I.

The flowers had been a genius idea. Now she would know that he was watching her, that he could find her, get to her any time he wanted. She would know that he had been keeping track of her for a very long time. She would know that she had never escaped, not really, not forever. She had thought it was over with. She thought she was safe. How funny it seemed that roses could make her feel differently.

Well, roses and one well placed photograph.

He flipped through the other photos he had of her, the Polaroids he had taken of her, sleeping, looking confused, and then of course, the ones of the beautiful work he had done on her back, those gashes had produced the most beautiful sounds from her tiny mouth.

The idea of hearing her screams as an adult now made his mouth water.

He just had to wait. It wasn't right yet. The part of him that needed to slake the bloodlust was screaming nownownownownownownownownow in his head, but he shoved it down under. He was a patient man. He had always been a patient man. He would wait until it was right.

And then he would make her pay for ever running away. She would suffer more than the others had ever suffered. She would be so very sorry she had ever deprived him. He smiled and felt the needs and urges simmer down to a manageable level.

Patience was, after all, a virtue.

II.

Bella had to go into the station with Detective Cullen to make an official statement, and also to submit her fingerprints. They needed them to exclude hers from any that were on the photograph in case the man who had sent it to her had left his behind. She could tell by the way Edward told her about this plan that he doubted there would be prints on the Polaroid just as much as Bella did, but they didn't speak about the doubt in both their eyes. They just went through the motions as she shook, still trying to calm her nerves.

She had been in therapy since she had been rescued by Detective Black thirteen years prior, but no amount of therapy, or learning to deal with what had happened, or understanding and accepting her trauma was enough to quash the terror filling her.

He knew where she was. He had found her, and he knew where she was, her home. He could come after her. He was going to come after her. She could feel it. He wouldn't have sent that picture just to taunt her, it was a warning, it was a message, that he was going to come after her and there was nothing she could do because after thirteen years he hadn't forgotten about her. He had tracked her down. He intended to kill her, and she was sure whatever came before the death he had in mind for her would be excruciatingly painful and horrifying.

Part of her had always felt as though it wasn't over. Something in her had always screamed that a man who knew exactly when and where she would be alone on her walk to school, her favorite foods, the name of her stuffed animal, would not let go so easily. She had tried to make those feelings go away, and over the years while the memories faded so did the feeling of unfinished business. Except for the one time of year when she had the nightmares, her life was mostly normal. Most people didn't recall the name of the one surviving victim from that string of kidnappings. In fact, Detective Cullen had been the first in many years to remember.

When he had remembered at first she had been sick with the feeling of being reminded of it, and of having someone else know that those things had happened to her. But after she left the station, holding his card in her hand later that night she had felt strangely comforted by the idea that the darkest part of her past was out in the open with someone, unlike most of the people she spent her time with. She tried her best to keep that a secret from her co-workers and the friends she made in her new city. She didn't want to be labeled as a pity case, or as an outcast because of the trauma.

Enough damage had already been done in nine days and the years after. Those days kept captive had been awful enough. But for years she couldn't sleep alone in a room with the lights off. She couldn't walk to school again until she was seventeen, and even then sometimes she would panic and hyperventilate. If someone took her picture she would have a panic attack. If she thought someone was following her, even in the hallway at school, she would have a panic attack. If she saw a knife sharper than a butter knife she would break into a cold sweat and probably vomit. She still didn't go swimming or wear anything that revealed any part of her back, because not matter what they had tried to do at the hospital, she still had four, deep, angry scars across her back, marring her skin like a permanent reminder that she was damaged goods, she was broken. She had been mutilated and would never heal, no matter what she tried to do.

So hearing Detective Cullen speak so casually about it had made her feel nauseated, and then she calmed and thought that maybe it would be nice for just one moment to have someone know the worst thing about her and have it be okay. Through the weekend when she woke up from a terrifying nightmare, panting, in a cold sweat she would reach to her nightstand hold his card in her hand and calm herself down. Strange as it was, she trusted him, and the thought that he was going to make things alright soothed her.

So when the roses had arrived and the photo with them her first and only thought was that she had to call him. She had to. Because he would make things alright. He would fix it. She swallowed the tears and panic and dialed his number. She got it right with her shaking fingers on the third try. When he answered and she told him what had happened he could hear the change in his voice, the way he switched right into Serve and Protect Mode and he was at her apartment in less than ten minutes.

To his credit, he hadn't left her for a single moment after he arrived. He had taken her to the station in his car when the forensics people arrived to collect the evidence. He had taken her statement himself, his partner—a huge and intimidating looking man whom Edward had introduced as Emmett McCarty—stood in the corner of the conference room, listening with an expressionless face. When she had to go through the printing process he had done it himself as well, making jokes about how long it had been since he had taken anyone's prints and trying to lift her mood. When it was all over, and the only thing left to do was wait, he sat her at his desk, Detective McCarty in tow.

"Well, all we can really do is wait for the print lab to get back to us and hope that they got something off the Polaroid," he told her, fidgeting slightly.

"You know they won't," she said back, not bothering to mask her doubt any longer. She saw his face fall, as though he had thought he had been keeping that piece of unfortunate speculation from her. "Be straight with me, Detective Cullen. I had enough of people asking me questions and not giving me any answers when I was eight years old. I am a big girl now and I deserve to know what is going on."

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair uneasily, with a momentary glance at Detective McCarty. The other detective shrugged.

"The truth is, the chances of us getting and forensic evidence off of the flower box or the Polaroid are slim. We might have a chance if we can track down who he ordered the flowers from, or from the security tapes from the areas around the pay phones he used to call you, but something tells me he is the kind of guy pays with cash and stays out of view of cameras. Our best bet is just to wait and hope that when he makes a move—and I assure you, Miss Swan as awful as it sounds he will make a move—we will be there to apprehend him."

She looked at him, bottom lip between her teeth. She looked both unhappy and pensive.

"That is all you can do?" she asked. Her voice had a tone of foreknowledge of an unhappy answer. Detective Cullen nodded.

"I wish we could do more. For now, we are going to put a patrol car outside your apartment building. I am going to give you my home number and personal cell phone number in case you need to reach me at any time, for anything at all. If you get spooked by a bump in the night, I want to know about it. We don't know what to expect this time around, Miss Swan. When he took you when you were a child, we knew what was going to happen. We are taking a swing in the dark here. He has had years to plan, and we are trying to play catch up."

As he said this he took out his small notebook and began scribbling something down. When he ripped out the page and handed it to her it had Detective Edward Cullen—Major Case Squad scribed across the top in surprisingly neat script, followed by his home number and his cell phone number. She looked at it for a moment before folding and pocketing it.

"Is there anything else I can do for you?" he asked.

"Tell me everything is going to be alright, even if you have to lie. And call me Bella."

He didn't blink, didn't flinch, didn't fidget.

"Everything is going to be alright…Bella."

She believed him.

III.

Bella left the station shortly after their conversation, the police car transporting her. Edward watched her go with an equal mix of fear and guilt. He was terrified of what might happen to her while she was away from him, in the world alone, with a serial killer out for her blood. But he also felt tremendously guilty for lying to her about things being alright. He couldn't promise it to her. He didn't know that things would be alright. It made him sick.

But she had asked him to make that promise, even if he had to lie, so he had lied. He had given her what she needed, even if it wasn't real.

He had been surprised by her sudden strength in what he had thought was a personality made of meekness. She had, from almost nowhere it seemed, grown into a different woman, one that was strong, capable, one who understood the world and knew better than to be meek. It had taken him a bit aback, in a very good way. He had been happy she had shown her colors in those moments, the ones where she demanded to know the truth, even if a moment later she demanded to hear a lie.

"She is an interesting woman," Emmett said from behind him at his own desk. Their captain had assigned them both to her case now that it seemed there was a major player in the mix, not just some prank caller or stalker. On their desks lay the previous case files, both hers specifically and all the case files available on the string of abductions. Edward sat looking at the mountain of paperwork he had to read through and nodded.

"I was just thinking the very same thing," he admitted absently, trying to decide what to look through first. Emmett, being the surprisingly responsible and on top of things kind of man that he was had put in a request to view the security tapes, and their captain had put a rush on it. They figured they would have them by the afternoon. The print lab should have been able to give a cursory analysis of the fingerprints on the photo by the afternoon as well. If there was anything on those tapes or any other fingerprints on the picture, they should know about it by day's end.

Both he and Emmett made their way through the case files all morning. They read as much history and profiling as they possibly could on the cases and the sick fuck who had taken Bella and the others. By the time the afternoon had actually rolled around, they had made it through half of the stacks lying upon their desks.

"Detective Cullen?" a voice pulled Edward from his files, where he was reading about the weapons used to inflict torture upon the other seven victims. They were listed alphabetically, and a third of the way through he was still only at 'branding iron'. He was happy for the distraction, without it he was sure he might be sick.

He looked up at who had spoken and it was a young officer holding a rather large cardboard box full of video surveillance. He nodded and motioned for the officer to put it down on a chair near his desk. He sighed as he looked through the stacks. There were several different locations, the tapes pulled for the week of the calls. There would be a lot to sift through, but luckily he knew the exact time of the calls and so he could skip through most of the useless video. He wouldn't have to sit and watch day's worth of video in fast forward trying to catch something significant. He only had to look at the times she had written down.

He silently and privately thanked her for being so damned smart and on top of things. He had her LUDs of course, but the fact that she had even thought to write it down impressed him. He told Emmett he was going into the conference room to use the television and look at the tapes and was acknowledged with a wave as Emmett kept reading.

He disappeared into the room he had chosen to view the tapes in, placing a 'do not disturb' sign on the door handle. He didn't need a distraction. He took Bella's handwritten record along with the LUDs into the room so he could check the correct dates and times with the correct locations.

He put in the first tape, the security film from a train station's payphones. The tape started at Monday, at midnight. He fast forwarded to two am. The call was placed at two twelve. He watched the twelve minutes of video before the call was placed in case someone was lingering there, loitering in the area. But he saw no one until two eleven. At that time a person, someone he assumed to be a man by the body shape came into the view of the camera. He was wearing a blue windbreaker and a baseball cap.

He kept his face turned away from the camera for the entirety of the call. The clothes he wore were undistinguishable at best. There was no way, from that tape, Edward or anyone else would be able to identify him.

Every tape showed the exact same thing. Same windbreaker, same baseball cap, same avoidance of cameras. This man knew where the cameras were in the locations he chose to make sure that he wasn't seen. There was nothing usable on any of the tapes sent to him. Edward put his head in his hands and drew a deep breath, trying to calm the building rage he felt. He was shaking with anger he knew, he knew he shouldn't have been feeling. But he couldn't stop. When someone knocked on the door he almost jumped out of his skin. He realized he had been sitting that way for a very long time, obsessing over the man who might as well have been invisible on the videos, trying to keep calm.

"Edward," the voice through the door was Emmett's and he immediately cooled off. He told Emmett to come in and when he did Emmett stared for a moment at the paused screen.

"That the son of a bitch?" he asked. Edward nodded.

"Every tape is like this, every single fucking one. There is nothing on any of them that could be used to identify him. His clothes are ordinary. Anyone could have those. He doesn't ever show his face to camera. Which means he has scoped the place out before; he knew he would be going there to make the calls. He has had this all planned out for a very long time. That means he is patient, and the last thing I wanted was a patient man."

"Why is that?"

"Because an impatient man makes mistakes, an impatient man needs his next victim to satisfy something in his mind and because of that he is sloppy. But a patient man, a man like this, he doesn't have to do anything. He could wait for years while waiting for the perfect situation to present itself. And when it does he will execute a well thought out plan to get his desired result. The fact that he has begun to reveal himself to her means that he intends to act soon," Edward said, still staring at the shape on the screen with its back to the cameras.

"Patient men it seems don't leave fingerprints either," Emmett interjected. He handed Edward the report that had come from the print lab. It was a quick job, the technician had told them it would be, and it wouldn't hold up in court if they needed it to, but it appeared that there were not fingerprints on the photo besides those of one recently printed Isabella Marie Swan.

"God fucking damn it, who is this guy? He kidnaps and tortures kids, kids with things like branding irons and blow torches. And when one gets away instead of letting it go, he obsesses. He stalks her for thirteen fucking years and when he finds her, he doesn't just kill her, oh no, that would be too sane for this sick son of a bitch, he toys with her first. He is going to terrify her, and then torture her and then kill her."

He paused for a moment and sighed.

"He is going to kill her, Emmett. He is going to kill her and there is nothing we can do."

Emmett didn't say anything for a long time. Edward felt himself get calmer as the minutes ticked by. He knew Emmett had let him rant because he needed to, because watching tapes for three hours and getting nothing at all had frustrated him, because he had gotten up this morning gotten a horrified call from Bella who was being scared half to death, and because he had just promised everything would be alright to a woman he knew would most likely not survive her current ordeal.

When he finally did speak, it was not at all what he thought he would say.

"You swear like a fucking sailor when you're pissed off," Emmett commented nonchalantly. Edward knew it was his way, to try and relieve the tension by bringing something else up. He knew that they would keep working the case, that they would do their best, and that Emmett would keep him on track as best he could. Edward grinned in spite of himself.

"Fuck you," he replied.

"Have you thought about getting in contact with this Detective Black at all?" Emmett asked. It had been three days since Bella had gotten the roses and there had been no movement. Nothing else had happened, not a package nor a phone call. She still had the officers outside her apartment building and her work, but it didn't make Edward feel any better. The longer the freak who was after her took to try something, the more nervous he became, and likely Bella felt the same way.

He and Emmett had been working full days reading case files, taking up old leads, tracking down old witnesses, who were scattered across the country, some now dead or simply seeming to have dropped off the face of the earth. It had crossed Edward's mind to try and find the detective, or now ex-detective. He might have some information not in the files that could be pertinent, but he had been so busy with the million other things that he had to do when opening a cold case and trying to maintain his sanity as well as Bella's safety that wanting to had turned into doing it later.

"Thought about it, why, do you think I should?" he asked, flipping through a different witness list, looking at who had not yet been crossed out as contacted, dead or missing.

"I think he is an old school detective who probably has more in his head than he had in his notes or reports. He worked the original case and he probably got a feel for the sick bastard more than we can, working from cold case files. I think it would be a good idea to talk to him, even if he can't tell you much. He might not know anything, but he could also give you the key to cracking this thing," Emmett responded.

It was moments like that which reminded Edward why it was Emmett had gotten a spot at MCS. He might not have been so good at the why, not as fascinated with the psychology or figuring out the motivations or knowing the next steps, but he knew his shit.

Edward didn't hesitate a moment more at his partner's advice. He dug through some of the files on his desk and found the ex-detective's current phone number. Surprisingly, by luck or chance or some other cosmic force, he just so happened to only live a few hours away. He picked up the phone on his desk after he managed to locate it under the piles of manila folders and loose papers and random writing utensils. He dialed the number and waited while it rang.

"You have reached Jacob Black. I am unable to take your call right now, so please leave a message and if I deem you important enough, you'll get a call back," the answering machine told him. Edward sighed and rolled his eyes. This man was going to be a piece of work. But when the tone sounded in his ear, he began to speak nonetheless.

"Mr. Black, this is Detective Edward Cullen at the BPD MCS. I was calling in regards to an old case of yours—the Isabella Swan case. There have been some…recent developments that have brought the case back and I was hoping to get to speak with you about it, perhaps get anything on the case you didn't put in a report that might be of use. If you could call me back at this number, I would appreciate it. Have a good day."

He added the last part on a whim, without really thinking about it. It was a courtesy and he hopes if nothing else, his being polite would make this man call him back. He was running out of ideas when it came to finding something in the files, and if nothing happened, he would have no choice but to wait and keep tracking down old witnesses who didn't know anything.

Emmett looked up from his desk long enough to give him a nod of approval and said nothing.

Edward waited. He went to get him and Emmett lunch from the deli across the street and had his food at his desk. He had no messages when he returned and received no phone calls while he ate.

It wasn't until he was almost leaving his desk that his phone did ring. He grabbed it up with deliberate quickness, thinking it must have been the ex-detective, finally returning his call.

But he was met with Bella's soft voice across the line.

"Detective Cullen?"

"Bella," he answered. "How can I help you?"

"Bump in the night," she answered. He felt himself smile at her use of his words as well as the sheepish tone of her voice as she said them. He didn't want to laugh and make it seem like he was making fun of her, but it was adorable.

"I'm just about to get off of work. Why don't I swing by and make sure it's just a bump and not a serial killer?" he asked. He was trying to sound nonchalant, and to his great surprise and happiness she laughed quietly.

"I think that would make me feel better," she answered. Edward agreed upon it, and said he would be there as soon as he could. She thanked him and they hung up.

Emmett was staring at him when he hung up the phone.

"You could have just radioed the officers outside her apartment to check things out for her," he informed Edward, as though he wasn't aware. Edward pulled his jacket off the back of his chair and slid his arms through the sleeves.

"I could have, but then while they were checking things out, no one would have been watching her building. I don't know about you, but I am not in the mood to create a hole in the surveillance for a dedicated, patient, insane serial child killer to slip through," he answered. It sounded logical. Emmett just laughed.

"That's why there are two of them," Emmett answered smoothly. Edward opened his mouth and then shut it again. "Close your mouth before someone sees you looking like a fool. Go rescue the damsel in distress, I won't tell anyone you're making unnecessary house calls."

"It isn't unnecessary," he argued. He was met with a grin and Emmett held up his hand with another laugh.

"Whatever you say, partner. See you tomorrow."

Edward grumbled but didn't say much else other than goodnight as he turned and left. He took his car and drove a little faster than the speed limit, not too fast to be dangerous. On his way there he radioed the officers posted outside her apartment that he would be stopping by. They just ten-foured him and gave him a nod when he passed their car.

She buzzed him into her apartment like she had a few morning prior and he climbed the stairs at a more leisurely pace than he had when he had been rushing to help her the morning she called in a desperate panic.

When her door opened after his first knock they greeted each other and she let him in with none of the haste of terror.

"Tell me about the bump," he said. She smiled a little, a half smile somewhere between amusement and borderline fear.

"It probably isn't anything. But I was making dinner and I heard someone knock on my door, and when I went to look through the peep hole there was no one there. It just kind of…freaked me out a little. And you said to call about anything, so I called you," she said, her words coming out faster and faster as time went on, like she had suddenly become embarrassed that she had called him in the first place. Twin roses of blush bloomed across her lovely cheeks and she looked down, avoiding eye contact.

"I am glad you called me, Bella. I told you that you should, no matter how small something is. If it scared you, or felt wrong, you did the right thing to let me know."

"I feel ridiculous," she said quietly. For no reason at all, he extended his hand and covered hers with it. She looked up at him with surprise in her eyes, but it faded and she sighed quietly.

"Don't. You have every right to be jumpy. Hell, you have every right to be shaking out of your own skin all day long not sure if you're going to be murdered or abducted around the next corner. If someone playing ding dong ditch didn't freak you out a little bit, I would question your sanity."

She laughed a little. He squeezed her hand. She smiled wider.

For what seemed like the first real time he noticed that her smile was truly a beautiful thing.

"So, what were you making for dinner, it smells like it was something good," he said, pulling his hands back and trying to sound casual and like he had not just thought, for a split second about how beautiful Bella Swan was.

"Oh, I was making chicken fajitas, but I got interrupted. I don't think I'll bother now, more likely than not I'll just order Chinese," she said with a shrug. Edward leaned back in his chair and glanced into her kitchen, which was open to viewing by the open floor plan of her apartment. There was a skillet on the stove, a cutting board on the counter with peppers and onions beside it on the counter, a knife poised at the ready right next to it. He realized the smell had been the chicken she had already begun to cook.

"Why don't you let me help you finish these so you can eat real food instead of take out? If you end up in protective custody all you'll get is take out, you should savor real food while it is still available to you."

She grinned in a strange halfway enthusiastic way.

"If you can chop vegetables while I finish cooking chicken, I think I could use your help," she said.

Edward took off his jacket, unbuttoned the sleeves of his button up shirt and rolled them up to his elbows. Bella glanced at him for a moment, her eyes catching the gun on his hip. He thought for a moment that she was going to ask him to take it off.

"I'm glad you have that. It makes me feel safer," she admitted, gesturing to his sidearm. He nodded and said nothing about it as he followed her into the kitchen. She went right to the stove and turned it back on, taking the spatula resting beside the skillet and beginning to stir around the sliced up chicken. Edward, without a word, picked up the knife and began to slice up the peppers.

"You seem familiar with a chef's knife," she commented as she cooked. Edward nodded to himself more than anything else.

"My mother was an expert in the kitchen, and she taught me to cook when I was old enough not to hurt myself," he told her.

"Then my kitchen skills will most likely be embarrassingly inadequate," she answered.

Edward watched the way she deftly moved her hands, stirring, adding spices. It was skill built with repetition and practice.

"You seem to be doing fine."

She smiled.

They finished cooking without much more words between them. There was a certain strangeness to their comfortable silence, like maybe it should have been so comfortable, not so soon, not having known each other for so little time. And yet they didn't speak and Edward didn't feel like they had to.

He thought he enjoyed that more than anything else.

"Have you eaten, Detective?" she asked, as she watched everything come together after much chopping and stirring. When she voiced her question Edward felt a moment of swift panic. It was one thing to come check on a person whose case he was handling; it was another completely to have dinner with her.

He had blurred the line helping her cook, he realized, but he had to stop now. He was a detective, she a woman he was supposed to be protecting. Having dinner with her would be breaching far too many ethical limits. He couldn't, with a clear conscious, stay there and do something so intimate.

"I had lunch, but you don't have to worry about me, I have plenty of food in my apartment."

She looked at him, appearing a bit crestfallen, but said nothing for a moment.

"I suppose that makes sense. It probably isn't proper to have dinner with someone you are currently under legal obligation to look after," she mused.

Women never made Edward feel uncomfortable before, but in that moment he fidgeted like a child being scolded by his parent under her questioning gaze. She both amused and perplexed him.

"You suppose correct," he admitted. He felt almost embarrassed to say it. He didn't want to offend or upset her, or make her think that he was in some way rejecting her. He really just couldn't stay.

"If I brought lunch into your office, for your partner and you, would that be proper enough, Detective Cullen?" she asked.

He almost laughed out loud. Instead he grinned.

"Yes, Bella, that would be perfectly proper."

She flashed a grin and once again, he marveled at how beautiful she was.

He picked up his jacket and put it over his arm. He looked at her one more time, longer than he needed to. She looked like the type of woman who didn't really realize how stunning she was, that carried herself as though she were ordinary.

He didn't think she could be ordinary if she tried.

"Have a good night, Bella," he said before he could get himself into any trouble. "Call me if you need anything at all."

"You too, Detective."

"Call me Edward, Bella."

She smiled widely.

"Goodnight, Edward."