STRUGGLES

Disclaimer: The Cullen's, the Swans, and most of the characters mentioned in the story that are known from Stephanie Meyer's beloved Twilight Saga, are all hers and hers alone. I neither have nor wish to pass them off as mine. I do appreciate the fact that she did bring them to life and allows us to play with them in our imaginations. The only thing I will claim is the current storyline.

The awesome and talented dowlingnana searched out my errors and corrected them. She also makes the banners for each of my stories.

Bella turned over with her eyes open to stare at Norma just as a pair of hands reached up behind Norma to grab her arm with one hand and an arm grabbed Norma around the throat while yelling for the guard out in the hallway.

CHAPTER 38: THE TRUTH IS COMING TO LIGHT

As the struggle began between Norma and her attacker, Bella reacted quickly to remove the IV needle from the back of her hand. She also quickly jumped up out of bed trying to help subdue Norma. After all Alice was feisty as hell, but, she was still shorter than Bella or Norma. However, bless her heart, Alice was hanging on like a little bulldog even though Norma was doing her best to try to shake Alice off of her.

Norma felt that she was having more than enough to handle with dealing with both the short bitch and the bitch that her brother had married. And, just as she thought that she was about to get the upper hand more people get involved with the melee.

The guard rushes into the room and seeing the struggle going on, he then rushes over to the three women. And, while he is trying to get everyone separated a nurse and a security guard comes charging into the room. With their help it doesn't take long to get everyone separated and under control. Bella is put back to bed, and the other two women are cuffed until the guard could find out what caused the disturbance. At no time did it register with the guard or the nurse that Bella was awake and quite active; at least, not yet.

Renee and Esme see a crowd that seems to be gathering around what appears to be Bella's room as they step off of the elevator, and, that had both Renee and Esme rushing forward fearing the worst. It did take a bit of working through the crowd before both women were able to get inside the room to see what the problem was. Once inside the doorway, they saw Bella being put back to bed, Alice and a strange woman in handcuffs and each being held by the guard and a security officer.

"Everyone needs to hush and only one person at a time tell me what's all of this is about." The guard says as he looks from one woman to another. It still didn't seem to have registered with him as yet that Bella was awake and mobile.

Norma started to speak, but, Alice quickly interrupted her and told the guard what she had seen and heard, explaining that was why she had attacked the woman from behind to prevent her from killing Bella.

"But, why would she be trying to harm this patient when she is only delivering floral arrangements?" The guard asks. And, it was at this point that the nurse spoke up telling the guard that "this isn't the normal person that delivers the arrangements. It's usually a man, not a woman."

This information is what caused the guard to pay more attention to what Alice had been saying. He looks around in the area of where the women had been struggling, for the syringe that Alice had mentioned. However, he saw nothing, but, the nurse did bend down and looked under the bed to see if it might have rolled under it; no such luck.

However, it was found on the bed where it must have flown once it had been knocked out of Norma's hand. That was a divine gift from heaven because the syringe was still in one piece and still held the mixture that was inside. The mixture that Norma was going to inject into Bella's IV drip.

"Another thing you need to know about this woman is that she isn't a stranger to the patient; she is the patient's sister-in-law." Alice supplies this bit of information as further explanation of why Norma might be wanting to harm Bella.

The information doesn't seem to mean anything to the guard and all he can do is wonder why all of this was happening so close to the time for his shift relief to arrive. He had been told to restrict anyone that wasn't on the authorized visitor list and that listing was in a generalized form: family members, attorney and staff, personal doctor, Ben and Angela Cheney, Rosalie Hale and Emmett McCarty. Fortunately, as his thoughts quickly ran over the listing, after hearing about this woman being a family member, he was wondering since she was a family member why she went to such an extreme to get in here, and as he reached this point in his thoughts his relief arrived to ask what was going on. After a quick updating, the new guard told everyone to hold their positions while he made a quick phone call to headquarters for a clarification of things.

After listening for a few moments, the new officer is put on hold while he was being transferred to the detective in charge which was Asher. When Asher came on the line, he requested to speak with the officer that was on duty as the incident occurred. So, the relief walked over to assume the position of restraining one of the women and handed the phone over to the original guard.

XXXXXX

As Det. Asher was getting ready to call it a day and leave the precinct to go home, he was hit with a surprise that seemed to rock him for a moment. "What the hell is going on there and who did you say is in Mrs. Harrison's room?"

Asher listened and the more he heard the more puzzled he became and the less he understood why Norma Harrison would do such as she did. True, it was felt that she was the responsible party in killing Frank Harrison, but, thus far the evidence was only circumstantial; there was no definite proof without the DNA to say that she was the real killer, or, was even in the house that night she was only a suspect until she took this action.

Once he got off the phone with the two officers at the hospital, leaving the orders that everyone was to be held in custody until his arrival, Asher called Capt. Jenkins and filled him in about the current chain of events that was happening at the hospital.

Jenkins told Det. Asher that he would meet with him at the hospital. This was becoming such a tangled mess that it was required a higher authority.

XXXXXX

Once Jenkins had been informed of what happened in the hospital room of Isabella Harrison, he felt that the entire case that was being built against Norma Harrison just came together without even waiting for the DNA test results. However, he didn't voice that thought to Det. Asher as he listened to what had been reported by the guard at the hospital. He did tell Asher that he would be coming to the hospital and would meet Asher there.

As he got ready to walk out of his office, he did dial Charlie Swan's cell to let him know of the incident. He knew that Charlie would want to be at the hospital so he, like Jenkins, would want to hear about all of the details.

Charlie answered and listened as Jenkins told him what had occurred at the hospital. "What the hell? I'll let everyone else know and we'll be there around the same time as you arrive." Was all that Charlie said and then hung up without saying another word. Next, he made the necessary phone call to Edward and to Carlisle.

XXXXXX

With the disturbance happening in his patient's room, the hospital had immediately called Carlisle to let him know about his patient. It didn't take long for him to let the others in the penthouse know what little he knew before they all were on the way to the hospital; everyone, but, Charlie and Edward since those two were absent from the penthouse.

No one was wondering why none of the women had called since chances they were in the middle of the whole situation. Emmett, Rosalie and Phil had questions about what was going on, but, Carlisle wasn't able to give them any answers except what the hospital had told him. He knew that he needed to get to the hospital before the detective got there. Carlisle was quite sure that the guard at the door would have called in to let Asher know that Bella was awake. That cat was out of the bag now despite that Edward had wanted to keep it quiet for a while longer.

XXXXXX

The guard that had been on duty at the time of the incident knew that he had to remain until Det. Asher arrived, but, he was off duty and therefore, allowed his relief to take charge of the situation. And, the decisions concerning of where to put the two women until Det. Asher arrived was a bit of a problem. After all, no matter her status with the detective, Mrs. Harrison was still a patient in the hospital, needed to stay removed from stress. This information had been mentioned, as well as the fact that her doctor was on the way, to him, since it was assumed that Bella had just awakened.

After giving the situation some thought, the new guard on duty decided that it would be better to contain everyone within in the current room: the patient's room. That way no one had a chance of skipping out before everything had been sorted and decisions made as to who would or would not be charged.

From what evidence that was being held and from what he understood from the short, black haired woman, the woman in the florist uniform was the disguised sister-in-law of the patient and that the sister-in-law was heard to be threatening and seen to be attempting to murder the patient. He didn't understand why a family member would want to be killing the patient, but, then he was sure that he didn't know all of the facts of the case; his job was to guard the patient and to make sure that she remained in one place since chances were that she was a suspect in the case of the death of her husband.

Looking at the other two women that had pushed they way through the crowd, the guard observed one hovering over the patient and the other was standing silently close to the black-haired woman with what he would describe as a supportive arm around the little woman's shoulders. He knew the two older women were allowed admittance because they were on the list. However, the guard didn't know what position they held in respect to the patient.

But, before he could ask any questions or make any comments, he ordered the crowd to leave, telling them to move on and go about their business which wasn't there. And, as the crowd began to move two men came charging through the door. One was recognized as the patient's attorney and the other was her cousin. And, each of the men split to go to one of the two older women.

Each group talked quietly, more than likely updating everyone as to what was happening. The attorney seemed to know both the older woman and the little woman, although, he wasn't quite sure of the relationship of each member of that group. He was sure that he was about to find out. But, he was close enough to hear that the cousin was talking with the mother of the patient and they were also speaking in lowered tones making it difficult to hear everything that was being said.

Next, before anyone could approach the guard, Det. Asher came rushing through the door. He made a beeline straight to the guard on duty and spoke with him quietly before looking around for the guard that had been on duty at the time of the incident. So, both, Asher and the guard walked over to the off duty guard and Asher was about to start asking questions as to what had happened when four more individuals came rushing through the door: three men and a woman.

Asher recognized Bella's doctor, but, he wasn't as familiar with the other three people. And, once again before he could continue with any questioning Chief Swan came in and headed over to the bed to be with his daughter only to be followed by Capt. Jenkins. The one thought that seemed to flash across Asher's mind, but he reframed from saying, was, "Hail! Hail! The gang's all here."

"Det. Asher, I'm only here to give assistance if you need it, but, otherwise, this is your case and you're in charge." Jenkins told the detective and stayed quiet, the same as Charlie and the rest of the bunch did, as Asher began conducting his questioning of each person involved in the current incident.

Asher knew that he needed to get Bella's statement of what had transpired the night that she and her husband had argued and Frank Harrison was killed, but, he felt that the current situation had more of a priority over that set of questions. And, the first thing he did was to order the handcuffs to be removed from both Norma and Alice. He listened to what Alice had to say and she ended her statement with, "And, since I'm not related to Mrs. Harrison you can damn well believe my word over Ms. Harrison's statement. She lies a lot."

As Alice got through speaking and Norma heard what she was saying, Norma tried to break loose and made a move towards Alice as she was calling Alice a lying bitch. "Okay, Ms. Harrison, why don't you tell me your side of things?" Det. Asher asked with a firmness and attitude that made it apparent that he was leaning toward believing what Alice had told him. Norma noticed that and was silent for a moment while trying to think of a way to explain her side of things to where she would look like the victim.

No one seemed to notice other things happening in the room. The first one being Carlisle checking Bella to make sure she was okay. And, as everyone listened to what Alice was telling the detective, both Charlie and Jenkins retrieved the syringe and told the hospital security guard that was in the room to take it to have it tested immediately. Jenkins requested that the results be gotten back to him ASAP.

While that was taking place Det. Asher continued with his questioning. He was asking Norma why she was dressed as the floral assistant's uniform and why she was even in her sister-in-law's room? Her appearance here made no sense he told her since she has continually stated that she believed Isabella Harrison murdered Frank Harrison.

The hospital security guard that Jenkins had given the syringe and told him to take it to the lab for testing and to bring the results back as soon as possible, came back into the room with a piece of paper and the syringe which still had some solution in it.

It was the entrance of the hospital security guard that caught Asher's attention and the fact that he had something in his hand that drew Asher away from Norma before she was able to tell her side of things.

"Captain, may I ask why and what the security guard just gave to you?"

"By all means, it's something that you need to be made aware of.

"I had the security guard to take the syringe down to the lab for testing the contents of the syringe while you were busy getting statements about what happened earlier. He just returned with the report and I haven't had a chance to see what it says as yet."

And, without further ado Capt. Jenkins motioned for Det. Asher, Charlie and Edward to join him out in the hallway while all four men read the report. It didn't take long before a voice was heard to say, "The damn murderous bitch!"

A/N: Good thing Alice happened to be in the bathroom when Norma entered and was talking to Bella. But, can Norma really come up with a good enough excuse to explain away her apparel and her appearance in Bella's room? What were the contents in the syringe?

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