[Disclaimer] Everything Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer
[A/N] Welcome to a new update, my dear readers. Thank you for your lovely reviews. Without your support, I could never do this.
The chapter below is dedicated to lissie boo and LovaticFever.
**38**
The alarm clock on Bella's nightstand showed her that it was just after 4 a.m. She sat up straight in her bed, wiping some beads of sweat from her forehead. Her heart was pounding in her chest. Bella knew that it would be impossible for her to go back to sleep. Not after this horrible nightmare, she had woken up from. She couldn't stop thinking about the dream.
In the dream, Rose or more precisely a tiny version of Rose was hiding under a table while a camera kept on clicking, blinding the girl with its bright light. Again and again, Bella reached out her hand to little Rose but the girl only backed off. "Help me." she whispered and that was the moment Bella had woken up, covered in sweat.
With a deep sigh, she tried to shake off the dark images from her mind. She got up, went to the bathroom at the end of the corridor and splashed some icy water into her overheated face.
She was still shocked, almost traumatized by the terrible things Rose had confessed to her. How could something like this happen to someone she knew? More so, how could Rosalie's mother let such a thing happen to her own child? There could only be one reason why. Lucy had no idea what kind of monster she had chosen to manage her daughter's so-called career.
Bella tiptoed back to her room, but then she turned around once more and opened the door to Resha's bedroom. There she was. Sleeping curled up on her side with her thumb in her mouth. For a couple of minutes, Bella stood there, watching her sleeping daughter. It filled her with an inner peace to see her child safe.
"Mommy?" the little girl groaned, blinking tiredly. "Is it morning yet?"
"No, sweetie," Bella whispered, stepping closer to Resha's bed to sit down on its edge. "It's not morning yet. Go back to sleep."
Resha hummed and snuggled closer against her mother. "I'm so tired."
"I know, honey. Just go back to sleep. I'll keep you safe." Bella continued caressing the girl's hair with her fingertips until Resha's breathing got slower again.
"My big girl. I can't believe you'll be seven in a few days." Bella mumbled, pulling the blanket over Resha again. Instantly the girl kicked it off again. Maybe she was too warm.
Bella got up and went downstairs, trying to distract herself by flipping through the TV channels. The crap that was on in the early morning hours was simply awful. She was just about to drift back into some kind of half-asleep state of mind, when her cell started vibrating and a new message popped up on the screen.
"Good Morning, Bella." It read. "Call me when you get up, whenever you get up. E."
Bella groaned. She had never truly been a morning person. Why the hell was Agent Masen texting her at such an early hour?
After getting up and starting the coffee machine in the kitchen, she sat down again and dialed Edward Masen's number.
"Hello, Bella." He greeted her, picking up at the second ring. "You are up early."
"So, are you, Edward." Bella mumbled, stretching her legs under the kitchen table.
"I suffer from a pretty bad form of insomnia." Edward told her. "But what about you?"
"It doesn't matter. Can you tell me why you wanted me to call you back?"
He cleared his throat and sighed deeply before he spoke up again. "You seemed very affected when we spoke the last time. Tell me, Bella are you familiar with the suspect Royce King?"
Bella could barely manage to hold back the hatred in her voice when she responded. "Not very well," she confessed. If she had known what kind of disgusting sicko that man was, she had killed him as soon as an opportunity had presented itself to her.
She was a cop. To take the law into her own hands was something she had never thought much about. But how could she let Royce get away with what the bastard had done to Rose?
"Bella, are you still there?"
"Yes," Bella whispered. "I'm sorry. It's still a bit too early for me."
A loud honk reached her ears. "It's alright. Look, I'm in my car now. Can we talk later at the police station?"
"You're coming to Forks?" Bella asked, standing up to fill a mug with steaming hot black coffee. "Why?"
"We'll talk about the why, when you are awake. I'll see you in two hours."
xxxx
Bella was nipping on her second coffee while she flipped through some paperwork at the police station. She was glad that today was Charlie's day off. How should she explain a visit from an FBI agent to her suspicious father?
When Edward entered the building he looked way too put together for someone who had gotten up in the middle of the night. His reddish brown hair was tamed back with some gel and there was a self-satisfied smile on his face.
"Good Morning, Bella. Isn't it a beautiful morning?"
"Maybe somewhere else." She mumbled. "Do you want some coffee?"
"Just some water, please. Am I keeping you away from anything important?"
Bella rolled her eyes as soon as he turned her back to Edward to get him a bottle of water from the refrigerator.
"This is a small town. We don't have much crime going on here."
"That's good. I like small towns." Edward opened the bottle and sipped on the water. His eyes fell on the picture of Resha, Bella had placed on her desk.
"Your daughter?" he asked, taking a second sip from his drink.
"Yes, that's my Resha. She's going to turn seven next Saturday." Bella sat down on the table, pushing a pile with old files to the side.
"You're quite young to be the mother of a seven-year-old. But you being a mother explains a lot why you are so affected by these…awful things."
"I'm not affected." Bella snapped. "I'm repulsed in a way I don't have words for it. To think that someone might…someone could do such a thing to my own child…"
Bella found herself swallowing hard, when Edward gently pressed his forefinger against her temple. "You need to stop thinking like a mother. Think like a cop. That's what you are. Right?"
"I'm a mother too." She stated. "But you are right. This affects me more than it probably should." Especially after what Rosalie had told her. In her mind Bella had already come up with several scenarios about how to kill Royce King in the cruelest ways.
Edward nodded his head. "It's alright. If things don't affect us, it means we stopped being human."
Bella swallowed dryly. "Is King still behind bars?"
"For now, he his." Edward sipped on his water again. "I had a rather interesting conversation with Lucy Hale last night."
"About Royce King?" Bella asked. "Don't tell me she wants to bail that fucker out of jail. She can't do that!"
"If she manages to bring up 50.000 bucks, she could. Now, tell me, how well do you know Mrs. Hale?"
Bella sighed. "She's my girlfriend's mother. Lucy is the most arrogant, annoying person I met in my life. Her husband was such a nice, down-to-earth guy. At least that's what my Dad always told me."
Edward's mouth twitched into a half-sided grin. "Your father knew Lucy's husband?"
"They were partners before Jasper was killed." Bella told Edward, gulping down the rest of her new lukewarm coffee. It left an unpleasant bitter aftertaste in her mouth.
"He was killed? By whom?"
"They never managed to find them," Bella said, "I'm reworking his case because I hope to find his killer."
Edward nodded. "Maybe I could try to help you with it. Can you show me the file?"
"Sure, why not." Bella told him. She hesitated to trust Masen. Yet, it was so very obvious he had more experience with capital crimes than she most likely would ever have.
"He was killed by a bullet through his temple. They found a footprint…oh and the ear-ring. It is the reason why I was in Port Angeles at that jewelry store."
Edward murmured something unintelligible. "You think a woman killed him?"
"No, I don't think so." Bella said. "The killer had to be tall, too tall actually for a woman."
Edward flipped through the pages of the folder. "Why do you think, he knew his killer, man or woman, whoever it was?"
"Wouldn't he have defended himself, if someone would have tried to attack him?" Bella asked, leaning forward to read the information in the file, she already knew by heart.
"Maybe they surprised him. Are you sure, it was two people at the crime scene?"
Bella shrugged her shoulders. "Well, the footprint they found obviously belonged to a guy. Then there's the ear-ring."
Edward pulled out one of the Polaroid's and held it up against the light. "This ear-ring doesn't prove there was a woman present."
"You can't know that." Bella stated. "Maybe the killer had a woman with him, a lover maybe or…someone who was there to help him."
"You think a man with a loaded gun needed his girlfriend with him to hold his hand? Oh my, Bella, you really still have a lot to learn about thinking like a police officer."
Bella crossed her arms in front of her chest. She hated how Agent Masen always managed to make her feel like she was completely unprofessional at her job. He was a jerk who hadn't been put in his place for far too long.
"I didn't mean to offend you." Edward said, noticing the frown on Bella's face. "You have good instincts. But you need to think more rationally."
Bella took the Polaroid picture from Edward and turned it around in her hand. "Why would a guy have a pearl-earring with him? That doesn't make any sense."
"Maybe it was supposed to be a gift for his lover. Women do like jewelry, don't they?" Edward asked, flipping through the folder again.
"This is a strange theory." Bella stated. "I'm sure there were two people present at the crime scene."
"You are not sure, Deputy Swan." Edward told her in such an arrogant voice, she felt tempted to run her fingernails down his perfectly clean-shaven chin. Agent Masen was so incredibly sure of himself. It was unbearable.
"Neither are you. Why do you think, Hale's killer was alone? You don't have any proof on that theory."
"Bella, you don't have any evidence for the presence of a second person other than an ear-ring. It doesn't proof anything."
Bella nodded her head. He was right. God, how much she hated that Edward was right. The ear-ring was just an ear-ring.-
"Are you alright, Bella?" Edward whispered, sounding concerned now. "You seem disappointed."
"Because I had a theory and a plan, now I have fucking nothing. Look, this case is important to me. Officer Hale was my girlfriend's father."
"Getting personally involved is never a good idea, Deputy Swan."
"Don't go all smartass on me. I can't stand that." Bella snapped angrily.
Edward closed the folder and handed it back to her. "Do you want me to fuck you?"
"What?" Bella was almost yelling now. "Are you insane? How dare you—"
He laughed. The fucker actually dared to laugh about her. "I wouldn't want you to fuck me, if you and I happened to be the last two people on earth."
Edward laughed some more, the skin around his eyes wrinkling into fine laugh-lines. "See, if you don't want me to be your fuck-buddy…and it's not like I would say no to that chance."
"You're a chauvinistic pig." Bella snarled. "I hate you."
"Save your feelings for someone who cares about them. If you want me to fuck you, I'll be all sweet with you. Otherwise, if you want me to help you with this case, I'll be as hard on you as I see fit."