Noble Causes

Chapter 1

Everyone thinks they know where they were when it all started, everyone that's left that is.  They're wrong.  I was there in the beginning.  I was right in the middle of it and I didn't know.

I remember that first day as clearly as I can remember anything that's happened since.  All this time later, I can still see every detail with perfect clarity like it was yesterday.  I had done press for a film that day.  Nearly ten hours of interviews without more than twenty or thirty minutes to myself all day.  I'm not complaining, mind you, I understand that complaining about these things isn't done anymore.  I just want you to understand how things were.

I hadn't seen Edward in person in over a month, actually almost two.  He had been filming a project in Canada and taken time after the shoot wrapped to visit his family and friends outside Montreal.  We talked on Skype almost every day but it's not the same as having someone that you love beside you, holding you.  To have him back in London was wonderful.  We both, finally, had some down time in our respective schedules and I was elated to be able to spend some quality time with him.  We were from very different places, geographically and personally, but that never mattered when we were together.  We complimented each other in ways that the media and our fans couldn't understand.

It was a little before five o'clock as I pulled up in front of his flat.  The sun was just setting behind the city and Paultons Square was cast in a lovely orange glow.  I grabbed the tin of his favourite Harrod's toffees from the passenger's seat and rushed to his front door.  I almost missed it as I reached for the buzzer, the small scarlet pool on the stoop.  A million things rushed through my mind.  I could feel my pulse racing and I suddenly felt nauseous.  My mind naturally raced to the worst possible scenario as it always did when something didn't seem right.  I tried my best to calm myself and pushed the buzzer.  The dark pool certainly wasn't what I thought it was.  There was a perfectly reasonable explanation for whatever it was.  I stood and I waited and I thought about what that explanation might be.  An answer didn't come and neither did Edward.

The longer I waited, the harder it was to push the unease away.  I tried the door and it opened.  Edward never left his door unlocked.  People like us, targets of everyone from the paparazzi to stalkers, never left our doors unlocked.  I let myself in and closed the door behind me.  I remember locking the door but I don't remember exactly why.  I kept telling myself that there was a perfectly ordinary explanation for all of this even if it was something as awful as one of his practical jokes.  I slipped my shoes off and went room to room telling myself that I was going to find him asleep in bed after a long flight or reading in his office or starting supper in the kitchen.  I grew more and more worried with every room I entered and left.  In the kitchen I found his mobile and a cup of tea, still warm, sitting on the counter.

"Hi, Avery?  It's Scout.  Listen, this is going to sound strange but do you know where Ed is?" I asked, sitting down on the stairs near the front door, holding my phone with both hands.

"Well...he should be at home.  I talked to him an hour ago and he was on his way home from the airport.  Is something wrong?" There was something in her tone that made me think the worst.  Avery had been Edward's PA since before we'd met and she always knew exactly where he was and what he was doing.

"I don't know.  I'm at his flat now and he's not here.  The front door was open and his suitcases are sitting by the door.  It looks like he made himself a cup of tea and then...I don't know."  I had long thought that troubling facts sounded worse when you said them out loud, kind of like in those old cartoons where the coyote runs off of the cliff but doesn't fall until he looks down and realizes what's happened.  I was right.

"Have you tried his cell?"  Avery asked, sounding calmer than I felt.

"No.  He left it here.  Look, I'm going to call the police.  Something's wrong." I replied.