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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
3:30 PM
Bella had never felt so alone.
With two unconscious women in the room and precious little else than a heavy lampshade to defend herself with if the killer somehow managed to sneak into the sitting room, she jumped at every sound, even the ones she was making herself. And as the echoes of the retreating footsteps of Edward and Jasper faded, she finally gave in to a deep urge she had been suppressing ever since Alice had fallen face-first into her soup bowl.
She cried.
Soundlessly, and in constant fear of somehow alerting the killer to her lonely state she leaned against the wall, letting her tears run free. The wall felt like her only ally as she let her body drop down against it, her arms hugging her legs to her chest as droplets of tears fell down on her expensive silk blouse.
She couldn't find it in herself to care that she was probably ruining a garment from which the cost of it alone could have supported her and her mother for an entire month in her previous life. All she could think about was how much she wanted a lot more days in the future.
She wanted more time with her son to see him grow into the man she knew he could be and to let him know just how much she loved him.
She wanted more time to show her snooty mother-in-law that class wasn't defined by birth and that a small town girl from a not-so-well-to-do family could go into society with her head held high.
She wanted more time to find out what had happened to her dad during those final years, when contact between the two of them had been sparse at best and non-existent at worst.
She wanted to visit her mother's grave and put some fresh flowers on the marble tombstone bearing her name.
She wanted to have a conversation with Edward that was probably some ten years overdue. Bella wanted to see if maybe there was a chance for them after all…for him to meet her son and fit into her life back home.
She wanted…God, she wanted to live!
So much.
But most of all, she wanted off the island.
After wallowing in self-pity for a while, Bella finally pushed away from the wall. Feeling sorry for herself wasn't going to make her any safer than manning up and doing something constructive. Like checking on the two women entrusted to her care.
Esme was still very much in the same state; her body obviously trying to fight off whatever poison had invaded it as she thrashed around on the sofa. Bella's heart broke as she listened to the muffled groans escaping her mouth. It was obvious the woman was in pain but, not knowing where or how to fix it, there was nothing Bella could do but wet a piece of cloth in one of the buckets of water the women had brought into the room and cool Esme's forehead with it.
At least with Rose, she wasn't as powerless to do something. Taking another piece of cloth, she wiped away the small trickle of blood that had seeped from the place where a heavy object had impacted with her head. The bleeding had mercifully stopped, though Bella suspected Rosalie was going to have a sore head and a bruise to match for a couple of days.
As the cool fabric made contact with her forehead, Rose started to stir; her movements uncoordinated at first but more sure of herself as she slowly started to return to the land of the living.
"Bella?" Blinking against the fading afternoon light, she made out the figure hovering over her. "What…did you?"
"Calm down, Rose," Bella soothed, trying to keep Rosalie as still as she could even though the woman was struggling to sit up. "Don't try to speak or move before you're ready."
"Mrs. Cope…" Rose groaned, her body sagging back against the stack of pillows they'd placed under her head.
"Do you want to know if she's safe?" Bella tried, her gut instinct still telling her it must have been Angela, even though it made no sense for her to still be alive if Angela was indeed the killer, seeing as she'd shared a room with the woman the previous night.
Rose shook her head. "She's the one who did this to me," she whispered, her hand clutching the formidable bump on her head. "She snuck up on me with a rolling pin." Groaning, the former blonde bombshell added. "I know…how very cliché of it to happen this way."
"Cliché or not, I wish there was a way I could let the guys know," Bella muttered, dabbing Rose's forehead with the cloth as she tried to help the woman into a sitting position. "They've gone downstairs to see if they can catch the killer."
"So Mrs. Cope has Angela?" Rose asked, her bottom lip trembling as she too seemed to struggle with the overwhelming emotions their weekend at Belmont had stirred. "I do hope the girl will make it out of here alive. She was one of the only ones who was nice to me…apart from you, of course. But then again, you've always been."
Bella nodded, feeling immensely guilty for even contemplating for a moment that Angela could have been the one to do it. True, there were a lot of clues that pointed in the maid's direction but still; she should have trusted her gut instinct. That same instinct that had told her to comfort the poor girl grieving for her dead employer.
She should have known better.
"Let's hope the men get there in time," she wished out loud. "Mrs. Cope hit you with her rolling pin?"
Rose nodded as both women turned their attention to Esme and what little things they could do to ease the poor woman's suffering. "We were just loading up the last of the stuff we wanted to take to the kitchen when we heard the gun fire. Jasper took off and I went ahead of Mrs. Cope with some of our load while Angela stayed behind to get some medicine. When we made it back to the sitting room, that bitch struck me just as I was setting some of the food I was carrying down on the table."
"Shit," Bella cursed.
"My sentiments exactly," Rose nodded angrily, her face softening as she looked to her side. "Esme…is she dead?'
Bella shook her head. "Carlisle is, though. They were poisoned. I don't know what I can do to ease her suffering…if there is anything that can even be done, at this point."
"Well, damn," Rose's face clouded again. "Seems like that bitch thought of everything." Pausing a moment, Rose shifted, her body getting stronger again with every minute. "Why do you think she's after us? Do you think it has anything to do with the past?"
Bella took a few minutes to ponder Rose's question. "It almost has to, doesn't it?" she finally concluded. "Unless Mrs. Cope is some homicidal maniac who gets off on killing random people—which I doubt—it's all too coincidental that she just snaps and goes on a killing spree on the one weekend we're all here."
"Then why is she doing this?" Rose wondered, her eyes pained as they kept shooting to Esme. "Somehow I doubt she's just holding a grudge because she paid good money for a poor performance of Shakespeare's play. But why target us? Why this particular cast?" She paused, as both women individually ran through those intense months. "Do you think it has something to do with—?"
"It's the only thing that springs to mind," Bella mused, "but then again…how?"
"It's easy to see how someone would hold a grudge over the way things went with him," Rose answered, groaning as the pain in her head intensified with every painful memory she recalled. "I mean…you were nice to him and all, but I don't think any one of the rest of us ever said a kind word to the poor guy."
"But he grew up in an orphanage, remember?" Bella argued, racking her brain as she tried to remember what else she had learned about poor Mike. The thing was, though, that it had all happened an awfully long time ago.
"I wouldn't know," Rose spoke, her voice laced with guilt. "I was one of those people who only spoke to him to put him down, remember?"
Bella smiled compassionately, though her indignation over the way the rest of the crew had treated Mike spiked anew as she thought about it. "He told me once that the stage was the only home he'd ever had," she recalled. "I think I remember that his parents died when he was just a little kid and that there was no other family that could take him in…no brothers and sisters. No one."
"And then we went and ruined the one safe place he had," Rose muttered. "If there's one thing this weekend has taught me it's that being a bitch will get you nowhere."
Bella chuckled bitterly, remembering all the times she had been on the receiving end of Rosalie's bitchiness. "You seem to have done a complete one-eighty, then!"
Rose sighed. "Do you know that the past twelve hours have been the first in my life where I've actually been able to breathe freely?" When Bella shook her head, she explained, "As soon as he saw my pretty little face, my dad had been looking for ways to make money off it. And Emmett…he just wanted me because I didn't want him—the thrill of the chase and all that, I suppose. As soon as he had me, all he became interested in was trying to break me." She huffed, her bottom lip wavering for the slightest bit of a moment. "Are you surprised that made me just a tad bitter?"
Bella couldn't say she was. "It's just strange that you and Emmett were married for so long and yet…"
"I'm being as cold and callous about it as I usually am about everything else?" Rose finished, rubbing the bump on her head as she sat up a little straighter, her free hand taking over the damp cloth Bella was using to dab Esme's clammy forehead with. "I hated him, I guess it's as plain and simple as that."
"I know you never wanted to marry him," Bella offered.
"That's right!" Rose snorted bitterly. "My father saw the Golden Boy in Emmett that he'd so wanted to father himself. Convinced as he was that Emmett was going to make it big, that both of us were going to be the next golden couple in Hollywood, he was determined to get us hitched…even if it meant standing by and letting Emmett force me into wedlock."
Bella nodded, understanding what Rosalie wasn't saying to her. "You were pregnant when you got married, weren't you?" She remembered having heard something about that from her father when he came to her wedding, a couple of months after Bella had escaped New York.
Rosalie nodded. "It was the only reason I agreed to marry him. It was either that or be labeled a harlot for the rest of my life."
"But the baby…"
"He was stillborn…my little boy…he was dead in my arms." Rose's tears, which had been close all along, spilled freely. "It's why I never wanted to move from Rochester. I couldn't leave my little boy behind." Huffing, she continued, "Of course, Emmett couldn't wait to leave. He'd been swindled with tales of fortune by my dad, only to find out we had as little money as he did. So now he was stuck in a town that barely offered any shots for actors and with a wife who hated his guts and refused to allow him to sell what little jewelry her mom had left her to facilitate a move."
Bella sighed, her heart hurting for the woman sitting in front of her. "Rose…"
"In the end, we were left with nothing but our hatred for one another," Rose finished her sad tale. "So I know it sounds cold and I know it probably makes me a bad person but, no, I do not mourn the loss of my husband."
Though Bella said nothing, in that moment she could fully understand Rose. Where she'd had difficulties facing the different expectations her dad and herself had of what her life should entail, her own struggles were nothing compared to the loveless life Rose had known. Was it strange that it had left her unable to connect with another person on a friendly level? It was clear that Rosalie McCarty did feel affection, deep down underneath it all. Time and trials had just made it harder for her to connect with the softer side of herself.
Right then, a shot startled both women; Bella's heart skipping beats in time with the pops that sounded below their feet.
Pang.
Pang. Pang.
Pang.
Then…silence.
Thoughts?