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CPOV

I smiled at the man coming out of the apartment I knew my daughter lived in, this must be Luc, the tribal dragon tattoo on his arm was just like Alice had described. We weren't to late. I could warn Bella. Keep her safe. She didn't have to die.

"Hello." I smiled at him, "You must be Luc Jourdain. I'm an old friend of your wife, is she home?"

"Remy." He answered. "I'm Remy Jones." He looked away a moment, "I um, well I guess you didn't hear." He shuffled his feet and my stomach dropped. My still heart felt like a hot lance had pierced it. "Luc, he uh, he was killed two weeks ago, at a motel up in Alexandria."

"Isabella?" I asked, not daring to breathe.

"Bell?" He gave me a sad smile, "Poor angel's alive but she didn't stick around. The minute they let her out of the hospital she went to the grave. I took her to my house for the night but she was on the road as soon as the sun rose, just couldn't stand to be here after." He swallowed back tears, "We'd of taken care of her but losing Luc and the baby like that, well I just don't know how she's handling it."

"Baby?" I wanted to rage and scream at the injustice, we had been to late, we had hoped Alice's vision had been far in the future but it had to have been the very day of the vision or very near to it.

"Bell, she was three and half months pregnant. Doctor say she can't have no more babies. The knife did a real number on her insides."

"Knife?" Alice had heard gunfire.

"Yes sir." Remy nodded, "Luc would have got them if it's all they had but soon as he opened the door for Bell, one grabbed her, least ways that's what we figure, she had a cut on her neck, shallow, like they were holding her. Luc was shot twice. Bell fought and they stabbed her in her gut. Not real sure the reasons but the police down there figure it was robbery gone bad. Maybe they think Bell's alone and when they realized she weren't they shot Luc. Best theory they got now anyways. Lady in a room down the hall heard the shots and called the police. The guys up there figure it was two men but have no leads yet."

"Do you know how I can reach Bella now?"

I saw him eyeing me over more suspiciously, "How you say you know Bell?" His accent was more Cajun than Creole, I wondered if Alice had been wrong or if Luc and this Remy came from different backgrounds. I figured the matching tattoo meant they were brothers but maybe it was a cop thing. It didn't matter really. MY vast mind was just focusing on unimportant details as I tried not to think of Bella and all she had suffered because we were not there for her, because I had not taken care of my daughter.

"Oh, forgive me," I smiled gently at him, trying to put him at ease, "I'm Dr. Carlisle Cullen. Bella was very close with my family while she lived in Forks." She was our family and we had abandoned her, lefy her to face the cruelty of the world alone. I would never forgive myself.

A corner of his mouth quirked up, "Yeah, Bell would make friends with a doctors family. Girl can walk in them high to the sky shoes but some days she still trips walking on a flat dry surface in bare feet and has herself a tendency to walk her shoulder into door frames and poles to when she's paying attention to something besides just walking."

"Yes." I smiled at the memories of her coordination difficulties as well. The memories were bitter sweet. I should have been there to patch her up, I should have been there to take care of her.

"Well, sorry I can't help you find her but I best be heading on to the station or I'll be late." He turned and locked the apartment door.

"Do you have any idea where she went."

"Sorry. Even if I did, well, these days you can't be to careful."

"Of course."

"Well, I can tell you that Bell, she don't plan on coming back." He told me.

"Thank you for your time." I followed him out of the building; I'd come back later to check her apartment for any clues to where she might have headed.

When I went back a couple hours later I found the place was emptied of everything but furniture and smelled clean. Remy must have emptied what was left and already put it in his car before I'd gotten there, probably just gone back for one last look around and to lock the door.

I ran back to Peter and Charlotte's home, where they were so graciously putting us up.

"Well?" Esme hurried to me as soon as I opened the door, "Did you see her? Did she see you? Is she ok?"

Alice came into the house looking drawn, "He didn't see her."

"Did you have another vision?" I asked her.

She shook her head, "Not of Bella. I saw you talking to a man, he had the same tattoo as Luc, different accent though."

"His name is Remy." I confirmed, "It seems that Alice's vision occurred right before the event itself. The police believe it was a robbery gone bad."

"Is Bella," Esme hesitated venom in her eyes and I wrapped her in my arms.

"Alive. She's alive." I comforted my mate.

"Where?" Rosalie asked.

"I don't know. The man I spoke with said he didn't know but admitted that if he did he wouldn't tell someone who'd just turned up randomly looking for her."

"What is it Carlisle?" Jasper asked no doubt reading my emotions.

"Bella," it hurt to even think how my daughter would be suffering, "she was pregnant."

"Oh no." Esme clung to me sobbing. "My poor Bella."

"She'll have another." Rosalie rocked herself, "She's alive and she'll heal and she'll have another."

"Carlisle?" Jasper read my emotions again.

I swallowed the tightness in my throat, "She can't." I told them. "The damage they did when they stabbed her… I can try to look at her medical records but the doctor who treated her claimed she couldn't have children."

Rosalie was sobbing and rocking, "She was supposed to live a normal life and get married and have babies. She was supposed to have a good life. We were the wrong choice, the dangerous choice, the one that took away babies." Emmett just pulled her into his arms and held her, rocking her gently as she sobbed brokenly.

It took a long time for both Esme and Rosalie to calm down, even with Jaspers influence.

Over the next couple of weeks we searched for any sign of Bella but with all our money, all our resources and all our gifts, we could not find her. I had failed my daughter again. She was suffering and alone. I had done this to her. In those days, I hated myself more than I ever had before. Once I had hated what I was but now I hated who I was, not because I had become something evil but because I had done something, so horrible, as abandoning a girl I had loved as my own child. Life was hard and painful. I had lived long enough to know the world was not often kind and still I had left her to suffer the cruelty of fate, alone.