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LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.

Belmont Island, Maine

Friday, March 16, 1951

9 PM

Nobody said a word during those first few, awful moments.

Everybody just sat there, transfixed on the grisly scene in front of them as their minds tried to catch up with what their eyes had just witnessed.

Esme was the first one to spring into action; her nurse's training kicked in as she rushed over to Alice to check for a pulse. Her sob as she withdrew her fingers was enough for everyone to know even before she confirmed it. "She has no pulse! Something must have gotten stuck in her windpipe! Jasper, help me move her!"

Jasper, the most hardened soldier out of the two men present who had seen action during the war, immediately sprang into action, gently, but swiftly lifting Alice's body out of her seat, a trail of mushroom soup, which she'd began eating after nibbling on her salad, followed in their wake as he placed her on the ground for Esme to start her efforts to resuscitate her.

"Put her on her stomach," Esme ordered as she pushed up the sleeves of her dress and started the Schafer Method of resuscitation. Bella had seen it done once in a government social guidance film and found the whole exercise rather ridiculous, but in reality, she watched with baited breath as Jasper and Esme tried to revive their patient. "Jasper, go and call the emergency services. There's a telephone out in the foyer near the front door."

"How..." Carlisle started, his already pale face whitening even further as he sucked in harsh, anguished breaths. Fearing he was going to topple over soon, Bella shot out her hand to steady him and help regain his composure before he went on, "She was just…"

"What can I do?" Emmett barked as he paced the room while Esme waved his offer away. She obviously knew what she was doing, even if it didn't seem to have any effect on Alice.

It was another horrible few minutes before she was ready to accept defeat. "I'm sorry," she muttered, her voice strained as she stepped off Alice's back. "I fear she has passed beyond our help."

"What?" Emmett cried. "She's dead?"

Esme nodded. "I'm afraid she is."

Bella clamped her hand over her mouth as she dashed out of the room to deposit what was in her stomach. On instinct—rather than a true knowledge of the castle's floorplan—she managed to reach a nearby bathroom just in time to revisit the drinks and canapés she'd enjoyed only a few moments before. Edward was by her side in a flash, making sure to keep the long necklace she wore around her neck from getting soiled as he slowly patted her back. "It's okay, Bella," he tried to soothe her.

"But it's not," Bella cried, her mascara running down her beautiful face along with her tears. "She just died, Edward! She just fell over and died!"

Back in the dining room, things had finally kicked into high gear. As it became more and more clear that something awful had taken place, Esme was trying to do her best to keep the others from touching Alice or disturbing the scene, calling on what little she knew of a training she had received a long time ago. She knew that something was horribly amiss with the scene in front of her, though inwardly she tried to reason with that panicked voice yelling 'foul play' inside her mind.

"We can't just leave her lying like that!" Emmett cried, trying to push Esme out of the way as he watched in abject horror how little drops of soup continued to drip from Alice's hair. "Look at her! It's disgraceful! She looks like a rag doll that someone threw aside!"

Esme closed her eyes, drawing in a deep breath as she stood her ground against the giant of a man. "Emmett, I completely agree with you but until we know what happened to her, the police are going to want to see the full picture. The minute we move her or clean her face, like I'm sure each and every one of us desperately wants to do, we could erase evidence that can help people find out what killed her."

"But she just choked on something, right?" Emmett's voice sounded remarkably thin as he looked up at the nurse. "I mean…what are the police going to do about it?"

"I think she choked, yes," Esme answered, though inwardly, a blinding fear was starting to grow, "but the police are going to want to make their own inquiries. Especially with Alice being a famed movie star."

By that time Rose, alerted by the commotion, had come back from her room with red-rimmed eyes. The shock on her face when she spotted the dead woman lying on the floor was so absolute that she fainted almost instantly, her head barely missed the sharp edge of the table as she fell to the floor.

Her husband merely groaned as he looked at it. "Now what?"

"Take her through to the sitting room," Carlisle ordered, finding his voice again after the shock had simply left him stupefied. "We all need to get out of this room before we lose our heads. Esme will know how to revive your wife."

Emmett let out an indiscernible groan as he lifted his wife's unconscious body away as the whole company gathered again in the room they had parted from when everything had still been alright.

Well, not alright…but better at least.

At least…everyone was still living then.

By the time Esme had helped Carlisle's feeble body into a chair and was working on reviving poor Rosalie McCarty, Edward and Bella had rejoined the group just in time to watch a frantic Jasper storm back in. "The phone line's out!" he panted, holding onto the back of a chair. "I went all the way to the spot where the line goes into the water towards the mainland and pulled the end right out of the sea."

"What?" Edward veered up from his chair. "You mean…the line's dead?"

"It's all a bit too much of a coincidence, isn't it?" Jasper mused, frowning as he looked around the room. "The line going out at exactly the same time that Alice keels over dead in her soup?"

Bella gasped, her hand clutching her hammering heart. "Do you think..."

"Stop it right there before you frighten everyone to death!" Esme broke in, her voice commanding. "It is unfortunate that it happened just now but if you lived on this Island, like I do, you'd know that it's a pretty common occurrence." She paused, stopping to catch a breath and to keep her agitation from seeping into her voice and alarming Carlisle. "The seabed surrounding the island is pretty uneven. It slopes up almost to the surface at some points before dropping to deep depths only a couple of feet further. It's why you don't see a lot of fishing boats out here…the risk of running aground is too great."

"And how is that supposed to clear up the cut phone line mystery?" Jasper asked skeptically.

"A couple of kids were out in the bay this afternoon," Esme explained. "It's very well possible that their boat cut the line when it scraped along the bottom of the sea at some point. It's happened before."

Jasper nodded, apparently accepting Esme's explanation. Rubbing his forehead, he turned towards Carlisle. "There has to be some other way off this island. A boat?"

Carlisle shook his head, looking about a million years older. "Our gardener took it a couple of days ago to pick up some supplies from the mainland…and he hasn't returned."

Bella paled as she put two and two together and realized that all their connections to the mainland had been severed. With no boat or a phone to call for help, they were stuck there with a dead woman. "There has to be something…" she muttered, as Rose started to stir again. "There has to be some way to reach the mainland." She could feel her breath coming in short pants as panic set in, her eyes fixed on the only man who could help her. "Carlisle?"

Again, Carlisle shook his head. "I have always deemed the boat and the telephone sufficient to ensure my safety and that of everyone else on this island. I never thought my wish for privacy would lead to something like this."

"You couldn't have foreseen this, Carlisle," Esme soothed, heading back to her employer since Rose was awake, breathing steadily and outwardly unharmed. "What are the chances of the phone line being out at exactly the same time the boat is gone? As tragic as all of this is, it's just a horribly unfortunate chain of misfortune."

"But we're trapped here, aren't we?" Rose sneered, obviously back to her usual self. "We're trapped here with a dead body. And it could be days until someone finally comes to save us!"

"It won't be more than forty-eight hours," Edward tried to calm her down, though deep down inside, he was anything but calm. "Remember? Jenks told us he was going to pick us up again on Sunday morning after breakfast."

"And what if he forgets?" Rose shrieked. "What if he decides to do a runner just like the gardener did? We could be trapped here for God only knows how long with Alice rotting away in the room next to us!"

"That's enough, Rose!" Emmett barked, jumping up from his chair.

"Oh, and there's her knight in shining armor again!" Rose sneered back, her artic blue eyes shooting fire at her husband. "I should have known why you were always so quick to defend that little, backstabbing bitch!"

"Shut your mouth!" Emmett roared and had it not been for Jasper pulling him back, goodness knows what kind of violence he might have resorted to; his nostrils flared with rage as he glared at his wife.

"Got you where it hurts, didn't I?" Rose huffed, the tips of her lips curling up into a sly little smile.

Bella, meanwhile, looked on in wonder. It completely baffled her how two people who seemed to despise each other so much could stay married when there was no rational reason for them to remain tied together. Neither of them were particularly religious and, as for their careers…well, there were no particular careers to speak of that demanded their prolonged state of togetherness.

But then again, it also evaded her how they could bicker like that so soon after the horrible death of one of their group. It was true that nobody particularly liked Alice and the emotions that were wrecking through Bella had more to do with shock than actual grief for the loss of Alice Brandon, but to flight like a couple of unruly children when there was a woman dead in the room next door? No, Bella just simply couldn't fathom that.

A groan silenced the room again as all heads snapped in the direction it came from to find Carlisle hunched over with a worried Esme by his side. "This night has taken a lot out of him and in his state…" Esme sighed, her movements betraying the tenderness of a lover as she tried to keep him upright. "I have to get him to bed before things take a turn for the worse."

"I'll help," Emmett offered, shooting a final glare at his wife before he stood to offer the strength of his arm to the feeble man.

Between the two of them, they managed to get him standing and with the aid of the butler, who had come in just in time, the foursome shuffled towards Carlisle's downstairs bedroom.

"If anyone would be so kind as to take pity on Ms. Brandon's maid?" the butler asked, turning around on the doorstep. The look on his face left no doubt as to the fact that he wasn't going to be the one to extend that pity. "I know it is not my place to ask for your assistance in this matter but the poor girl is in a horrible state, having found out about her mistress' death, and with Jessica and poor Mrs. Cope faring no better, I don't see how I can get them all settled again."

"I'll go," Bella offered, needing to get out of the oppressing atmosphere of the sitting room before she went completely mad.

"Will you be back?" Edward whispered. "I'd very much like to talk to you before you go to bed."

Bella sighed, her heart torn about his request. "Alright," she finally acquiesced, knowing he wouldn't relent until he'd had the chance to say whatever it was that he wanted tell her. "I'll come find you when I'm done comforting poor Angela."

Edward nodded, watching with a poorly veiled admiration as she walked out of the room followed by Rosalie who claimed to be tired.

"Don't you sometimes wish you could turn back time?" Jasper remarked, coming to stand next to him.

Edward nodded. "If only to get a chance to fix this mess…"

"I'm going out for a smoke," Jasper announced, his hand clamping down on Edward's shoulder. "Care to join me?"

Both the pressure of his hand on Edward's shoulder and the look in Jasper's eyes left Edward in no doubt that this wasn't so much a request as an order. Not that it would have made any difference as Edward longed for some fresh air and a cigarette himself.

Little did he know, he was in for quite a surprise…

Thoughts?