I have to write another disclaimer to remind everyone who thinks I'm a horrible person that steals people's characters and stories and copies them to make money and become famous, that that's never gonna happen. I'd love to become a famous author, but just not with this story. Moral of the story – all characters, settings (etc) belong to Ms. Meyer, who makes tons of money from them and is very famous. Nothing belongs to me. *whimpers*

Previously:

I had to find a vampire.

Guess who the only vampires I knew were.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Bella's POV

It was that last thought that sent me sprinting to the big white mansion just off the 101.

I had to find them – the Cullen's – wherever they had taken off to. My subconscious had catapulted me towards the one place I knew that they had ever lived. They surely would leave a trail leading to their new location, wouldn't they? Somewhere there had to be a stray sheet of evidence detailing their new address, maybe a phone number... something.

It only took several minutes at my fastest speed to before I could smell the wall of scent, and seconds to reach the front door of the Cullen's house once again.

I again disarmed the alarm, and walked through the front door. Passing the phone, piano, and lounge, I made my way up the stairs and decided that I would start looking for any clues in Carlisle's office. Since Carlisle was the head of the family, I figured he would organize most of the paperwork.

I'd only been in Carlisle's study a handful of times, but every time I entered I was still amazed by the array of paintings hanging on the wall behind me when I entered. So this time I looked around the familiar room, seeing everything in place, but when I turned to the wall I saw all the paintings had disappeared.

Of course, my conscience reasoned, they had moved, so it would only be logical that they would bring their history with them.

I didn't dwell too much on the hurt that the missing paintings brought me, and how the Cullen's had seemingly moved on so easily, but instead focused my attention to the towering metal cabinets on the left of Carlisle's desk.

I was reaching for the first handle when my hand stopped in its tracks. I owed the Cullen's their privacy, didn't I? Maybe it was wrong to go searching through all this information, it was wrong to barge into their private files. But how else was I going to find out where they were now? Carlisle had told the hospital that the family was relocating to Los Angeles, but I knew better. There was no way that they could go outside during the day there, with the sun shining every day. They could in reality have moved anywhere in the world. Hell, they could have gone to Mars! They were vampires for Pete's sake.

Well, I had to try and look in here then, didn't I? How else was I going to narrow down where they could have moved to? Call them and ask? Hey Alice, I'm vampire and I need to find you. Yeah right.

I rummaged through the metal filing cabinets one by one, in each one finding white papers perfectly organized by date, content and name. I found the normal human papers – birth certificates, passports, driver's licences, tax forms, copies of ownership forms for the dozens of homes they owned, an address book, school enrolments – everything that could be possibly needed to fake an authentic story for anything possibly needed. Seeing all this meant I had an enormous amount of information – but then again, this information could have been everything from their past, and nothing from their future.

I categorized all the information I saw in my never-forgetting memory, and made sure everything looked untouched when I finally closed the last drawer. I looked back around the room, and I saw Carlisle's desk and the wall of books were the only things left that could possibly contain clues as to where they could've possibly gone.

I yanked open the top draw and saw a collection of stationary and writing utensils, then the middle one which contained folders of filled in accounting forms with a lot of big numbers. I crinkled my nose in horror when I saw the bottom one contained reinforced metal handcuffs, bottles of lube and empty condom wrappers, and quickly closed the draw, vowing to never go near the desk again, and trying to suppress the mental image of Carlisle and Esme my mind had conjured up.

I looked at the wall of books to my right and saw first editions of various Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, and Thomas Hardy novels among others, and I chose not to rummage through what was probably a genuine book collection.

I was miffed over what to do now, since Carlisle's study was probably the only place that contained any information. I took a deep breath and smelled woodsy paper coming from every room in the giant house and sighed, wondering if I was ever meant to find the Cullen's.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

I was sitting on the three-seater in the lounge, playing with the cell phone Sam had given me when the idea popped up in my head.

I knew that all the Cullen's carried out the most expensive, complex and expensive phones on the planet – Blackberrys. And every Blackberry had a tracking chip.

I ran to the phone and pressed the edit button for the speed-dials, and selected the eighth one to find out it was indeed assigned to Alice, and I took notice of her number. I opened the cabinet the phone was on and pulled out the phone book, looking for the phone number of the support line of the BlackBerry Company, and dialling the 1800 number once I located it.

I went through the automated response system to get through to the customer service and was greeted by a Texan accent.

"Good afternoon you're speakin' with Alexis. How may I help ya?"

"Um... hey. I lost my phone on holiday and I need you to track it?" It came out as a question rather than a request.

"Sure ma'am. I'll just be needin' your phone number there."

I gave her Alice's phone number.

"Kay, just needa have your name there."

Alice better not have registered this phone under a fake name.

"Err... Alice," I replied, and then half a second later added a rushed, "Cullen. Alice Cullen."

"That'll just be a minute," she said, and classical music started playing. It took me moment to recognize it was the climax of Claire De Lune playing, and I fought the tears at the ache of the memory just as the phone operator picked back up.

"You lost your phone at 2 Country Road in Ithaca, ma'am. This tracking service is correct within 200 metres."

Ithaca?

"Oh, yeah, that's my cousin's place, so that will be right. Uh, thanks... Alexis." I lied.

"You're welcome, ma'am, bye." And the cheery voice disconnected.

I put the handset back on the hook and looked around for a map, still mentally shocked at how easy it was to track down someone's phone, and saw two computers sitting in the corner of the room.

Bingo!

I pressed the on button and waited for the high tech system to warm up, thankfully not meeting any password barriers and then going onto Google Maps to search for the address.

I typed Ithaca in the box and selected the search maps button, the high speed – and most likely highly expensive – broadband connecting me in less than a second.

Then there was a dilemma. There were six Ithaca's in the United States alone, and then there was one in Australia and an island in Greece too.

I cursed and considered hitting the screen for a moment before remembering the whole address, not just the town.

I typed in 2 Country Rd, Ithaca, and thankfully got one result 3 miles south of Ithaca, New York.

I breathed a sigh of relief, and hoped I'd really found the current home of the Cullen's.

But it seemed that two seconds of liberation wasn't good enough, because then I remembered I somehow had to get there.

I thanked God for the invention of the internet as I looked up the latest flight on United Airlines and booked the 7:47pm departure time, checking the option to pay when I was at the airport. That gave me just over four hours till the plane took off.

I knew from earlier escapades with the Cullen's that there was a safe with valuables, including many bundles of $100, hiding – ironically – behind a painting in the main hallway. I felt like a Bond girl as I twisted the lock with the Cullen code, hearing the snaps and locks of the metal as each number was reached.

The safe was emptier than the last time I had seen it, but there was still a considerable amount of money wasting away, more than enough to support a family for a lifetime. I only felt slightly guilty when taking two of the many bundles of cash and locking the safe back up, positioning the painting perfectly upon the wall.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

I snuck out of the bushes at the Capitol Mall in Olympia, having run as far as I could to the airport in Seattle without breaking city limits. I checked around me to make sure no one noticed my sudden appearance, and blended in with the shoppers at Safeway, signalling for a taxi on Harrison Ave.

The Native American driver greeted me when I sat down inside.

"Where to, miss?" His voice reminded me of Billy.

"Seattle Airport as quick as possible, please."

He whistled, "That'll be close to $200, probably more considering it'll be rush hour traffic getting in there."

I discretely pulled out five of the notes out of the bundle of cash, being careful to keep the rest of it in my backpack.

I waved the notes around just as he looked back to merge into the next lane, and he raised his eyebrows, surprised. He studied my face and appearance for a moment before clearing his expression and looking forward at the road.

There were a few minutes of silence before he started the complementary cab-driver talk.

"Where you from?"

I decided to tell him the truth, deciding it couldn't be too much harm.

"Forks. You probably wouldn't know where–"

"Oh, I've heard of it all right. Grew up on the rez just outside of La Push," he offered.

"Oh." I looked at him and decided he was around sixty, and he probably lived here now, so he wouldn't have any reason to contact anybody there about me.

"Yeah," he continued, seeming to read my mind, "live here in Olympia now. At least there's more than a Thriftway and takeaway shop here," he laughed.

I hummed in agreement.

"You running away from home?" He asked, half-amused.

I laughed shortly shook my head, but I knew inside that was just what I was doing.

"I'm visiting friends in New York," I offered, but that was the extent of detail I was giving this guy.

"It'll be cold up there this time of year."

"I guess..." I droned, looking out the window and seeing we were just passing out of the city.

"Is that small pack all you're bringing?"

I looked down at my scruffy orange back pack that contained all that I owned. I nodded at him in the mirror, "my friend up there told me not to bring anything, and that we'll go shopping together once we get there," I made up a reliable excuse quick. This whole lying business was getting easier – and that had me slightly worried.

The driver – I looked quickly at his licence plastered above the mirror and saw his name was Perry –looked slightly worried, but didn't reply as he drove on silently down the highway.

Thankfully the airport was far enough south out of the city centre of Seattle that there wasn't much rush hour traffic at all. I paid Perry for the driving, gave him a large tip and thanked him as I walked into the domestic terminal and headed towards the United desk to check in just under 2 hours before departure.

The airport was the largest crowd of humans I had encountered since my transformation, and I found myself spending most of the time on the outside viewing deck on top of the airport terminal – where there were hardly any humans because of the temperature – till the boarding call was made for my flight.

I could see why the Cullen's hated planes. The noise of the engines, combined with the cramped space and the three-hundred sweaty humans squashed in against me made the plane ride the most awful one ever.

A crowded Chicago airport and a plane change later, the flight was landing at dawn at the Regional Airport just north of Ithaca. The small airport was a relief to the two larger one's I had just visited, and I calmed down as I hopped of the plane with only my hand luggage and waived down a cab.

Once again I sat in the back.

"Where to?" A man with an Indian accent asked, and I nervously replied the address to him. If the address was right, it meant I was now within less than ten miles of the Cullen's.

I was spared to do any talking, and sat in silence. The twenty minute ride passed through Ithaca, passing the city centre and the beautiful old university buildings. All too soon though, the cab was going into the country side, and I recognized the road we were on from the Street View application I had used earlier.

We slowed down and turned right, then right again into a short driveway, and after the break in the trees I saw a period mansion, with grey and white stone, and a side building a few hundred metres away. There was a sculpted garden forming a circle around the house, and I could see trees disappearing to form a forest in the distance.

The taxi driver clearing his throat stopped me from staring at the building, and I tossed a $100 bill into his lap and uttered a thanks.

The second I opened the door a fresh wall of vampire scent hit me, and I knew I'd come to the right place. I couldn't help the smile that spread onto my face as I slammed the taxi door shut and shrugged the backpack on. The same scents I'd smelled in Forks – cinnamon, hyacinth, pear, seawater, rising bread, pine, vanilla, leather, apple, moss, lavender, chocolate... all so sweet and pleasant – were waving around me.

The cab pulled away behind me and I started walking forward towards the front door, intending this time to knock and wait, instead of busting in.

They were going to have to answer me, whether they liked it or not.

*twirling my thumbs and humming contently*

I'm recommending the amazing Confessions of a Nanny by Melissa228. Bella Swan accepts a job as a nanny for single father, Dr. Edward Cullen. Living under the same roof and Bella's seduction plans, leads these two into a whirlwind of pleasure and excitement. Every chapter has me begging for more!

There is a link to some awesomely hot pics of the Eclipse movie on my profile. Most of them are of Edward and Bella smooching, but there is also one from the fight scene towards the end of the book. If you haven't checked them out yet, what are you waiting for!