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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

4:00 PM

"Angela!" Edward gasped, using the feeble light pouring in through the tiniest of windows to reach her.

She was leaning against the wall, her eyes half closed as she appeared to be slipping out of consciousness.

But still alive, thankfully.

It was only when he was almost to her that he slipped, noticing how blood was pouring from two large gashes ripped right across her wrists. It was a slow death…a death meant to lure them in and trap the three of them there.

"You…came." Angela breathed, each word coming out in a labored gasp.

"We couldn't leave you here all alone, now could we?" Edward answered, trying to make his voice sound as light and comforting as he could as he untied his belt and used it to tie off one of her arms. Ripping off a strip of fabric from his shirt, he was quick to stop the bleeding on her other wrist as well.

It was in vain, he knew, as did the poor woman. Too much blood had already been drained from her body.

But at least it was something he could try to save her life.

"I never expected it…to be…her," Angela went on, her voice slurred as she started to slip out of their world. "I thought…Esme."

"She got to them as well," Edward enlightened her. "The soup you gave them had poison in it. Funny enough, we actually thought it was you when we found them."

"Funny…" Angela panted, before her head rolled sideways.

She was gone.

Jasper, meanwhile, had occupied himself with the door and, more importantly, any way it could be opened. So far, he was having no luck. In the end, sheer desperation won out as he drew his gun and fired three quick shots into the unyielding door. The wood must have been thicker and sturdier than they thought, as the damn thing didn't even seem to shake with the force of impact while their ears were popping with the deafening echoes. "Why the hell would Carlisle have a door this sturdy in his damn basement?" Jasper grunted as he pushed his shoulder against the wood in vain. "It's not like he's guarding the bullion depository in here!"

"He must really like his wine, then," Edward grumbled, looking around at the shelves, stocked with rows and rows of bottles. Anything not to look towards the woman slumped at his feet.

"Is she dead yet?" The sound of a disembodied voice coming from the other side of the door shocked both men. Jasper stumbled back from the door as his hand clenched around his gun while Edward sprang to his feet, poised and ready to strike. "Poor little Angela. She never suspected me!"

"Show yourself, you damn bitch!" Jasper snarled at the heavy door.

"No, I don't think I shall," Mrs. Cope spoke coyly. "I think I'll head upstairs first to make sure the grieving widows join their dead husbands on the other side. It's not good for a man to stay alone, even if, in their cases, they would be better off without those stinking whores!"

"Leave them alone!" Edward growled, the door creaking on its hinges as he slammed his body against it with all his force.

"No…I can't do that, I'm afraid." Her laughter chilled Edward and Jasper to the bone. It was evil and malicious and sounded so sinister it would have frightened even the bravest of men. "Now if only they would have left my Michael alone, I might have had mercy on them. But no."

"But Bella never hurt him!" Edward yelled, her words giving him a slight spark of hope. "If you want to get to the ones that hurt him, take me! I must have made a joke out of him a million times a day!" He panted, his fists slamming against the door in despair. "But Bella was always nice to him, even if we weren't. And Esme wasn't even around back then!"

But his words merely echoed into an empty corridor, as footsteps disappeared from behind the wood that kept them prisoners.

"No!" Edward desperately screamed, a sharp sting of pain shooting through his shoulder as he slammed against the door again. "Come back here, you bitch!" His heart was pounding furiously at the thought of Bella, virtually alone and protected only by two locked doors and a bunch of furniture.

If that woman somehow managed to get past those doors or, God forbid, smashed the French doors leading in from the patio, the women would be sitting ducks.

"We have to think of something," he panted as he turned his attention back to Jasper. "We have to get there before she—"

"We need to think, then," Jasper cut him off. "And I don't know about you but for me, thinking goes a hell of a lot better when there aren't people yelling in my ear."

"Well, boo-hoo!" Edward snarled. "Just try and see how well you'd do when the woman you've loved for over a decade is in danger!"

"That's why I've always been careful never to fall into any trap," Jasper snorted. "Whether laid to me by a killer or a woman looking to ensnare me into matrimony. It's kept me alive and relatively sane these past years."

As Edward continued to metaphorically climb the walls like a caged animal, Jasper retreated within himself, tapping his chin as he thought out loud. "So it all seems to be connected to Newton's death somehow. Strange, since I'm pretty damn sure the poor sod killed himself."

Pausing his pacing for a minute, Edward shot him a desperate gaze. "We all are, aren't we?"

Jasper shrugged. "Some of us a little more so than others."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Edward growled. "And just for your information: we don't have time to pussyfoot around with a killer running rampant through this building. Hell, if you don't care about the women, think about what that bitch is going to do to you when she's done upstairs!"

"Hold your horses, man!" Jasper chuckled nervously. "I'm just trying to remember…"

"Well, make haste, then," Edward pressed, crossing his arms in front of his chest as he stared Jasper down.

The other man let out a sigh, rubbing his eyes before finally explaining himself. "My dressing room was right next to Mike's," he confessed, "so when Bella fainted, I heard her crash onto the floor and ran out to see what was happening."

"Were you the one who called the police?" Edward asked, vainly trying to remember the little details of that night. The truth was, though, that by the time Mike's death had been discovered, he had already been well and truly on his way to drunkenness after realizing earlier that night that in his quest for greatness, he'd destroyed the one thing in his life that had truly given him joy.

Jasper shook his head. "I got Carlisle. There was this stuff Mike had written on his mirror. It was kind of heavy shit so I wanted the old man to have a look at it and see what he wanted done about it."

"You erased it, didn't you?" Edward asked, his voice accusing. "How could you do that? There might have been clues the police could have used!"

"It was nothing, okay!" Jasper defended himself, his voice rising with both guilt and frustration as he thought back. "Just some bullshitting about how he was going to come back from the grave to haunt us." Huffing, he kicked the unyielding door before he added, "In fact: Carlisle erased it to save all of your skins, since Mike's message would have exposed you all as his bullies—me included, by the way." With another deep sigh, he added. "Look, I know what we did was wrong, okay? But even though I don't know the exact words on that damn mirror, I know all of that shit clearly pointed to him killing himself."

"And now Mrs. Cope is out for revenge," Edward concluded, leaning his body against the clammy stone wall as he closed his eyes. "What do you think her connection to him is?"

"If only I knew." Jasper's words lingered in the air as the eyes of both men were drawn back to the slumped figure of Angela Weber.

A web of lies...

A huge web of intrigue and festering resentments had brought them to Belmont. But where the others may have just thought of slitting on another's throat at times, one person had actually made plans to kill them off: one by one.

Until there were none.

It was still hard to imagine how someone apparently as inconspicuous as Mrs. Cope had managed to run rampant through the house as she executed her deadly plan. Though, as Edward reflected on that thought, it may have been that very inconspicuousness that had allowed her to do so.

After all, although he considered himself a rather modern man for his times, he still had a hard time considering a woman able to perform the kind of savage acts that had been committed under Carlisle's roof that weekend.

A woman…

"I've got it!" He suddenly cried, pushing away from the wall as he found his way back to Angela's corpse, crouching beside her body as he gently felt through the woman's hair. "Hairpin!" he announced, holding his trophy up as if he'd just received an academy award.

Jasper chuckled. "Now why didn't I think of that?"

"I suppose we were both focused on brute strength instead of good old cunningness," Edward answered, his lips pressed together in sheer determination as he wriggled the little pin inside the lock until a very satisfactory click was heard.

As they ran through the dark corridor, the panic Edward had been feeling all day had not abated; not even slightly. But as his footsteps brought him closer to the stairs, he did feel some hope in the thought that he hadn't heard any shots being fired…nor any screams.

Which meant that he might still be able to save his Bella.

Thoughts?