Hey guys, sorry this took me so long to get out. Life has been super crazy lately, but I hope you like this chapter. Enjoy!

I.

It was elegant. It was simple. It hadn't been exactly easy, but he had been through more difficult things. It had taken chloroform and a serious beating in which Mr. Black was on the receiving end, but he had taken him down eventually. Black was bigger than him, taller by at least four inches and solid like a man who worked his body hard every day of the week.

For a man who seemed to keep his body so well prepared, he had been too easy to trace. He checked into the hotel using a credit card and his own name. It hadn't been difficult to follow him to his room, and when the moment was right, beat the shit out of him, knock him out and go to work.

It wasn't complicated work like he usually did; in fact, he didn't even wait until the old detective was awake to do the work. It was just one single slice across his throat, cutting deep enough to sever the artery and it was done. He didn't feel like leaving any sort of clue that this was anything but a random murder, so on his way out, he tossed the room pretty thoroughly and stole the money and credit cards out of Black's wallet. It would look like some sort of robbery gone badly.

He knew Bella would be gone until at least the next day and so he went back to his apartment and made dinner in a strange restlessness. He was eager to move on with the plan, to keep it going as soon as possible. Being stalled as he was made him fidget.

He ate in silence, staring at a single Polaroid of Bella when she was a little girl.

It both calmed and stirred him and he smiled. Soon he would have her and be done with this, he could finally be released from the prison he was being kept in by the sheer fact of her continued living and go on with his life.

Soon soon soon.

II.

Bella felt her stomach drop to her feet when Edward repeated the news to her. Jacob Black had been the detective to find her after she escaped. He wasn't a face she had known as a child, but she had come to recognize it after he had rescued her. He still called her every year on her birthday.

Edward kept talking, faster and quieter than before, to Emmett on the other end of the line. Bella couldn't breathe. From the part of Edward's conversation that she could hear it was supposedly a robbery in his hotel room gone bad. It looked like there had been a struggle and the credit cards and money in his wallet were missing. But Bella knew it was all wrong. There was no robbery. It might have looked like one, but that was all a ruse. There was no way that the detective connected with her case just so happened to be murdered in the commission of a felony at the same time as her case was coming back into the forefront.

She didn't ever think there would be any casualties beside herself; she never thought for a single moment that anyone else would get hurt. Because she had been told a thousand times, both by herself and Edward and Jacob that she was the one that this psycho was after it hadn't even occurred to her that to get to her, he might hurt someone else.

If Jacob Black, the detective who had worked the case over a decade ago had been in danger of the killer, that meant everyone around her was in danger as well. The thought made her stomach roil violently. She opened the car door and was sick on the pavement beside the car. She heard Edward swear and out down the phone as he leaned over and started rubbing her back. He didn't say anything to her, just smoothed circles into her back with his hands. When she was done throwing up she sat up and he handed her a wad of napkins and a bottle of water. She smiled in thanks and wiped her mouth before swishing water around her mouth to get the taste of vomit out of it.

"Are you alright, Bella?" he asked. She shook her head slowly.

"No, I am not alright. Someone who…protected me, searched for me, helped me is dead. And I think we both know who it was that killed him."

"There is no evidence of that," he stated simply. But it was a lie. His voice was too even, too exacting.

"Don't lie to me," she retorted.

"I'm not lying. I am telling you there is not at the current time, any evidence that it was anything other than exactly what it looks like. That being said, I don't think you are wrong. If our man was smart enough to get away with what he got away with thirteen years ago, he is smart enough to stage a scene for a crime."

"What did he ever do to deserve this?" she asked quietly, desperately.

"He got in the way," Edward answered. After a moment Edward suggested that they go inside to their rooms and that Bella relax. Maybe take a shower and Edward would come get her if there was any news or anything important. She reluctantly agreed, terrified to be alone and simultaneously craving some time to grieve by herself. She immediately fled to the shower and turned the water up as hot as she could stand it and got in, sitting down in the tub and letting the water splash over her steadily. She began to cry in fear and grief and she didn't stop until she couldn't take the stifling steam of the shower or its raging heat.

Her tears dried as she toweled herself off. She changed into clean clothes and sat on her bed for a long while, not moving, trying not to think too much on any of the things that worried her. Eventually there was a knock on the door and Edward entered at her say so.

"Bella?"

She turned toward his voice as the door opened and closed around him. He came and sat next to her on the edge of her hotel bed and didn't say anything for a long moment.

"They are going to put a rush on the autopsy," he announced eventually. "The hotel room was trashed, but with that amount of damage you would think there would be physical evidence of it—scuff marks of the floor, blood from breaking glass—but there's nothing. Emmett agrees with us on who it probably was who committed the murder. Something just felt off at the crime scene and he didn't want to say so in front of the other detectives, but he's with us one hundred percent on who the doer is."

Bella nodded without words.

"Bella, look at me."

She did as he asked, slowly, the muscles in her body responding with a lethargy that had come on suddenly.

"I'm so tired of all of this," she said quietly.

"I know you are, I know. But we are going to head back tomorrow morning, and then we can sort everything out there. The autopsy should happen tonight and we can get the results back when we get home. We are going to figure this out. We have some promising evidence and some interesting leads and I think that maybe―"

"Maybe what, Edward? Maybe you'll figure out who it is after he's killed me? Maybe he'll kill you and Emmett before he gets to me? Maybe I'll end up in protective custody until people decide it's useless and then I'll be alone and he'll find me like always does?"

"I won't let that happen."

"You can't know that. You can't know that nothing will happen to you. You can't know that things won't end badly."

There was a moment of silence.

"Is that what this is about? You're worried about me?" he asked. His voice was soft, but his tone was incredulous.

"Is that so stupid?" she asked defensively. Someone who had protected her in the past was dead, was it so ridiculous to think that someone who was protecting her in the present might be on a list of people 'in the way', as Edward had put it?

"It's not stupid at all. I just have to wonder how it is a woman who is being hunted by a serial killing psychopath has time to worry about anyone else," he mused. She shrugged absently. "I can understand why you would be worried. But I have spent years as a police officer. I know how to look out for myself and make sure nothing happens."

"Jacob Black was a police officer and he still got killed."

"Jake didn't know that he was even in danger. I do. So does Emmett. I'll be careful. We'll both be careful. We will be okay."

Bella put her face down in her hands for a long moment.

"I hope you're right," she said quietly. She looked up from her hands, her eyes rimmed with red from her crying, welling with tears she kept trying to blink away. "I really hope you're right."

III.

The flight back to Boston seemed to take forever compared to the flight out to Seattle. Where there had been easy conversation on the flight west, going home was filled with strained silence. Bella was so stressed. He could see it in the tension in her shoulders and they way she started each time he said her name. She was going to explode if she didn't relax.

But Edward didn't exactly blame her. People in her life had now started becoming targets of a serial murderer. He couldn't fault her for feeling some stress.

He and Emmett had spoken more on the phone after he had talked to Bella for a while. When he was sure she wasn't going to have a breakdown and she was content with the take out and Law and Order reruns, he went back to his room and called Emmett again. They had agreed to put a trace on the credit cards just in case they were used again. Hell, Edward thought, if the motherfucker is that smart he might use them just to distract us. But somehow that felt wrong. He took care of Jake because he was in the way, a threat to his status quo. Either he didn't know about Emmett and Edward, or he wasn't concerned about them. Stupid son of a bitch, he should be concerned.

Bella did bring up a good point that night however. If things became severe enough, they would put her in protective custody, but that only lasted so long. It was expensive to maintain, took police officers from their usual jobs and was a general hassle if there wasn't immediate danger. Eventually her protection would be pulled. Eventually, if the psycho waited long enough, he and Emmett would be put on other cases and there would be no one to look after Bella.

It caused a knot in his stomach when he thought of her alone. She was as careful as a civilian could be, but she couldn't have eyes in the back of her head or police training to know when things were wrong. It wouldn't be her fault that she was a little too distracted walking down the street, or was too slow getting the keys to her apartment building. She handled everyday danger with as much grace as was manageable for her clumsy little body, but a threat like this was not some mugger you could scare off by walking into a convenient store. This man plotted and watched and was damn well informed if he knew so quickly of Jake's presence in the city.

The suspicion that the perp was a cop surfaced again in Edward's mind and it felt more right every time he thought about it. They were too careful, too detail oriented. They knew exactly how to trash a room and what to do to make it look like a robbery when he killed Jake. He knew exactly how not to leave forensic evidence except for—God willing—the handprint on the door from the warehouse. He knew how to watch people, how to learn their habits and how not to get caught doing it. He was too damn smart, too damn trained and too damn familiar with police procedure for it to be a coincidence.

"The bastard is a cop," he had said out loud. It felt right. It rang with a strange truth that he had learned to attribute to a gut feeling that had not as of yet led him astray.

So he thought over evidence—what little they had—and Bella's statements and tried to piece it together. What he was really waiting for now were the handprint analysis and Tanya's information on the police officers he had given her the names of to hopefully get one with a juvie record.

After they got off the plane and made it outside the airport Edward was trying to think of what the next step should be. It was four thirty in Boston, which meant he had just enough time to catch Emmett before he went home and force him into going to see the coroner to get the results of the autopsy.

"Bella," he started but when she turned to look at him he saw her empty eyes and his words failed him utterly. Instead he put down his back and closed the space between them, enveloping her in a hug. He felt her surprise and then her acquiescence as she dropped her bag and embraced him in return.

"I am going to make you safe again," he mumbled into her hair. God, she smelled like strawberries and freesia and home. He pulled her a little tighter without meaning to and she responded in kind.

"Okay, Superman," she replied into his chest. There was another one of those moments where everything felt right, when the gut feeling came back and it told him that right there, with her in his arms was exactly where he belonged. But he shoved it away. Maybe when the case was over, when he had the guy behind bars, extradited back to Washington to be put on death row, maybe then he could think about Bella as woman and not a case.

He tried to tell himself that he didn't think of her as a woman right then, when he was holding her, probably longer than he should have. But she didn't move so he didn't either, at least not for another long moment. But time was of the essence in his job, it always was, and as much as he would have loved to stay just like that for the rest of the day, he had things he had to do. The only redeeming thing was that the things he was doing were for her.

He withdrew reluctantly from her hold. She looked up at him and the emptiness that had been in her eyes was replaced with a glazed over confused look, somewhere between bewilderment and shock and contentment.

"If I hear anything―" he began.

"You'll call me, I know," she finished. "Do you think…do you think even if you don't hear anything you could call me? It's just that no one else knows about this, I haven't even told my parents because I know it would only make them worry and I just…sometimes I just need to talk to someone who understands."

"Of course," he answered, without really thinking of whether it was right or wrong. So often lately he was questioning right and wrong less and less and just doing what he felt. It was strange but liberating. It was no coincidence, he was sure, that the things he was doing mostly had to do with Bella. Again without thinking he leaned in the short distance and kissed her forehead. Without looking at her reaction he stepped away from her and picked up her bag and brought it to the patrol car that was going to bring her home. He opened the door for her and she slowly walked over to it and slid into the seat. They didn't say goodbye before she closed the door and the car pulled away.

The station was a short train ride from where he was, so he hopped on the T and rode it in quiet contemplation. He had stepped over the line right then. No, he hadn't just stepped, he had catapulted over the line. But thought his mind was reeling and trying to think over the past three minutes over and over, Edward switched into detective mode and started thinking facts and evidence not emotions and uncertainty.

So when he got to the station house he walked right up the stairs to his desk, put his bag down loudly. Emmett didn't even look up.

"Welcome home, asshole. You've been on vacation with the little lady while I've been handling a fucking shitshow. The media got a hold of Black's murder and seeing as he is a fucking hero cop, not just with his work with Bella, but a whole other load of stuff, they are making a huge goddamn deal out of the investigation of his murder, which we can be sure will eventually lead to Bella's case because the two are linked as sure as shit. Which means Bella is going to get tossed into the limelight, ready or not," Emmett announced to him, at first sounding a little self-righteous but his voice ended on a sour note. He didn't want Bella to be forced into a media feeding frenzy any more than Edward did. He was just as fond of her as he was, albeit in a different way.

A string of profanity left Edward's mouth under his breath.

"Amen, brother; the only positive thing I can think of to her being subjected to such a thing is if she is surrounded by media hounds it might be more difficult for our dear sweet psycho to get a hold of her. Thank God for small favors and all that."

"I should warn her about it," Edward said reaching for his phone. Emmett shot him a look.

"There is nothing to warn her about, at least not now. The coroner just finished with the autopsy a few hours ago, and I've been waiting on your tardy ass to get here so we could go see what she found."

Edward didn't say anything as he and Emmett simultaneously made their way out to the front. The morgue was a three block walk from the station house, and Edward, who had cursed it on many a cold New England day, was happy to have some time to breathe fresh air and think for once. They made it the office of the coroner in a few minutes and went right past her receptionist, who did say anything about it. She was used to them not knocking and waiting.

When they opened the door the coroner, a strangely cheerful redhead named Victoria greeted them with a somber smile. She said nothing, just grabbed her white lab jacket and slipped it on as they passed through the back door in her office and down the stairs that lay behind it. They entered the morgue and the smell of cold and death entered Edward's nose immediately. It used to make him sick but now him stomach only a shook a little before settling. They crossed the large open, fluorescently lit room to the only body on a slab. When she pulled back the sheet it was indeed Jacob Black. She pulled the clipboard from the foot of the slab and flipped past the first few pages.

"This guy was supposed to have been murdered in a robbery where there was struggle, correct?" she asked, scanning her report. Emmett answered in the affirmative. Edward said nothing.

"Well, my problem with that scenario is that there are no defensive wounds. He took a beating, that is for sure, but there aren't any marks on his hands or arms from where he would have attempted to defend himself. And a man like this, built as solidly as he is and an ex cop to boot would know a little about defending himself. That was strange enough alone, but with what I found in his mouth; there is something very wrong with his supposed cause of death.

"When I got him in the morgue his mouth was open, and for whatever reason, luck or whatever it was, I just so happened to see something on the inside of his lip. There was a cotton fiber there in his mouth, like what one might find in a towel or dishcloth. Obviously, none of this if official until the fiber is tested, but coupled with the lack of defensive wounds, it is possible that Detective Black was drugged, beaten and then had his throat cut."

"How sure are you?" Edward asked.

"About the drugging? Let's just say I have a very strong hunch. He was definitely beaten before he was killed because you can see here and here," she pointed out ugly looking contusions on his torso, "he was already beginning to bruise by the time he was killed. It doesn't fit for a man in his shape, of his background to just take a beating and not even try to ward off an attacker unless he was drugged, or had some very pressing reason not to."

Victoria covered Jake back up and Edward said a silent prayer for him before he and Emmett left the morgue.

"When the test comes back on that fiber all hell is going to break loose," Edward said with a quiet groan. Emmett nodded, but kept silent as they walked back to the station house. When they were back at their respective desks Edward put his things on the floor and sat in his chair for a moment.

"Edward?"

Edward looked up from his thoughts and saw Emmett was sitting with an expression that mirrored his own.

"One of us should warn the captain about where this is heading," he said. Edward nodded.

"Flip you for it?"

Emmett took out a coin and tossed it into the air. He called heads and Edward called tails. It was heads. Edward smirked.

"Sucker."

"Shove it, Eddy."

When the lab finished processing the fiber a week later, the news caught hold of the information almost as soon as Emmett and Edward did. The fiber was positive for traces of chloroform, so it became obvious to everyone who didn't already suspect it that Jacob Black, the decorated ex-detective and whose jacket was as impressive as Edward's father's, was murdered for some reason other than just a robbery. As soon as Edward knew he called Bella to tell her the news and also to warn her that if the press made the connection, she might be targeted. She didn't say much, but he could tell it made her uneasy. But he didn't have time to console her the way he wanted to. Emmett was snapping his fingers and pointing to the captain's office. So he reluctantly ended their call and follow Emmett.

However, when they entered the office they were met with a face they did not expect.

"Tanya, it's good to see you," Emmett said politely. She nodded and looked right at Edward with a file in her hand.

"I never found this. You've never seen it. It doesn't exist. Don't ask where I found it, don't ask about the connection I have because I won't tell you anything. You have ten minutes to look over this file before I have to burn it and pretend I never even knew about it," she said quickly, handing it over to Edward and Emmett. They put it on the desk between them and read quickly.

Detective James Alistair, who was just a uniformed officer back in Seattle during the time of the abductions had moved to Boston five years prior and been promoted to detective for his work in the vice unit. He had a good record, only two complaints against him and they were both dismissed. Edward read through this with limited interest. He knew it all already.

It was what was on the next pages that interested in.

When he was a teenager he was arrested for animal cruelty when he was found by a neighbor to be torturing a cat. In his backyard they found the skeletons of two other animals in garbage bags that had been dead for months. The judge was lenient on him and gave him counseling and community service that he served picking up trash and painting over graffiti. The record was expunged when he turned eighteen and destroyed enough that when he applied to the training academy it didn't come up in his background check. Edward however was well aware that many serial killers started off killing small animals in their adolescence before they graduated to killing actual human beings.

Edward stared at the picture in the file. His non-descript features stared back.

He and Emmett handed the file back after a moment.

"If I were you boys I would proceed with caution. The media is going to have a field day with the Black murder, be careful you don't stir up too much trouble around another cop before you are certain," Tanya warned them before she left.

"If that handprint was his we should know any day now," Edward said. "He is in the system."

"I'm going to go do some more background on Detective Alistair. Why don't you go see Bella?" Emmett suggested.

"Emmett," Edward warned. Emmett raised his eyebrows.

"What, pretty boy, you think that tone is going to scare me? Come on, you like this girl. Try to tell me you don't with a straight face, I dare you. She is sweet and a damn good cook, and pretty as all get out and I see the way you look at her and hear the way you talk about her. I know she's your case, but she's also a woman. You like her, so go see her. You might just get past your own thick headedness enough to see that she likes you, too."

"It is totally―"

"Unprofessional? Inappropriate? Who the fuck cares, comrade? The girl has a psycho killer after her, you've been spending all your time with her, if you didn't have a thing for her I would think you were insane. You wouldn't be the first to do it, and I know you won't be the last. You both deserve a little happiness, so why don't you stop beating yourself up with your code of ethics and just go get her? The world will still be broken in the morning, and you'll have a whole other day to fuck things up and try to fix yesterday's mistakes. So stop getting in your own way and hers and man up about how you feel about her."

Edward opened his mouth and then closed it.

"You are one persuasive son of a bitch, Emmett McCarty," he finally said.

"You're damn right. Now get the fuck out of here."

Edward grabbed his coat off the back of his chair and with a nervous smile, practically ran out the door. Emmett was right. It was stupid to sit and think of all the ways it was wrong and just think of how it was right. And he did like her. He had liked her from the moment he saw her standing at his desk. And he only grew to like her more as he watched her strength, her resilience, her sense of humor, beauty, optimism, altruism, the utter brilliance that shone from the very core of her even in the darkest places.

So he got out on the street and walked quickly to the train and hooped on it, taking it to the stop right near Bella's apartment building. He felt his heart racing in the most pleasant way as he walked the few blocks to her building. He got in the building and buzzed up to her apartment.

"Who is it?" her voice asked, crackling through the intercom. Edward pressed the speak button and announced himself. She didn't reply, only buzzed him in. He bounded up the stairs. A few moments later he knocked on her door and waiting, bouncing from foot to foot.

When she opened the door she was still in her work clothes, a well fit pencil skirt that made his mind glaze over and some rose colored blouse but her hair was falling out of whatever she had put it into and she looked disheveled but gorgeous in way he couldn't describe.

How had he missed it before? She was so beautiful, and as soon as she saw him her eyes lit up in this way that gave him a thrill. She was excited and happy to see him. Her cheeks filled with color, her mouth curved into a smile.

"That was fast," she said as she stepped back into the apartment. He followed her in without speaking. They stood in her hall for a moment in silence.

"Bella," he started. She looked at him, bottom lip between her teeth.

"Bella," he tried again. But the words weren't coming, and she was standing there looking so expectant.

So he did the only thing he could think to do.

He closed the space between them, took her face in his hands and kissed her.