I could barely stand Newton's smugness on the way back to the station that first day we went to the Cullen's house.

"Honestly, Swan, what did you think you were going to find? Did you think you were going to stumble on a Freddy Kruger glove with the blood of all the victims on it?"

I was embarrassed and defensive. "No, asshole, I just…" I trailed off. I'd just what? Had a weird gut feeling that there was more to that Cullen kid than met the eye? Been so hot for him I needed to bring a change of undies every time I saw him? I had known the flickering of my intuition was a long shot, but I owed it to myself to pursue it. "I just hoped he or the doctor could, you know, help or something. What's it to you anyway?"

Back at the station I pushed papers around for the rest of the day, making absolutely no progress on anything. I recalled the dump sites where we'd found each of the bodies. They were rural—meadows and ditches, out in nature. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine the man I now knew as Edward Cullen out in the elements, but somehow I just couldn't. He seemed so prissy and fussy. It was hard to imagine him blood-soaked and messy, but then again I had seen him angry or having some kind of emotional attack or whatever. So I returned to my original assessment—there was more to Edward Cullen than was obvious on the surface.

I felt like shit by the time I got home and had zero ambition to cook. I popped a frozen dinner in the microwave, the kind my dad always used to eat, and zoned out as it rotated on the plate, 'cooking' from the inside out.

Humans always make mistakes—serial killers and detectives alike. The killer was bound to trip up sooner or later. No crime scene was truly clean; there were always footprints, bent grass, fingerprints, tire tracks, a DNA exchange, not to mention the evidence caused by the murder weapon and any paraphernalia found at the scene. But what happens when there are no clues and no outside motive?

Clearly we had just missed something; something small that would start a domino effect.

While we waited for forensics to get back to us about our last vic, the team decided to leave no stone unturned and interviewed the friends and families of the victims again.

I dressed casually the evening I was due to interview the friends of 'Saffire,' who was the prostitute and the second victim. I slipped my gun into my shoulder holster, shrugged into my leather jacket, draped my badge around my neck and zipped the coat over it. I locked my apartment and walked down the stairs at the end of the open corridor that led to the back of my building.

It had been raining all day, and I shivered in the cool evening air. I quickly texted Mike to make my whereabouts known as I drove downtown near the apartment building where Saffire and three of her friends lived. Two of the girls had been downright hostile when Mike and I showed up the first time. We got little information from them, but the youngest girl had been helpful, so I had arranged to meet with 'Shandi' at a nearby fast food restaurant before her pimp expected her on the street. I knew it was incredibly likely that she might not show at all, but she had seemed genuinely concerned for her lost friend.

Thirty minutes later, the two of us sat inside the cab of my car as she voraciously ate the cheap meal I'd bought her.

"Fanks," she said around a mouthful of cheeseburger.

I nodded and smiled as I reached into the backseat to extract the manila accordion folder from my bag. I couldn't help but feel sorry for this girl. She was too young to be so involved in this life. Despite the fact that it was a cool summer evening, she asked if I would put the heater on and angled the vents to blow on her damp hair. She was rain-soaked and dressed in clothing that revealed her…assets—a skirt that was barely legal and a low cut tank top that revealed the top of her push up bra. I could see the track marks down her arm.

"Thanks for meeting with me. I know it goes against everything to meet with a cop, but I don't want to arrest you. I want to solve Saffire's murder."

Shandi nodded. "Her real name was Justine. We just called her Saffire because she had blue eyes and a temper."

I clicked my pen and began to scribble some notes on my yellow legal pad. "A temper? Did she have any enemies? Did she stiff her pimp or have any weird johns that seemed interested in her?"

The girl shook her head and shoved two French fries in her mouth. "Nuh-uh, she always paid Ricky, they never got into it or anything. If she had some john after her, she didn't say nothin'."

I kept writing. "What about her money, what did she spend it on? Blow? Crank? Snow?"

Shandi paused, taking a drink of her soda. "No way, not Justine. She has a son in Idaho. He lives with her parents. She sends…er, sent money home to him. She always dreamed about making it back. She was on her way to the Western Union station when she… didn't come back."

It was such a typical story, but it made it no less cruel. "So what about her family? Were they estranged? Angry?"

She shrugged. "Sorta. I mean, most of us aren't tight with our families anymore, but they weren't hateful or nothin'. I don't think she ever visited or anything."

I was fairly certain I could rule out the family, and I wasn't sure if she was telling the truth about their pimp or not, but that wouldn't explain how Justine came to know the homeless guy or the most recent vic.

Opening the folder, I shuffled through the pictures and produced photos of the two men. "Either of these guys look familiar?"

She took another bite of her sandwich and looked over the two pictures. I knew it wasn't the most appetizing thing to see over dinner, but she studied them carefully. "I don't think so? I mean, some days I see a lot of guys and I just sorta block them out, ya know?"

I nodded, but in reality I had no idea.

"Do you think she might have hid stuff from you and your room mates?"

She shrugged again and popped some more fries in her mouth. "Maybe? I don't think so though. We're all we have. We're like family, and there's nothing we can't tell one another."

I scribbled down more notes. It made sense, and I felt some small amount of relief to know they were taking care of each other. I finished and fished one of my business cards out of my folder and handed it to Shandi.

"Here, take this. If you think of anything else, or if you ever need anything—dinner, a safe place, or whatever, call me."

She pasted a tight smile on her face and took the card, tucking it into the small drawstring clutch around her wrist. "Thanks, and good luck on your case. I hope you catch the guy."

I didn't have any luck with Shandi, and the rest of the team didn't have any luck with their investigations either. There was no discernable connection between the victims—they didn't know the same people, didn't visit the same places, didn't live in the same part of the city, weren't the same religion, or anything else that often tied the victims of serial killers together. We were at a dead end again.

And Edward Cullen still floated in and out of my mind. I kept replaying the first day I'd seen him over and over. I couldn't shake the overwhelming fear I'd felt in his presence, nor could I force his smoldering gaze from my memory. My instinct and intuition kept telling me there was something more to him, and I owed it to myself and this investigation to follow up on it.

Four days after my initial visit to the Cullen home, I returned.

Alone.

"You're so stupid," I mumbled to myself as I sat in the Cullens' driveway in the cruiser. I had no idea why I was here. No clue at all.

A flash of Edward Cullen's smirk came unbidden into my mind.

I shuddered. I knew exactly what I was doing here.

"And now you're talking to yourself, idiot. You're lucky the Cullens can't hear you." I took a deep breath, holding it in my lungs until it was tight and uncomfortable, and I was forced to let it out in a rush before rapidly draw in another gulp of warm air. I flung the car door open before I could back down and climbed out, grabbing my folder from my bag.

As with my last visit, the house looked perfect and deserted. It looked like the listing photo for a real estate website. But my mind was too busy berating me for my idiocy to notice randomousity now when I was so close to seeing him. My body seemed prepared for some kind of fight or flight response—my heart was racing, the muscles in my stomach were tight, and my breathing was shallow. I trudged, heavy-footed, toward the door and reached out with a shaky hand to ring the bell.

I tried to swallow my nervous energy, to force it deep within my core and convert it to something useful: assertion, focus, or not wetting my undies.

The door was answered three seconds after I'd rung the bell; there was no rush of pounding feet to get to the door or random voice yelling "I'll get it!" No, it was if they'd been standing on the other side of the door awaiting me and paused for the appropriate length of time before opening the door.

One of Dr. Cullen's daughters stood across the threshold from me—Alice, I think. She was pretty and feminine, but in a girlish way. Her figure was slight and her pixie-cut hair style made her look even more cherubic and sweet. She had a polite smile on her face, but there was something off in her expression. Fear? Worry? Concern?

"Hello, Detective Swan, please come in."

She stepped aside, swinging the door open wider behind her, but I was still forced to pass quite close to her. I couldn't help but notice that the perfume she wore smelled amazing. "Thank you, Ms. Cullen, could I speak to your father and brother please?"

Before I could reach into my bag to produce my notepad and pen, the doctor was standing there in his scrubs and lab coat. I jumped, startled at his proximity; I hadn't heard him approach.

"I'm sorry to have startled you, detective. Please come in." He gestured toward the living room, and Alice smiled encouragingly.

"Is Edward here too? I was hoping to follow up with both of you," I offered, pushing my fear aside and taking a seat on the edge of the sofa in the living room. I clicked my pen open and set my notepad on my lap.

I didn't miss Dr. Cullen's eyes dart toward Alice who was lurking at the edge of the room before he spoke. "I'm sorry, he isn't here. Can I be of some help?"

I chewed on the end of my pen as I leaned forward and let my elbows rest on my knees. "Hmm," I mumbled around the pen in my mouth. "I was really hoping to speak to both of you and see if either of you had any thoughts since we last met. When will Edward be home?"

Neither the doctor nor his daughter spoke for a long moment, but they held one another's gaze before the doctor cleared his throat and addressed me. "My son has gone on a retreat to our family home in Alaska."

Wait. What?

He's on the lam! my mind screamed as I furiously scribbled some notes on my legal pad.

"Retreat? Should I be concerned? Is there any particular reason he left the state after a police officer questioned him about a murder investigation?" I looked expectantly at the doctor and waited for a response.

"No, there's no cause for concern on your end, but should there be cause for concern on our end? Is Edward a suspect?" His voice was cool and calm, no hint of panic.

I tapped my pen on the legal pad. "No, not necessarily. It just seems an odd time to run, doesn't it? Can you see how that might be cause for suspicion?"

The doctor folded his hands and let out a sigh. I took that as a sign of acknowledgment. The cushion sank next to me on the couch, and I looked over to find his daughter sitting next to me.

She opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it abruptly. She repeated the process another time before turning to meet my eyes and ruffled up her short hair a bit. "Detective, you'd have to know my brother. He's a—how should I say it? A… a drama queen. He's moody, solitary, and to be honest, quite depressed. Sometimes he just needs time to himself. We know exactly where he is, we could get in touch with him in a heartbeat, and he'd fly home tomorrow if need be. There's nothing to worry about."

Her eyes were glittering liquid gold pools, and I found myself slightly lost in their alluring depths. "Oh, okay," I heard myself mumble as I nodded. I felt…buzzed or something, like I'd had a glass of wine for lunch. I shook my head and looked away, seeking some distraction from her mysterious orbs.

I pulled a card from my folder and stood, handing it to the doctor. "Fair enough, please contact me when Edward gets back in town. I really would like to follow up—with both you and your son."

After excusing myself from the Cullen home, I returned to my car and went for a long drive. I didn't know why my thoughts kept returning to Edward. Was I merely scared to acknowledge my strange attraction to this even stranger boy, or was there something more there? I had absolutely nothing to go on. I could admit that, but I couldn't place why I felt nervous and agitated around him. I couldn't place why I longed to see him again either. That wasn't like me. I learned to suppress real feelings about people a long time ago. You couldn't count on humans to stick around with any permanence. They left you. They died.

I spent the rest of the night in the bar and stayed until closing time.

Author's Note:Epic thanks to Kisbydog & Reamhar from Project Team Beta for their hard work!

PLEASE leave me some love. I'll give out spoilers ;-)