A/n Have I mentioned that it's good to be back to this story? I love y'all!

Seriously, if anyone is interested in beta'ing this ... PM ME!

I made a spiffy banner (or two) for this fic. Check it out on my flickr :

www . flickr . com /photos /20939751 N03 /4119637501

Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight. I own a minivan and an extensive collection of Jennifer Nettles CDs.

Music: Owl City, "Cave in" (picked for its lyrics)

"Carlisle, the trail's gone cold," Edward relayed the information. He was crushed.

"How?" Carlisle's answer was muffled but I could still hear it from across the car.

"She parked her bike at the mall and laid a false trail to the door. There's no sign of her."

"Why don't you go ahead and come home? You'll be able to tell if anything important is out of place in your room better than we will," Carlisle sounded calm and collected. He trusted Bella. In truth, we all trusted Bella; but, this was so far from her usual behavior that we were worried.

"We'll be back in a little while," Edward groaned and hopped out of the Jeep. He clicked the phone shut and turned to us. "I'm going to take a quick walk around and make sure that she hasn't left a trace anywhere."

I made a move to follow him and Jasper touched my arm. "Let him go, he needs a few minutes," He whispered low enough to keep Edward from hearing.

As soon as Edward was out of sight, I dropped my head into my hands. There was nothing to do but wait. Jasper's hand slid across my back and he calmed me. I took a very deep breath and looked up at him. He gave me a reassuring smile and mouthed, 'I love you.' I reciprocated.

"Knock it off back there," Emmett half-heartedly chastised us. Jasper let out a faint laugh.

"You're one to talk," Jasper muttered and I smiled at him. We sat in silence and waited for Edward to cool down. He made a full circuit of the mall and the parking lot before he gave up and returned to us.

"She has to have gotten into a car. The problem is that her scent goes from here to the door in a straight line without wavering." He let out a gust of air in a huff and flopped into his seat disheartened.

"So, this had to have been planned. Or she got lucky and there was someone parked next to her willing to take her someplace," Emmett grumbled.

"You all want to know why, but I assure you that it's beyond me." Edward leaned forward and pinched the bridge of his nose. Emmett put the car into gear and drove home. It was quiet. I focused on Bella's shimmering form, just out of reach. She was a mirage in our desert.

Edward seemed to relax a little with the thought of her incorporeal form. It was something; at least her future wasn't black. In truth, this wasn't nearly as scary as when she went out with the dogs. Edward's posture told me that he didn't fully agree with me on that, but then again, when she was with the Quiluette wolves, he would spy on her. That was hardly playing fair. He smiled almost imperceptibly. I kept up my internal banter for the entire drive home. It seemed to help him cope. When we reached the house, he nodded his thanks and headed for the door.

Carlisle stood waiting for us. He had a plan including a tedious amount of "leg-work." He and Esme ushered us all into the living room for a family meeting. We needed a concrete plan to find Bella.

"I'm going to suggest that we search smarter rather than harder," Carlisle jumped straight to the point. "I know that the trail seems to have gone cold but there's always a trail, even when we leave with time to cover our tracks. Bella's inexperienced, she's sure to have made some form of misstep and we'll be able to find her."

"I know that this isn't a popular opinion, but I'm going to voice it again, what if she doesn't want to be found?" Rosalie folded her hands and rested her forearms on her knees as she spoke. Edward immediately groaned.

"I don't think that's the case," Jasper cut Edward off before he could open his mouth to openly criticize Rosalie. I gave Jasper a nod in gratitude for averting that skirmish. My husband was a wise man in that respect. He knew when someone needed to jump between the two and diffuse the situation before is became volatile. I admired him for it.

"Bella's emotions were conflicted but she was always happy around Edward. She never once seemed to feel resentful or upset with regard to any of us," Jasper finished his thought.

"Then, why-" Rose stomped on the floor repeatedly but halted when Esme eyed her. "I'm sorry but this just doesn't make sense."

"She was upset when she realized how little privacy she had in comparison to what she believed to be true," I interjected. "We talked about it last month."

"Just in case Alice is right and she's upset, I think that we should make a list of places that she likes to go to relax and Emmett and Jasper should look for her," Carlisle took charge again. Edward gave him a look but he held up his hand and my brother settled back down. "The rest of us are going to pull up our bank and credit card accounts and go over every charge for the past two months, line by line. We should look over our cell phone bills too. Esme, would you mind checking them all against each other?"

"Of course not," her voice was soft from the edge of the room. Carlisle sighed and looked into Esme's eyes. She was just as upset as the rest of us.

"Well, let's get started. We need to make sure that she's alright," Carlisle sighed. Edward passed a slip of paper, accented with his elegant scrawl, to Jasper. "Boys, if you find her and she doesn't want to come home, don't force her. Just see if she'll talk to you."

Jasper gave me a quick kiss on the cheek before he and Emmett got back into the jeep. I took the stairs two at a time and sat down at the computer in the bedroom Jazz and I shared. All of our accounts were pulled up in a matter of seconds. I felt the room fade and grabbed my phone. I dialed Jazz before the vision finished. They weren't out of the driveway yet.

"Yes darlin'?" He answered.

"The sun's coming out in an hour. Either put the top on the jeep or take something else," I warned him.

"Yes ma'am," he crooned.

"Okay, now go find my sister," I smiled into the phone.

"I'll do my best," he responded but I knew that there was more. "Alice, she's not mad at you or Edward. Whatever this is, it's not about either of you. She doesn't shield her emotions often. I know that there has to be something else going on."

"Thank you, Jasper. You're the best husband a girl could ask for."

"You can show your gratitude later," he hummed and I felt weak in the knees. Jasper Whitlock knew exactly what to say to distract me from day one.

"We'll see about that, Jazz," I responded in a breathy whisper.

"For that voice, anything." I could hear the wicked smile spread across his face.

"Now, go!" I ordered.

"Yes, ma'am."

I hung up the phone and e-mailed our phone bill to Esme so that she could cross-reference it with everyone else's. Then, I started looking over our monetary transactions, line by line. Even with enhanced abilities, it took a long time. I watched Jasper and Emmett's progress carefully.

It seemed that Bella had been to every spot on the list during the day and left a trail that dead-ended. In addition, at every stop, they found a word discreetly hidden. They called Edward with the first three: please, love, don't. Carlisle had to talk Edward in to staying and looking over his financial information since the rest of us wouldn't know if anything was out of the ordinary. Edward stewed in his room.

It wouldn't be long before Jasper and Emmett finished their trip. I could see them home soon. Something tickled at my subconscious and I looked at the credit card bill in front of me. There were two plane tickets booked last week. Edward was at my side before the revelation fully dawned on me. I didn't purchase those and Jasper would have told me.

"Look for plane tickets," Edward spoke into the hallway for everyone else to hear.

I dialed first one airline and then the other. Both tickets were booked for "Bella Cullen" and both flights left an hour prior to my finding them. One was to Seattle Washington, the other to Moscow, Russia with a connection through Germany.

"I have two on my card," I heard Rosalie gasp from her room two doors down.

"I have two as well," Carlisle spoke up from the doorway. Edward leaned over me and pulled up the last account that he needed to check on my computer, he found one ticket.

"She bought seven tickets." I suddenly felt very uneasy.

"Why would she buy seven?" Esme appeared with her hand on Carlisle's shoulder.

"She's splitting us up," Edward answered and ran his hand through his hair again.

"This isn't completely bad, son. Look at the way she did it," Carlisle gestured for him to calm down. "She bought seven tickets, not twelve. Which means that she wants to be found but not immediately."

"Or she's traveling by car and is laying a trail that will send us as far away as possible," Edward groaned again.

"Esme, did you find anything?" Rosalie had made her way into the crowded doorway. Esme had found something but it wasn't going to offer much information.

"There's one phone number that I don't recognize on all the bills. Calls started to it daily one month ago."

"It's a prepaid phone," I sighed. "I can see us making the call and getting that information. There's no sense in wasting the time."

I remembered it. A few days after the wedding, Bella found me downstairs on the couch with Jazz. We were watching the original version of "The Italian Job" and discussing purchasing a Mini-Cooper. Bella came down the stairs with her phone in hand.

"Jasper, can I use your phone? I wanted to talk to Edward but I killed mine again." She bit her lip.

"Here, use mine," I spoke up and passed my phone to her. "Try to be gentle with it."

"Thanks, I just needed to talk to hear his voice." She smiled and slipped back over to her house to make the call. I thought that it was peculiar that she put up her shield before she got back to her house but brushed it off.

"She's nervous when he's not around," Jasper commented.

"I'm not sure that she'll be confident without him for quite some time," I responded and nestled into his shoulder.

"Do you think that you were right to help her rush into marriage?"

"They're soul mates, it was hardly rushing. Besides, the sexual tension was killing you." I planted a kiss on his cheek.

"Now, that is correct. Having those two in the same house without acting on their feelings was torture." His smile broadened. "But you were always willing to help me out with that, now weren't you?"

I grinned back at him. Jasper leaned down and placed a kiss on my lips. I pulled a hand up into his hair to keep him close. He blindly grabbed the remote and turned off the movie. His hands found me and I felt a tingle in my spine. Jasper gently pushed me down on the couch. I pulled in a deep breath with his scent and hummed. He knew exactly where to touch. That was one of the many benefits of having been together for so long and being married to an empath. He always knew exactly what I needed.

We stopped when we heard Bella in the yard. She was mumbling something under her breath and the shield was still up. Jazz pulled my shirt back into place and turned on the movie while I sat up. Unlike some other couples in the house, we enjoyed our privacy.

"She's shielding me, is she doing it to you as well?" I asked.

"Yes, but I'm not sure that it's doing her any good. I can hear that she's irritated." He shook his head.

"What do you think's bothering her?" I played with the collar of his shirt. My finger slid between it and his skin.

"I don't rightly know. Edward has been pressuring her to get out of the house more, and she was, but this week she's just kind of clammed up." He ran a hand through my hair. "She'll be alright, darlin'. Not everyone handles things as efficiently as you do."

I didn't understand at the time that she was sad. The only emotion that I had seen was the frustration and Jasper never enlightened me further. I looked up at Edward and he nodded.

"She didn't call me that day though," he murmured.

"Which day?" Esme cocked her head to the side.

"October tenth," I answered for him. Esme closed her eyes for a second. I knew what she was doing. She was checking the phone records. She'd seen them all and just needed to pull up the image behind her eyelids to check.

"That's the first call," she whispered. "It was made from -"

"My phone," I cut her off. "Bella broke hers and asked to borrow it. She said that she was calling Edward. She took it out to her house to make the call. I didn't think anything about it."

"Why would she go all the way to the cabin to call Edward?" Carlisle asked.

"That was right after the privacy talk she and I had." I observed a few vacant looks. "She never realized exactly how much we could all hear when she was around."

"Oh!" Esme was surprised before she grimaced. "oh."

"Yeah, oh, she was upset that we never told her. I thought that I handled it appropriately." I paused for a moment. "I guess that I just wasn't paying enough attention. She took her phone all the way to the cabin to make phone calls after that." I couldn't help but feel that I had created a situation where we were open to missing her distress. If a need for privacy while making phone calls hadn't become the norm for Bella, then it might have been more suspicious.

"Alice, don't beat yourself up about that. I'm her husband and she managed to hid it from me," Edward spoke softly and gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze.

"Imagine that amount of work she had to put into hiding this?" Esme mused, "I mean she hid plane tickets and secret phone calls. She left messages and false trails everywhere that we'd think to look for her. She's using her shield to block Alice's ability ... don't you think that this is a lot of effort just to protect her privacy, or even for her to leave us..."

"Jasper and Emmett will be home in a few minutes," I said quietly as soon as I saw them retrieve the last of the messages. "I still can't see her."

"We will figure this out," Carlisle insisted. "If we don't, then our treaty with the Quiluetes might very well be forfeit. They left her in our custody and even though I feel that her control is sufficient, I hadn't told them yet since she expressed some trepidation."

Edward groaned in frustration and stalked down the stairs to wait on Jazz and Em. Esme flitted to my side and proffered her hand. I took it and followed her downstairs. The only thing we could do was wait and see what Bella had to tell us. I sincerely hoped that the clues the boys had collected would offer some form of explanation.