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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

10 PM

"If only things had been different, huh?" Edward joked, as they stepped out onto the terrace, the chilly sea breeze made both men shiver as they got used to the chance in temperature. "We'd have been enjoying Carlisle's finest cigars while putting a dent into his brandy collection by now."

"Or we'd have been at each other's throats over dessert," Jasper chuckled before turning serious again. "This weekend had 'murder' written all over it from the start but I'd always thought it would be more in the figurative meaning of the word."

Edward paled, almost choking on his smoke as he caught what Jasper was saying. "You mean...?"

"I have my doubts," Jasper confirmed. "This just doesn't add up."

Kicking at a few loose pebbles, Edward looked up in surprise. "What do you mean?"

"It's all a bit too much of a coincidence, isn't it?" Jasper explained, his gunmetal grey eyes piercing into Edward's soul with an intensity that made him squirm. "First the boat—our only way off this island, mind you—goes missing; Alice chokes on something. Then there's the phone line…the only other connection to the mainland, turns out to be busted? That's just a bit too much bad luck in one day for me." Taking a long drag from his cigarette, Jasper's eyes shifted slightly, staring out into the deep midnight blue of the night sky and the unlit ocean.

Edward sighed, remembering how even back in the day, Jasper had always been a bit suspicious. Hell, on a bad day the guy had been downright paranoid! And if the poor guy's experience in the war had been anything like the stuff Edward had seen, chances were that shit hadn't gotten any better over the years. "So you're thinking Alice's death wasn't an accident?"

"I'm not saying anything," Jasper hedged, "other than the observation that three freak accidents in a row make me suspicious. Besides…" he paused to take another drag of his cigarette, "I didn't mention this because I didn't want to alarm anybody, but the cut on that telephone line was too clean for my taste." He sighed, his eyes scanning his surroundings as if looking for something untoward. "Esme can talk all she likes about those harbor town boys and their boats but, I can tell you that cut wasn't made by a boat. No way in hell."

"Then it must have been the boat's propeller or something similar that could make a cut like that," Edward reasoned. Unlike Jasper, he didn't see anything suspicious in what had happened during the past couple of hours. Tragic? Yes, definitely. Creepy? Of course! But to immediately jump to foul play? No, that was a bridge too far for him.

"Maybe." He smirked, looking back up at Edward. "But it's not exactly like we're starved for suspects now, are we?"

Edward chuckled. "The list is endless." He had to hand it to the other man: there were plenty of people on the island that harbored murderous feelings towards the dead woman. If something sinister had happened, the police were going to have one hell of a job trying to get to the bottom of things.

"Right," Jasper nodded. "And you're one of the suspects."

Edward laughed, rolling his eyes. "Come on now, Jasper. Don't you think it's a bit premature to think about clapping me in irons? I was in the dining room all evening, just like you were, remember?"

"You could have cut the telephone line before we gathered in the sitting room, for all I know," Jasper countered. "There's a gap of at least two hours where none of us saw each other. God knows what you could have been up to in that time! And until we know for certain what killed Alice, I can't exclude anyone from my list of suspects."

"And how do you explain the boat, huh?" Edward grumbled, getting more and more fed up with Jasper's insinuations. "I came here straight from a movie set. How would I have had the time to lose the boat…and the gardener, for that matter?"

"Good question," Jasper pondered. "But even you have to admit that your motive's pretty strong. Anyone who has eyes in their head can see how you're pining for pretty Mrs. Black, which means that the resentment you're harboring towards Alice for throwing a wrench in your plans all those years ago must be pretty strong."

"And how am I going to get with Bella when I'm behind bars for killing someone? I'd be old and grey if I ever got out!" Edward argued. "Besides, given what happened between Emmett and Rosalie, I'd think there would be two people whose motives for murder were a lot stronger than mine. And did you see the look on Esme's face when Alice came into the room? If looks could kill, Alice would have been as dead as a doornail the minute she stepped into the sitting room!"

"I'm not saying you're the only suspect," Jasper backtracked, though his face lost none of its intensity, "or even that you're the prime suspect. Just that I can't exclude you yet."

"Well, okay, Sherlock Holmes, let me know when you can," Edward joked, lighting up another smoke as the very welcomed appearance of Emmett McCarty came into view.

"What's up, guys?" the burly guy asked as he stepped out.

"Jasper is convinced we all murdered Alice," Edward announced. "How's the old man doing?"

"Not too good," Emmett answered, rubbing through his curly hair. "I don't think Carlisle will see the end of the year. Hell, with the shock of Alice's death, we should be happy if he makes it to the end of the month!"

Edward sighed, slowly breathing out smoke. "He doesn't deserve this."

"Does anyone?" Jasper shook his head, shifting his weight from one foot to the next. "I've seen more than enough death to last me a lifetime and I can tell you: nobody deserves it."

"The war was different, though," Edward argued, his eyes seeing the mangled bodies and empty, staring eyes of so many of the young men he'd fought alongside with back in Europe. "Most of the men who went to war were young, or at the very least in the prime of their lives. They deserved a lot more years than they got. An old man who lived a complete, fulfilling life, though…I'm not saying he deserves to die but his death would be more acceptable. Besides, from the look of it, it doesn't look like Carlisle's life at the moment is all that worth living anymore."

Emmett nodded, agreeing with Edward's statement though, for him, having had escaped the clutches of war, there wasn't the grisly power behind it that haunted Jasper and Edward. "Did you all get as much of a shock as I did when I first saw Carlisle this afternoon?" He whistled. "What do you think's wrong with him? Could it be that's what messed up his career?"

"Who knows?" Edward answered, stubbing out his cigarette with the tip of his shoe as he saw Bella's fine-looking form appear behind one of the downstairs windows. "I've got to go. See you all tomorrow morning at breakfast."

"As if any one of us is going to get any sleep this night," Jasper muttered, barely audible as the two remaining men shifted closer while Edward crossed the terrace and went in again through the open French doors.

He found Bella in a seat next to a fire someone must have lit while he'd been outside. Apparently in big mansions like the one he was in, life just went on as planned even if there was a dead body in the room next door.

"You want one, too?" Bella asked, raising the decanter of whiskey towards him.

"Please." Walking closer he took a full glass of the amber liquid from her, rising it in a toast before he took a sip of the fine quality scotch. "I thought you didn't indulge?"

She shrugged. "Things change."

Seeing an opening, he tried, "Not everything does."

"If this is where you come up with some grand explanation of what happened ten years ago before you beg for my forgiveness, then don't bother!" Bella stopped him before he had even seized the opportunity to do so. "I'm not the same naïve girl I was back then."

"Nor am I the fool I was ten years ago," he assured her. "If I could go back and change things, I…"

"Wouldn't have slept with Alice Brandon?" Bella chuckled darkly, swirling the whiskey around in her glass. "Or would you have been just be a little more inconspicuous about it so that I wouldn't find out until we were married?"

"Of course not!" Edward cried, frustration bubbling up inside of him. "I never set out to be untrue! If I were a more feeble man, I'd argue that since there was nothing between you and me at that moment, my actions, though stupid, were completely justified, but we'd both know I was lying." He sighed, rubbing his forehead before downing all the liquid in his glass in one burning gulp. "The truth of the matter is that I caved to the pressure of everyone around me who told me it would be good for my career to go along with the gossip story of the two budding stars finding each other on and off stage, and then…" Another deep sigh left his chest as he thought about the pressure he'd been under back in those days and the very stupid things it had made him do. "And then she was there…all the damn time…whispering in my ear about how your aloofness meant that you were only stringing me along, whereas she…" Shaking his head, he grabbed the decanter set on the table between them and poured another shot which he also slammed back in anger. "I made the worst mistake of my life that night."

"And what do you expect from me now?" Bella asked, her finger tracing the rim of her glass. "A tearful reunion? A happily ever after?"

"A second chance, maybe?" Edward offered, feeling his chances diminish by the second. "A shot at proving how time and experience have made me a better man?"

She sighed, putting her glass down on the table as she rose to her feet. "It's not like I can escape you right now, is it?" She was already halfway to the door by the time she finally gave the answer Edward had been waiting for with baited breath. "You have forty-eight hours."

Thoughts?