Disclaimer: I do not own anything from the collective works of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga

Know Thy Enemy

"Someone sent you the charred remains of a bird nine years ago?" Louisa managed to ask. Jasper had gone so still next to her that she was positive that he had stopped breathing. Her hand sought out Jasper's before she was aware of it, their fingers intertwining. His grip was so tight he was cutting off the circulation to her fingers, but she was reluctant to bring it to his attention. The pain helped ground her and focus her scrambled mind.

Sergeant Todd let out a massive sigh and slid farther down into his chair. He raised a hand to his face, rubbing his eyes. "My pet cat, actually. Though he didn't set it on fire. That's new."

No one seemed to know what to do with this information and the room fell into an uncomfortable silence. Dottie, having had enough of the tense atmosphere, excused herself, and wandered into the kitchen to make tea. Louisa almost wanted to follow her. Instead, she closed her eyes, her brain conjuring up the numerous police reports filed in Forks that she had read. Most were minor things like traffic violations or petty theft. Some were more serious, like domestic violence or possession of drugs. In 2002, eighty-three-year-old Mrs Parkington filed a complaint against her six-year-old neighbour who she believed was possessed by the devil. But nobody had reported someone killing their cat that she could find. That alone was odd: why would he not have made a police report? Louisa was no expert on Washington's animal welfare laws, but she was sure that killing someone's cat was illegal. The absence of a police report wasn't the only thing that bothered her, though.

"You didn't live here," Louisa blurted out. "We looked up every person who owned this house since the Sweets and no one with the surname Todd ever lived here."

"You don't leave any stone unturned, do you?" Sergeant Todd gave an unamused chuckle and shook his head. "My maternal grandparents owned the house."

"Norman and Edith Hoffman?"

"We get it, Miss Collins," Todd replied with an eye roll. "You did your homework. I stayed here the summer between my senior year of high school and my first year of university with my younger brother. My parents sent us here while my dad was undergoing chemotherapy." His eyes were unfocused as he surveyed the room as if he was remembering what it had looked like nine years earlier. "I had heard about the murder, of course; in a town this small, who hadn't? My grandparents were the first to own the house after the Sweets moved out, and had lived there for several years by the time we joined them.

"My brother and I needed a distraction from what was going on with Dad, and solving a mystery seemed like something that would keep us busy. We spent a lot of time in the library, researching the murder." He huffed, a smile tugging at his lips. "The librarian must have thought that we were up to something, with how often the two of us were there."

She could imagine. Two teens in the library during the summer did seem weird. And considering how rare it was to see newcomers in such an isolated town like Forks, Louisa probably would have been suspicious too.

"Not too long after that, the 'hauntings' started. Things would go missing, only to be found in odd places (if we found them at all). We'd hear footsteps upstairs, talking in another room, crying. The stereotypical sort of thing. Then it began to escalate. There'd be movement in the walls, breathing. On more than one occasion, we'd come home, only to find that all our research had been either stolen or destroyed. Once, after a shower, green slime leaked from the vents." Todd shivered at the memory, and even across the room, Louisa could see the hair on the back of his arms stand on end.

"We started finding notes too. Telling us to leave." At this, he reached into his jacket pocket and extracted an Altoids tin. He flipped open the lid and pulled out a weathered, folded up square of paper, which he handed to Chief Swan, who had been watching the young sergeant with an expression of horror. When it was passed to Louisa, she was disappointed to see that the words 'LEAVE NOW!' had been written in a chisel tip marker. How unoriginal.

"He's left-handed," Jasper noted, pointing at how the letters were smudged, even accounting for the age of the note. His chin was resting against her shoulder and he was holding her so tightly to his body it was beginning to hurt. "That at least can narrow down the suspect pool."

Louisa felt a strange sort of pride at his words and had to resist the urge to kiss him, choosing instead to inspect the note that had been passed to her, her finger tracing the letters on the paper. Her initial shock of Sergeant Todd's words began to recede as she inspected the note only to be replaced by suspicion; his story seemed almost too well rehearsed and convenient to her. If he had lived in the house and experienced the things that she had, why hadn't he reported it to anyone? Before he joined the Forks police department, there wasn't any record of him living in the city either. Not only that, be he had tried to stop the investigation of Anna's murder on more than one occasion, yet now he was claiming that he had once tried to solve it?

The note itself was odd too. Jasper was correct when he said that it had been written by a left-hander, but a quick glance at Sergeant Todd told her that he was ambidextrous. He could just as easily written the note himself and the capital letters would also help to disguise his handwriting. And then there was the odd feeling that emanated from the note: it was hard to describe, but it felt almost anxious as if Sergeant Todd carrying it around for nine years had left an emotional thumbprint on it. Or was it because he had written the note and was nervous that they would find out? It wasn't that difficult to distress a piece of paper. And then there was the timing of it all. He just happened to be carrying this piece of paper with him at all times?

She handed the note back to Chief Swan, who placed it in an evidence bag. If the note was genuine she doubted that, given its age and the fact that everyone had handled it without gloves, that there would be any physical evidence left on it. Was the point? Or was she being paranoid?

"This is interesting, and all," Louisa said. "But a dead cat is different than a vaguely threatening note. What would have caused the escalation?"

"We were close, I think," Todd explained. "We must have been. We figured out what Collins did: that Anna knew her attacker, that he was probably older than she was, and that he most likely had some sort of position of authority over her. We knew that she came from a religious family, so we theorized that he might have been a youth leader or some sort.

"Then my cat went missing. We had brought her with us for the summer because Mom was worried about animals around my dad's weakened immune system. Poppy hated the rain and never went outside, so we knew something was wrong when we came home from the library one day and she was gone. She wouldn't have run away." Todd lapsed into silence, looking down at his hands. "The next morning, when my grandfather went to get the morning paper, he found a box on the front porch, and inside was Poppy. Or what was left of her, I suppose. Granddad wouldn't let me see her, but it wasn't pretty, from what I've gathered.

Louisa was so engrossed with Sergeant Todd's tale that she had completely missed that Dottie had re-entered the room until she let out a strangled sob. She disentangled herself from Jasper and moved to sit next to her sister, pulling her into a hug.

"My grandparents wrote it off as a cruel prank. But that night, I found this on my pillow." He pulled out a picture from the Altoids can and unfolded it, passing it around the room. It was a picture of two teens: a young Sergeant Todd and a younger boy who could only be Todd's brother. They were walking parallel to the photographer, and the brothers appeared to be conversing with each other. It was clear from the photo that whoever had taken it had done so without the two's knowledge. The younger boy's face had been circled in black marker and written underneath in the same block letters were the words, 'HE'S NEXT.'

"We dropped the investigation after that. My brother moved back in with our parents and I left for university."

You could have heard a pin drop, the room was so silent. Nobody seemed to know what to say or how to even react. Even Dottie had stopped crying, save for a few stray tears that rolled down her cheeks.

"Why is this the first I'm hearing of this?" Chief Swan demanded. "Why didn't you report this nine years ago?" A valid point. Louisa was almost relieved that he had brought it up if only so she didn't sound paranoid herself.

"And risk something happening to my brother?" Sergeant Todd replied with a scoff.

A logical reply.

"Why did you come back then?" Jasper asked. "If you were worried about your brother's safety, why did you return? Surely he would have recognised you."

"It was a calculated risk. I heard that this house had been bought by the Seattle girl," Todd explained, turning to look at Louisa. "I had to stop you from investigating. You've fought me, every step of the way. But now you know." He sat forward in the chair, his elbows resting on his knees as he watched Louisa with an imploring expression. "This will be your final warning. You need to drop this. We all do."

That hardly made sense: how would a total stranger know that she would try to solve the Sweet murder? Even if he was concerned about the case being solved, he could have stayed away from Forks. He would have been safe until everything had blown over as he had done for the previous nine years. Instead, he involved himself in the investigation even further. If he hadn't been a target before, he had might as well have painted a bulls-eye on his back by returning to Forks.

And now he wanted them to drop the whole investigation, especially when they were so close? Louisa didn't think it was possible. Besides the need for long, overdue justice, didn't he want to know who killed Anna? Was he not curious? Did it not keep him awake at night, running over theories as it did her? How could he live with themselves, with the knowledge that he had let a murderer walk free? A murderer who could murder again?

"No." It was Jasper who said this. The occupants of the room jumped at the sound of his voice, which had taken on a commanding, almost threatening tone.

Todd looked up at her boyfriend in surprise before a look of annoyance flashed across his face. "Look, son—" he began.

"No," Jasper repeated, this time more emphatically than the last. "We won't be 'dropping' the matter. You want to protect your brother, fine. Be a coward and run. But I won't be cowed into submission by a man who doesn't have the fortitude to confront me." He rose at this and moved to stand behind Louisa, placing his hands on her shoulders. His thumbs dug into her skin as he massaged her shoulders with a little too much force to be comfortable.

"The best thing would be for him to be behind bars. We'll be walking around, looking over our shoulders in fear for the rest of our lives, if we don't," Louisa agreed.

"Think of your sister," Todd snapped, pointing needlessly at Dottie. "This man could go after her next. Do you not care? Are you really so arrogant to believe that you are untouchable?"

It was a dirty move, using Dot's safety against her. She looked down at her sister still wrapped in her arms, whose face was tear-stained and bloodless, and for the first time since she began investigating the Sweet murder, she felt a strong thrum of guilt at her actions. Her little sister was terrified. What kind of sister would Louisa be, if she didn't do everything in her power to protect Dot? Sure, solving the case would mean a murder would be off the streets but was solving this really protecting her sister? It clearly caused her emotional distress. Would the man harm Dottie if Louisa continued investigating like Sergeant Todd implied he might?

"We can take Louisa off the case," Chief Swan suggested.

"And what good will that do?" Todd asked. "He already knows that she's been investigating it. Even if she stops, he would think it was a bluff. She's already a target."

Was that a threat or a fact? Her stomach rolled when she realised she couldn't tell.

"Then we solve it," Louisa said, finding her voice at last. "We're a target already, whether I stop or not. The faster we solve it, the faster it goes away." It sounded naïve to her own ears, but still, she persisted. "Look, I don't like it any more than you do, Sergeant, but this new development proves to us that we are on the right track. He's panicking now."

"Panicked people act irrationally," Chief Swan pointed out. "He could lash out and hurt you."

Louisa was thankful for the tight grip Jasper had on her shoulders, otherwise, she would have leapt across the room to grab Chief Swan and shake him vigorously, shouting 'Whose side are you on?' Instead, she took a calming breath, gritted her teeth, and allowed Jasper to lower her blood pressure before she had a stroke.

"Panicked people also make mistakes," Jasper explained for her.

"I think he's already made a big one," Louisa pointed out, reaching up to give Jasper's had an appreciative squeeze. Chief Swan and Sergeant Todd turned their eyes to her, staring at her in confusion and annoyance. "He knows that we are investigating the case, sure, but it hasn't been publicised that I have been included in it. The only way he could know that is if he knows me."

"He did have cameras throughout your house," Chief Swan pointed out. "Of course he knew that you were involved."

Jasper shook his head. "Not necessarily. He knew that she used to be. Sure, small-town gossip might have seen her hanging around the police station, but there is no reason for them to know how involved she is."

"And nobody knows how close we actually might be to solving the murder. They might know we're investigating it but not much more than that," Chief Swan conceded.

"The only people who could know that I am involved are the people who I've interacted with," Louisa explained.

"You've already spoken to him," Chief Swan breathed.

It was a frustrating realisation. It felt like they were standing in a dark room, holding nothing but a candle, and every time they lit a new one, they could see that the room was even bigger than they had previously thought. All they could do was fumble around, hoping to stumble upon what they were looking for, all the while not knowing if it was safe.

Chief Swan had her write down a list of everyone she had spoken to about the investigation, everyone who she had interviewed. It was simultaneously too long and alarmingly short. She hadn't spoken to too many people, yet it was long enough that it could take weeks to rule anybody out. The worst part was, that most of the people who knew about her involvement she trusted.

Some people, like Dottie or Petya, were ruled out at once. Both lacked the motive, and in Petya's case, had a solid alibi in the four-hour drive between Tacoma and Forks. Jasper and the Cullens were also excluded, as none of them were in Forks when the murder occurred.

There were some of Anna's former teachers: Mr Mason, Coach Clapp, Mrs Tran, Mr Hewitt. They had been interviewed, but their motives for killing Anna were about as foggy as their recollections of her.

Ms Morales, Anna's mother, had been much more cooperative than her ex-husband in the investigation, but was it possible she was hiding important information? Has she been coerced into silence, like Sergeant Todd? Was that why Mr Sweet was so confrontational when they had approached him for an interview?

And then there was still Sergeant Todd, who looked sour at the prospect of continuing the investigation. Sure, he hadn't even been in Forks when the murder took place, but those notes could have been faked. Was he being blackmailed or was he hiding more? After all, who spent close to a decade hiding such a dangerous secret?

The arrival of a charred bird served two purposes that day: to unsettle Louisa and scare her away from the case and to introduce seeds of doubt into the entire investigation.

No Stone Left Unturned

Later that night, after the rest of the Collins had retired for the night, Louisa lay awake, waiting for Jasper to make an appearance. She didn't have to wait long. He arrived shortly before nine, appearing on the bed next to her. She peeled the covers down for him and he slipped in next to her, folding his body around her and resting his head on her chest. She ran her fingers through his hair, which normally would have elicited a purr from her boyfriend, but he remained quiet, intent to listen to her heart. Louisa figured he wasn't in the mood to speak— neither was she if she were to be honest.

"What happened in Seattle?" Jasper asked, at last, his voice soft.

Her hand froze for a brief second. She knew that the question was bound to come up at some point and she was surprised Jasper had waited so long to ask. She had told him bits and pieces, of course, but never discussed it at length with him. Not even Rosalie, who was as nosey as Louisa was herself, knew what had happened that day. He had respected her silence on the matter, but she knew he was curious, if only so that he could understand her better. But now that curiosity had morphed into concern. After witnessing her breakdown he was worried for her, and Louisa knew it wasn't fair to him, keeping him in the dark when he wanted nothing more than to help her.

Still, it didn't make reliving a traumatic event any less difficult.

She sat up, pulling her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on top, staring at the opposite wall while she considered her words. Jasper sat up with her and picked her up, depositing her in his lap, and wrapping his arms around her body.

"I first started on the Seattle case in late February of 2017. Women were disappearing from downtown— not any location in particular. We noticed that it was more likely to happen in places with higher homeless populations. The Seattle PD didn't even know that it was happening."

"But you did?"

"No," Louisa said slowly. "A man, Jason, who worked at a soup kitchen actually contacted me. He told me how two of his regulars hadn't shown up in a few weeks. He assumed that they were ill but when he asked around, he learned that nobody had seen them either. He had read about me in the newspaper and reached out." Louisa began to pick at the skin around her nails. "I went out to Seattle, took some notes, and left them for the Seattle PD. I didn't live there, so I figured I would let them handle it. About a month later, Mum and Laurie died."

She fell silent for so long that Jasper was sure she wasn't going to continue. He pressed a kiss to the back of her neck, hoping to ease some of her anxiety. Her body relaxed from the tight ball she had curled herself into and she turned in his lap to better face him, though she had trouble meeting his eyes. Her hands lifted to his shirt and began fiddling with it as she spoke, her voice distant.

"Once the shock wore off, I kind of went off the deep end. The adrenaline rush that I got reminded me that I was still alive. I needed something to distract myself and I latched onto the Seattle case."

"Sometimes it feels easier to fix another's problems than our own," Jasper conceded, pulling her to his chest. She went willingly, burrowing her head into his shoulder and taking in an unsteady breath. "So you went back to Seattle?"

"Pyotr would come with me if only to make sure I didn't do anything too stupid. The problem is, he's never been good at telling people no. He's more of a follower than a leader. Petya's only ever had me and his dad, and he gets overwhelmed trying to make his own choices," she explained, sadness and guilt lacing her voice.

Jasper carded his fingers through her hair and wrapped her in a blanket of comfort when he felt her anxiety rise. She gave him an appreciative smile and leaned up to press a soft kiss to his lips before sinking back down into his arms.

"In July, I decided to visit the soup kitchen and interview some of the people that were there. It was late afternoon when we arrived. We didn't even make it to the kitchen when a woman pulled us over. She told us how her friend had disappeared a few hours ago and that was out of character—the friend had a baby at home and wouldn't wander off. I should have called the police at that point, but I didn't. I went after the friend instead.

"We didn't know where the victims were kept, but we guessed that it had to be somewhere isolated enough that they wouldn't be discovered. I knew, somehow — and looking back, I guess it was the psychometry thing— that it was a warehouse, so we started checking every abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the city. It took hours, but we stumbled across it. I should have called the police then, but I didn't. My reasoning was that we didn't have time."

"The ultimate adrenaline rush," Jasper interjected. His body has stiffened beneath her, eyes widened with horror, and Louisa found herself rubbing a hand up and down his chest in an attempt to alleviate his distress. He took her face in his hands, forcing her to look at him. "Darling, that's reckless to the point of insanity."

She squirmed in his lap and he felt her discomfort flare. "I was just… I was in a bad place after Mum died."

That was putting it lightly, Jasper thought. Her actions sounded borderline suicidal. The thought caused his chest to constrict and he leaned forward to skim his nose along her jaw if only to remind himself that she was still safe. He wanted to interrogate her about her behaviour but that was a whole 'nuther bucket of possums. Broaching the subject would only cause her to shut down and he wanted to know what happened next.

Sighing heavily, he rested his head on her shoulder. "What happened then?"

"We broke into the warehouse. The woman was there, still alive. She wasn't even tied up, just lying there on one of those wood shipping pallets; Pyotr guessed it was because both of her ankles were broken. That's when he returned."

Jasper pulled away so that he could look at her, his brow furrowed. "The perpetrator?"

"It was the man from the soup kitchen. Jason Lambe."

"The one who brought the case to you?" Jasper asked, unable to stop himself. "Why? If nobody had linked the cases, why call attention to them at all?"

Despite the gravity of the conversation, Louisa had to laugh at his reaction. "I think he was bored, to be honest. It's like a game to them, I guess, only instead of game pieces, they use humans. Nobody was playing with him, so he brought the game to someone he knew would."

They fell into a pensive silence at this. Jasper was familiar with the type of person she was describing. He remembered working with men during the war who had seen their soldiers as little more than cannon fodder, rather than actual humans. Hell, he had been guilty of this himself on more than one occasion. But that had been war. Even as a vampire with very little patience for humans he could never imagine being so callous with a life.

Jasper was jarred from his introspection when she continued to speak once more. "Anyway, when Lambe walked in, we ran. Or at least tried to. Petya carried the woman, which slowed us down a lot, but we couldn't leave her behind. We made it all the way to the far side of the property, where there was this tall chain link fence. If we had made it over, I think we would've been safe. Petya helped the woman up to the top first but she wasn't able to get down to the other side because of her ankles. Petya went next and turned to help me over." Louisa broke eye contact with him and began playing with his fingers. "I wouldn't scale the fence. It was too high."

"You're afraid of heights?" He guessed.

She let out a self-derisive laugh, shaking her head. "Stupid, isn't it?"

"Everyone is afraid of something," Jasper murmurs, leaning forward to nuzzle her jaw. "Alice is afraid of lightning and Edward is afraid of geese."

"Yeah, well, it doesn't usually almost get people killed," she sighed. "Dad blames Petya for what happened that day, you know. It was my fault. If I wasn't such a coward, we would've all made it."

"If you had called the police in the first place, none of it would have happened," Jasper pointed out. She looked up at him in betrayal at his words and he reached forward to rub his thumb along her cheek. "If I hadn't stopped my horse for three women on the side of the road to Galveston, I wouldn't've been changed. Hindsight is always twenty-twenty, darling." He pulled her to his chest and pressed a kiss to her forehead. "What happened then?"

She burrowed her face in his upper arm and when she spoke, her voice was muffled. "Lambe hit me over the head with a baseball bat."

"Suitably dramatic," Jasper interjected.

She giggled but didn't look up at him. "It was a control thing, I think. He could feel us injured, opposed to a gun, which keeps a distance between him and his victim." She paused, her whole body stiffening, a thought occurring to her. "Control…" Louisa muttered, sitting up.

"I beg your pardon?"

Mind racing, Louisa hopped off the bed, and grabbed Jasper's hand, pulling him with her. She dragged him towards where the tunnel lay, sealed behind a foot of wood, metal, and insulation, and leaned her back against the wall so that she faced him.

"Choke me," Louisa instructed.

"Excuse me?"

Louisa rolled her eyes and moved his hands up to her throat. "The way someone kills can speak a lot about how they think. So, you're Anna's murderer and you're choking her." The look he gave her indicated that he thought she was a lunatic, but he didn't move his hands away. "She was standing right about here when she died," she began.

"The case file said that her father found her in the bed was lying in the bed," Jasper added, playing along, trying to ignore how soft and delicate the skin felt under his hands and the way her pulse thudded against his fingers.

Louisa was still watching him, her grey eyes burning with the intense fire they always possessed when her brain was running a million miles a second, waiting for him to finish speaking. "You said that it was significant that he moved her. Do you think he moved her because he needed to get to the tunnel?"

Louisa hummed in thought, reaching up to stroke Jasper's fingers. "I suppose it's possible. It's just…" She dropped her hands, only to hook her fingers through Jasper's belt loops, and pull him closer. "It doesn't make much sense."

Jasper wasn't following. What didn't make sense? The murderer killed the girl and needed to get out of the room. Why wouldn't he move her out of the way? When he voiced as much, Louisa shook her head.

"He could have dragged her a few feet out of the way. He didn't need to pick her up and move her across the room. He moved her not out of necessity, but because he felt that he had to."

Her fingers disentangled themselves from his trousers, only for them to slide up his hips and slip underneath his shirt, hands coming to rest on his waist. Despite that she was unaware of her movements, he had to suppress a shiver of pleasure at her touch.

"If you were to kill me, Jasper, how would you do it?"

The question was jarring and about as welcome as a porcupine at a nudist colony. "I wouldn't," he said, offended that she would even ask.

She didn't seem to realise what she had said if the distant, glassy look in her eyes was any indication, but merely speaking her thoughts aloud. "Would you make it fast, or would you prolong it?"

"I would never—"

"If I had to do it, I think I'd use poison," she said in the same dazed voice. A flash of panic coursed through his veins at her words. As if sensing that she had upset him, though still very much lost in her thoughts, her thumbs began to stroke his hips in an almost soothing gesture. "That way I wouldn't have to be around to watch them die. It might be slow though. It might hurt them. I think you'd do it fast, so I wouldn't feel any pain. Break my neck, maybe."

"Please stop," Jasper whispered, his hands releasing their light grip on her neck to slide them up to cradle her face. "Please don't talk like this. I don't want to even entertain the idea of killing you." Because he had before, and it made him sick to his stomach. Not killing her on purpose of course, but there wasn't a day that went by that he was unaware that he could kill her, especially by accident. She was so fragile compared to him. He had killed before, felt their lives drain from their bodies, seen the light leave behind their eyes. If he wasn't careful, it could just as easily be her.

Why was he even touching her now? His hands dropped from her face and he took a step back. A painful throb shot through his chest and he suppressed a gasp. He knew that it was idiotic for him to be so close to her, especially with her still human. But he couldn't leave, not when he had gotten so close to her, become accustomed to having her in his daily life. He was a selfish creature and he didn't want to leave. The only option would be to change her, as he knew he should have done the day he met her, if only to save himself from the heartbreak. But then that would break her heart and that would break his heart to break her heart and—

Perhaps it was the lack of contact or the discomfort he had projected towards her, but when Louisa met his gaze it had lost the distant, pensive look in her eyes and had replaced it with one that was contrite. Stepping forward, she wrapped her arms around his neck and she shifted onto the tips of her toes to kiss him, whispering an apology into his lips, though the regret she felt was more than adequate in conveying her apology for him.

"Sorry about that," she murmured, burying her face in his shirt. "I'll behave now, I promise."

He hummed in appreciation, playing with the ends of her long hair whilst he collected his thoughts. "Was there a point to your morbid soliloquy?"

She nodded, her face rubbing against his chest. "Lambe chose a baseball bat. Anna's murderer chose strangulation," Louisa explained in a clearer voice than before, pulling away enough so she could focus on him better. "It's painful and slow. She would have suffered. He would have felt her die. That's personal. And then he moved her body. He didn't dispose of it or set it on fire like Lambe. He placed her in the bed where she would be found. Because he wanted her found."

The answer came to Jasper at once, not through any deductive reasoning or brilliance on his part, but because he had once been in the murderer's shoes. "He felt remorse for what he had done," he said. "He wanted her body to be found because he felt guilty that he had killed her. He put her to bed because that was the only way he could respect her after what he had done."

"He didn't put her there to make a spectacle of her or to brag about what he had done, and he didn't want to destroy the evidence or hide her," Louisa agreed. "He loved her."

That was going a bit too far, Jasper thought. "He killed her," he reminded her.

"He didn't mean to," she replied, resting her forehead on his chest. He pulled her closer to his body and began to run a hand up and down her spine. "He was so angry. She was going to expose the affair and he was afraid that it would ruin his life. But he didn't mean to kill her. He's still a massive dick for doing it and deserves to go to jail, but it wasn't premeditated murder."

Jasper could feel the exhaustion from the day beginning to overwhelm her and he scooped her up into his arms, carrying her to the bed. He slid in next to her, wrapping the duvet around her before burrowing his head into her shoulder.

"Do you believe him to be dangerous?" Jasper asked. Contingency plans began to formulate in his head should this godforsaken investigation go south. If the situation got more dangerous, Jasper wondered if it would be more prudent to change her. A human would be less of a threat to a vampire, after all. They would need to leave the state though. He had a small cabin in Colorado which he had built several decades ago; they could go there, at least until her newborn year was complete. There wasn't running water or electricity, but that could be remedied.

Louisa took a moment to respond. Seemingly without her knowledge, a hand rose up to stroke Jasper's hair whilst she considered his words. "It's hard to say," she began. "While I don't believe he meant to kill her, he's desperate to keep it a secret."

Jasper tilted his head back so he could rest his chin on her shoulder. "I don't understand; why does it matter that he feels remorse for what he's done? How does it help us to know that he wants to keep his involvement in the crime a secret? Wouldn't anybody?" Jasper questioned.

"Not necessarily. People like Lambe involve the police because it makes them feel like they have power and they do it believing that nobody is smart enough to actually catch them. But Anna's murderer, he's desperate, and desperate people do desperate things. They're unpredictable," Louisa explained. "It matters because it helps us understand him. If we understand him, we can find him."

"Nothing is easier than denouncing the evildoer. Nothing more difficult than understanding him." – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

A/N: So I wrote this chapter about five times and hated every single version until this one. Trust me, you wouldn't want to read them. I hope this was worth the wait! -CheckAlexa