probably in shock, you know? But on the way there the shock seemed to wear off and she insisted she was ok, and couldn't go to a hospital. She was frantic, so he drove around until she was calm enough to tell him more. According to her she'd left home to live with her boyfriend, but he turned out to be abusive. Now she was too scared and ashamed to try to go back home, let alone that she didn't have the money to get a bus ticket or anything."

He took a sip of water before continuing. "That day, the man had beaten her so badly that she couldn't take it anymore, and had run. She was scared to go to a hospital in case he found her. So grandpa Newton suggested she come along with him to Forks. It was an even smaller place back then, and pretty much the last place anyone would think to look for her, so she agreed. She was in the hospital here for a couple of weeks, and then she stayed on to work part-time once she got a bit better, since she didn't really have anywhere else to go."

"Wow, that's awful," Alice whispered, blinking back tears.

"You know, I thought so too, when I first heard the story," Jake said with a wry smile. "But then I realized it still didn't explain everything. You see, old man Newton insisted that the name she gave him was Bree Tanner, and that's what the hospital records should show. So I was back to square one."

"Hey wait, so he didn't stay in touch with her after he brought her here? Didn't he think it strange that she disappeared?" Rose asked.

"He checked on her in the beginning, but he used to travel a fair bit for business, and she seemed to have settled in quite well," Jake said vaguely. "And then 6 months later, around the time of the fire, she'd written to him thanking him and telling him that she'd saved up enough to return home. He thought it was a little odd that she didn't say goodbye in person, but ultimately figured that it was enough that she was alright."

"Oh dear God," Bella muttered, rubbing her temples. "Why do I have a feeling she lied to him? Oh right, because we know for sure that she assumed Esme's identity when she left, so she couldn't have possibly 'gone home'."

"Wait, back up a bit there," Edward said with a frown. "You mean she got a part-time job in the hospital? In that case it might have been possible for her to get rid of her records after all…"

"Especially if the job happened to be that of an assistant in the records department," Jake supplied with a wry smile. "It wasn't as clear cut as it is now, but I did find out that she was hired to help with the filing at first, probably because they felt that was an easy enough job for her to manage while she recovered."

"We still have some programs like that in the hospital," Rose supplied. "But no one gets access to something as sensitive as patient information, for fucks sake!"

"But you do know that if someone was determined it wouldn't be impossible to figure a workaround," Jake countered. "In any case, things were different then, and Bree seems to have used that fact to her advantage. The thing that bugged me was that she felt she must erase all record of her presence at all. What does that tell us?"

"Well," Alice said hesitantly, "We already know she was running from someone. Maybe she was just paranoid about being found."

Jake smiled at her. "You are absolutely right, of course. So logically speaking, if she wasn't just exaggerating the situation she was in, then at some point it's reasonable to suppose that someone might have tried to find her in the area."

"But if her abuser did manage to trace her to Forks, she'd have just run," Rose protested. "She wouldn't have time to erase records. The fact that she made the effort to do that makes it seem like whether or not someone was really looking for her, she was planning to run. Like, she was determined to just bury that identity for good."

"I agree," Bella said. "Plus I'm still not entirely convinced she wasn't responsible for the Platt Manor fire."

"We can't be sure of what really happened there," said Jake, "But yeah, she was determined to ditch her identity as Bree. I just don't think it was because of an abusive ex. Anyway, so I was bored and decided to look her up online, see what came up, you know? Lots of birth records and things are digitized now, you never know what turns up."

"You found her birth record?" Edward asked, intrigued.

"Even better," Jake said. "I found record of her death. About 4 years before she came to Forks actually, and on the other side of the country."

"What?" Rose leaned forward and poked Jake's arm. "Are you messing with us right now? You mean she… 'Bree' was another person's identity as well? Oh come on!"

"It could just be another person with the same name?" Alice suggested, looking doubtful. None of them could hold back their exclamations.

"Hey, hey," Jake shushed them, wildly waving his arms and pointing up to Seth's room. When they were all quiet again, he spoke. "This is where my story gets kind of wild. I don't think she took someone else's identity. I think that time she really did try to fake her own death."

He waited for their questions, but for once the others didn't have anything to say.

"Right, so I did a little poking around and I think I have an idea of why she might've been running, why she was so paranoid about hiding, maybe even who she was running from," Jake said. "In one word, her family. In another word, the Mafia."

"You're fucking with us," Edward stated flatly, pushing back from the table. "The Mafia? You're saying… the Mob?"

"Well yeah," Jake shrugged. "Hey if you're going to pace around get me some ice cream, won't you? And maybe another beer? Talking is hard work!"

Edward rolled his eyes but complied. "Here, now tell us clearly what you found."

"Let me start by saying that I am making a few mental leaps here," Jake cautioned. "I got some interesting information, some stuff that definitely ties her to one of the minor families in New York. But it seems like those families were wiped out by the mid-90s, which is around when she got here. It isn't exactly easy getting solid proof about one young girl who didn't want to be found."

"Alright, we get it," Bella said, nodding in understanding. "Why not just tell us the big picture then? Whatever you think makes sense?"

A/N: Hi! I'm back, after an entirely unexpected break thanks to family stuff. But we're getting closer to uncovering all truths and maybe bringing this story to a close? Or maybe not, who knows!