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

Belmont Island, Maine

Saturday, March 17, 1951

2:30 PM

"You want me to go up there, unarmed, when God knows what might happen?" Edward challenged. He was totally and completely against Jasper's plan, as it divided the group when they should have banded together, as Jasper had first insisted. Furthermore, it put both Bella and him in acute danger; something he'd been trying like hell to avoid.

"Mrs. Cope," Jasper spoke, diverting his attention to the still sobbing chef. "Do you know if Carlisle keeps any weapons in the house?"

"H-he has a g-g-gun in h-his desk drawer," Mrs. Cope whimpered, leaning heavily on Angela's support as the younger woman hugged her close. "T-top drawer."

"Then we'll all go and retrieve it together," Jasper decided, turning his attention back to Edward. "I assume you won't have as many problems going upstairs if you're armed against the possible dangers you might find there?"

Edward nodded. He knew someone had to go up there and even though he still wasn't convinced that someone should be him, one look at Bella's anxious face and the odds were shifting. "I still don't like it…but, yeah, I'll do it." He had little pause to think about the implications of Jasper's offer. After all: a killer probably wouldn't be as eager to outfit another member of their party with a gun.

But then again, why would Jasper keep everyone hostage at gunpoint only to let Edward and Bella out of his sight—and with a gun, too! Unless, of course, Jasper had deemed them innocent in all of the events that had come to pass.

Or they were walking into a trap that no gun could save them from?

Reluctantly pushing up from the sofa, he offered Bella his hand. "Keep close to me, love," he whispered.

She nodded, biting her lips as her hand slipped into his outstretched palm. She seemed as tense and nervous as he was; frail and on the point of breaking but bravely keeping it together.

They followed Jasper into the study that adjoined the sitting room; walls covered in posters that had advertised some of Carlisle's greatest successes. And front and center in the room hung the one advertising his greatest triumph.

The Merchant of Venice.

Bella had never been able to look back fondly upon that period of her life. To her, it would always be about the pressure and guilt her father had put upon her to persuade her to use the talent he was sure she'd inherited.

And she had.

But it was more a curse than a blessing.

Bella's early childhood had been relatively peaceful. Her parents, once in love but soon finding that passion was the only thing they'd had in common, were quite happy to live on opposite ends of the country from one another, and kept their marital status only as a token to long forgotten times. It had meant that throughout her formative years, her father had been an occasional visitor, though as she grew up and her talent became more obvious, his visits had increased.

And so had his threats to take her away.

To Charles Swan, it was an open and shut case that Bella should come to New York. After all, with her unique talent to disappear within the character she had assumed, the city would make her into one of its biggest stars. And him, the 'power behind the throne'.

Charlie Swan liked power. Although he, himself, had never risen to more than the main supporting role, he saw the perfect opportunity to break into the main spotlight with his daughter.

In the end, she had given in to his constant pressure, though be it under her own circumstances. She'd reluctantly agreed to try one season in New York and have her father introduce her to all of his powerful friends in the acting world. After that, if she still wasn't interested in pursuing a career on the stage at the end of it, he would leave her be.

It had been a season of horrors for Bella. As used as she had been to peace, quiet and friendliness, she found the New York acting scene harsh, cruel and as far away from where she wanted to be as possible. She'd missed her home terribly and though she loved being on the stage, the rest of her life there had slowly crushed her soul.

The only light had been her friendship and budding feelings for the only person in the cast who she felt a connection to. And in the end, he had broken her heart.

"Alright," Jasper called everyone to attention, pulling Bella out of her reverie as he handed an imposing looking revolver to Edward. "As we discussed: the two of you will go up to see what's keeping Carlisle and Esme while we'll go down to get some provisions that will see us through to tomorrow's pick-up time. If anyone sees something suspicious, call out and the rest will come running. If not, we'll reconvene in the sitting room as soon as possible."

Edward nodded, once again taking Bella's hand as the other clung to the gun. It had been ages since he held one in his hand and the feeling of harsh steel against the sweaty palm of his hand brought him back to a night spent in some godforsaken Belgian forest, clutching his gun as he fought against the rain, the cold and the tiredness threatening to pull him under as around him, the Germans were sneaking around with a deadly intent.

He hadn't wavered then, nor would he ever.

"Let's go," he said to the woman he was desperately trying to protect. "The sooner we get up there, the sooner we can come back down."

Silently, they left the room as the others geared up for their own expedition.

"This place is so beautiful," Bella muttered, her eyes sweeping around the magnificent great hall. "And yet I can't wait to get the hell out of here and never come back."

"I know," Edward nodded. "It's a shame, though. I think Carlisle has really been looking forward to this weekend."

"He feels so guilty about what's happened," Bella answered, thinking back to her conversation with the old man. "He seems so frail…so torn up. I half wonder if he's even going to survive this weekend."

"At this moment he has as much of a chance as any one of us," Edward mused, chuckling wryly. "It's not exactly what I had in mind either."

"What did you have in mind?" Stopping halfway up the stairs, Bella looked at him in earnest as she waited for his reply.

"Trying to gain forgiveness for a mistake I made all those years ago," he replied in earnest. "When Carlisle's invitation came, I just jumped at the chance. I figured it was my one and only shot at seeing you again and trying to win you back."

"You called me love, just now," she whispered, still overwhelmed by his side of the truth when she had been holding onto her own version of it for so long. "You called me that before," she spoke, diverting attention from their surroundings to the winter when they had both been young and he had been tragically foolish. "That day, when you took me ice skating in Central Park."

He nodded. "It was as true then as it is now, even though I had no idea of what love really was back then." He sighed, remembering how torn up he'd been on the inside. It had been three days before Bella caught him with Alice and the plan that would eventually destroy his chances at love and happiness had already been set into motion. The truth had been at the tip of his tongue all day. He'd wanted nothing more than to forewarn the beautiful, wonderful girl he'd spent the day with about what was going to happen so that she wouldn't despise him. But he'd been sworn to secrecy. "For what it's worth: I wanted to tell you the truth that day."

"The truth?" Bella frowned as they slowly progressed to Carlisle's study. "You mean that you were seeing Alice on the side?"

"No," Edward denied, finally revealing what he should have told her ten years before, "that my agent and Alice's had convinced me to enter into a harebrained scheme to further my own career and save her reputation."

"So it really was all a ruse?" Bella whispered, shocked to the core as she tried to marry what she'd seen all those years ago to what she was hearing. "But I saw…"

"What you saw was Alice trying to get her way—as usual," Edward huffed, thinking back on those disastrous days. "We both knew that with the right kind of attention, we could get the big studios in Hollywood interested in offering us a contract. But as time went by, the play got attention but not enough to produce the kind of offers we were looking for." He sighed. "And that was when somebody came up with the unholy plan of making it look like we were in love. You know? The story of Portia and Bassanio come to life."

"But…you were living together in Los Angeles!" Bella cried, the words she knew starting to shift on its axis. "Was all that a lie?"

Edward shook his head. "I wish I could say so…but no. After you left…" Again, he sighed, rubbing his tired eyes and stubbly beard as he thought things through before he went on. "She had me right where she wanted me, I guess. And I fell right into her trap, dancing to her tune until she grew tired of having me as her little plaything and threw me away again."

"She's good at that," Bella remarked, her bitterness showing on her voice.

"It was only after the dust had settled and I had the space to think that I realized just how much of a fool I'd been," Edward went on. "I was so damn obsessed with my career that I let the best thing I could ever have had slip through my fingers…and for what?"

"But you did make a name for yourself," Bella argued. "You have it all: the big parts, raving reviews, a huge mansion in the Hollywood Hills and women throwing themselves at your feet."

"It isn't worth it." Edward shook his head. "True, I love acting and the parts I get challenge me to use all of my abilities, but after a while all of that started getting old." Chuckling, he rubbed his hand through his hair. "Ten years ago your dreams of settling down somewhere and leading an obscure family life scared the shit out of me. Now? Frankly I can't wait to have that."

"Who are you and what have you done to Edward Masen?" Bella giggled, jumping slightly when a sound from below made them both realize that trips down memory lane, no matter how important to both of them, were a little inappropriate given the situation they were in. "I guess we'd better head up, right?"

Nodding, Edward clutched the gun as they quickly made their way up the stairs and down the corridor to Carlisle's room.

The door was closed, which was odd since it had been open most of the time during the day, to allow Carlisle to feel as connected to the guests in his house as he could be, given his illness. It had been open when Bella had left so she immediately wondered who had closed it.

"Esme?" Knocking on the door, she felt Edward shift into a protective stance beside her, the click of his gun being cocked made the hairs at the base of her neck stand on end. "Carlisle?"

There was no reply and, sharing a quick look with Edward, Bella knew that there was only one thing to do. So, taking a deep breath, her hands clasped around the door handle, her heart hammering in her throat as it yielded easily to her touch.

Light poured into the hallway as the door slowly creaked open but before it could reveal anything, Edward's hand stopped her. "Is anyone in here?" he called out.

A muffled groan made them quick to act; Edward's gun drawn as he kicked open the door to reveal a scene of utter carnage.

A table had been thrown over, its contents strewn all over the floor beside it as the trail of destruction stopped near a pile of clothes.

Bella sucked into a deep breath, her urge to run towards the pile only hindered by Edward's arm drawing her back as she realized it wasn't a pile…it was Esme.

"Please…" A long, drawn out plea for help came as Esme shifted slightly.

"Stay close to me," Edward warned her, his gun hand tracing the sides of the room before he deemed the coast clear enough for them to move. "Don't look to the side."

As always, those kinds of warnings were spoken to deaf ears, as it were those exact words that drew her eyes to the bed.

A cry welled up before she could stop it at the horrific sight of Carlisle, propped up against the headboard; his lunch tray still on his lap as his eyes stared vacantly ahead while his mouth hung open in a sinister grimace that only had one common cause in a human being.

Death.

"No!" Bella cried, her legs almost giving out as she realized the killer had most likely struck again. It had been her worst fear when Jasper had ordered them to investigate the absence of the pair and part of her had even prepared for every eventuality. Thinking about it, though, was something completely different than coming across the harshness of reality.

Esme.

Thinking quickly, she crouched down, grimacing at the sight of a puddle of vomit close to Esme's head as she tried to turn the nurse onto her back.

"Poison," Esme panted laboriously, before her eyes rolled backwards.

Thoughts?