Chapter X

After dismissing his faulty intern, Carlisle thought over what he had said. Who was this suspicious character who was taking advantage over his friend's resources? It all seemed quite strange. As much as Carlisle tried to put Gregory Lawrence out of his troubles, he always seemed to reenter. There was a possibility that Mr. Lawrence was actually lying, but what was his motive? He never even received his acetaminophen, but why did his so called "friend" need it? It was troublesome to think that he had let a man off who may be trying to attempt to poison somebody. There seemed to be evidence that the "somebody" could be a vampire. Then again, why would a vampire need a pain killer?

Dr. Cullen pushed the thoughts away for a moment, and decided he would further investigate the hidden agendas of Gregory Lawrence. Of course, this had to be done on his own time, for his real job needed his attention. Dr. Cullen grabbed a few folders and his clip board then headed out of his office. As he approached the conference room, he noticed Dr. Maryter in a somewhat frustrated state.

"Is there something wrong Dr. Maryter?" Dr. Cullen asked.

"The same woman has been coming back to the clinic claiming that my diagnostic work is wrong, she doesn't think that he son has mono. Sometimes parental opinions really irritate me." Dr. Maryter ended in a harsh statement.

"You simply can't blame them my friend, they mean well." An idea suddenly exposed its self in Carlisle's mind. "What were his symptoms?"

"Now you are evaluating me? Good God."

"No, no, not at all, I just have a theory." Dr. Cullen's smooth tones and innocent jesters were hard to argue with. He could tell that his co-worker had experienced a tough time lately with the outbreak. He was a bit cranky.

"You always have a theory don't you." Dr. Maryter said a little bit softer. His frustration was wearing down. "Teenagers get mono so often, but don't think I didn't check for other things." Dr. Maryter handed a folder to Dr. Cullen. "All of the information is in there; in fact the woman is probably downstairs right now."

"Take this then, its diagnostic work." Carlisle said exchanging his case for Maryter's. Dr. Cullen thanked his coworker then headed down to the clinic. He reviewed the information in the elevator.

"Flu like symptoms, extreme drowsiness and extreme…sleeping." Dr. Cullen thought as he read the diagnostic notes to himself. As he arrived on the first floor, he sat down in an empty clinic room to think about the problem. The paper showed that the woman and her son had been in at least three times in the past two weeks. It also read that the woman was almost unable to wake her son at one point.

"Hmmm. If my memory is correct, I'd say it's…..no that's too rare." Carlisle said to himself. He left the empty clinic room, and walked into the waiting area. Sure enough, he saw an extremely groggy looking teenage boy, accompanied by a nervous looking woman. Dr. Cullen gazed down at his paper and read

"Mark Falstein?" The woman got up quickly and dragged her son behind her.

"So they have finally decided to give us a second opinion. I'm really worried…"

"I'm sure every thing will be fine." Dr. Cullen said soothingly. The woman nodded. He led them into the same empty clinic room and let the boy rest on the bed. He was awake, but appeared to be in a dream like state. It was almost as though he wasn't awake at all.

"Tell me Mrs. Falstein, has your son slept for about 22 hours a day this past week?"

"That sounds about right. The GP just said it was a virus."

"I think your son might have a sleeping disorder called Kleine-Levin syndrome. It is a condition so rare, that only a few cases have ever been reported in recent medical history."

The woman stared blankly.

"How old is he?" Dr. Cullen asked.

"Fourteen."

"You see, this disease is at its prime in the teenage years. If it is KLS that he has, which I presume is true; he will experience various spells of sleep for long periods of time. He will grow out of it though; symptoms seem to disappear in the late twenties."

"Are you completely sure?"

"I'll run some tests to confirm it, but the best thing to do is to let the spells pass. As you can see, he has no fever." It was true; the boy was no longer feverish.

"How do you know for sure?" The woman asked, a bit dumbfounded.

"I see a lot of cases in neurology, and I read about this extremely rare disorder. If you would like I can recommend you to a specialist for a second opinion. In fact, I think a neurologist would be the best for you." Dr. Cullen pulled a piece of paper from his clip board and wrote the name of one of his neurologist friends on the fragment of paper. He handed it to the woman.

"You can find him in the Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle. The Neuroscience institute is very nice there." Dr. Cullen said as the woman pulled her sleepy son from the bed.

"Thank you…" She looked at his name tag. "Dr. Cullen." She tucked the reference in her purse and was gone shortly after. Dr. Cullen decided that it would be best to keep this experience to himself, because he didn't want to point out Dr. Maryter's error in observation. How would he know? He didn't have countless years to study every branch of medicine that he wanted to. This disease was so rare, that it was natural for an ordinary diagnostician to overlook it.

After his brief encounter with yet another rare disease, Dr. Cullen began to work on his next case. This sent him to the pathology lab to review some specimens taken from a biopsy of his current patient. The symptoms of this patient pointed to cancer. He would have an oncologist confirm it, but first he would take a look at the specimens himself as a pathologist.

When Dr. Cullen arrived in the lab, he opened his chemical cabinet for certain solutions that he would need for testing of the specimens, when he noticed something. On the top shelf, there was a small gap between two bottles. Dr. Cullen's photographic memory told him that there was a small sample of arsenic missing. That arsenic was for poison comparisons during procedures such as autopsies or ingestion cases. A thought immediately came to his mind. This arsenic was not being used for any medicinal comparisons at the moment. Had Gregory Lawrence attempted to take more than just the acetaminophen? Apparently he had gotten away with it.

"That furtive son of a….." Dr. Cullen thought to himself as the physician's assistant entered the room, and interrupted his thoughts. He quickly grabbed the solutions that were necessary and attempted to push the idea that someone had a hold of a deadly poison from his mind.

"Ready to run these tests Doc?" The assistant said.

"Of course." Dr. Cullen replied. Once the procedures began, Dr. Cullen focused all of his energy into solving the medical problem that was before him. The other problem would have to wait until after hours.

Once work was over, Dr. Cullen left the building once it was dark, as usual. As he proceeded in driving home, his thoughts drifted to his missing arsenic. Although the arsenic was only a sample, it was still enough to poison one person, or make them extremely ill. Was Mr. Lawrence planning on using the arsenic for his own purposes? Or did he really have this "friend" who had requested it? He cursed himself for letting the boy off so easily.

When he arrived home, Dr. Cullen headed straight to his office.

He sat down at his desk to call Gregory Lawrence. He had a few theories, and in order to justify all of them, he could not incriminate Mr. Lawrence right away. It was a little detective trick to gain information. The phone began to ring, being the efficient character that he was; Gregory answered no later than the second ring.

"Hello?"

"Mr. Lawrence, it's Dr. Cullen, I was wondering if you could perhaps give me the name of this friend that had you steal for him. You know, just out of curiosity." There was a short pause.

"I figured that this was coming…." Gregory paused. "Henry Bradford, but if it's possible, you didn't hear it from me."

"Alright, that will be all. Thank you." Dr. Cullen said as he hung up the phone.

His first idea was to see if such a person existed. He logged on to his computer and found the website to Silbert University, where Gregory Lawrence attended. He looked up this Henry Bradford, but he wasn't surprised by what he found. The name had brought up a newspaper article from nearly seven years ago, before the Cullen's lived in Forks. The article was titled "Tragic car accident kills a college student." A group of drunken college frat boys had totaled their car out side the library, and killed another student

Carlisle pursed his lips. Either Mr. Lawrence was imbecilic enough to think that Dr. Cullen would not look this boy up, or that Mr. Lawrence honestly thought that this friend of his was named Henry Bradford. Carlisle checked to make sure that there were not two Henry Bradford's at Silbert University, and sure enough, there were not. Someone was posing as this person, because they knew that there was a chance that they would be caught. At this point he knew that Mr. Lawrence had been played by this person. Carlisle wondered if this mystery could become any more confusing. He assured himself that he would untangle it in time.

Carlisle decided to take a break from his work, and remind his family that he wasn't dead. He answered a few more e-mails for work then headed downstairs. He saw Alice sitting happily on the couch with Rosalie and their new friend Jack Moreau. Alice seemed quite comfortable, and her eyes were glowing in a happy, felicitous way. Despite the current troubles that the family was facing, she had pulled through, and Carlisle was glad to see her so animated again. He knew that there was underlying tension and apprehension between everyone when it came to Jasper. However, it felt like everything was fine for the moment as Carlisle stood in the living room, in fact, he felt cheerful. He spotted Esme and Emmett sitting at a table in the far corner of the room. Esme appeared to be teaching Emmett to sew, and he looked less than interested. It was slightly funny to see Emmett and his robust figure desperately trying to manipulate the small and delicate needle. Once Emmett noticed Carlisle's entry he looked over at him and pleaded. "Please make her stop! I know nothing about stitching! Nothing!"

"Quit complaining! You're almost finished." Esme said with a smile, knowing that everyone was enjoying Emmett's torture. Emmett shot Carlisle another pleading look.

"You heard her, you're almost finished." Carlisle said with a smile.

Emmett's jaw dropped in despair. "You can't let her do this to me!"

"Where is Edward?" Carlisle said, switching the subject. Emmett dropped his head and reluctantly attempted to complete his sewing lesson.

"He's out with Bella." Alice said. "You actually just missed him about an hour ago, when Jack got here."

"I see." Carlisle replied. It was not hard for him to believe, Edward didn't particularly care for Mr. Moreau, unlike everyone else in the Cullen house hold.

"He always seems to disappear when I come around." Jack said modestly.

"Don't mind him; he's just mad because he can't listen in on your thoughts. You're lucky." Rosalie said.

"That makes sense." Jack stated.

"Hey Emmett when you're finished, I have a skirt with a nice rip you can fix. I'd like to ware it tomorrow." Rosalie said with a giggle in Emmett's direction.

"Fix it yourself!" Emmett groaned.

Once Emmett was finished, he threw the needle down and claimed that he would never sew again.

Carlisle conversed with his family and their guest, who had so graciously helped them pull through during Jasper's absence. After a while, Carlisle decided that he would return to his office and finish some work.

"You're going back already?" Esme said, disappointed.

"I'm afraid I must, I've got so much to do."

"If you must, we'll miss you."

Carlisle left the jovial atmosphere of his living room, and went upstairs to his office, where a dark cloud of accentuation seemed to loom. He decided he would review some of his medical cases to refresh his memory.

After a few hours of frivolous medical thinking, Dr. Cullen decided to read about various medical stories for fun. He found it oddly amusing to read about how other doctors solve things, it gave him new ideas. Tonight it would be cases in neurology.

Neuroscience had always interested Carlisle, and he decided that he may complete his next specialist work in that field. The human brain is a very delicate and powerful tool.

He began reading about a French physiatrist in the 1950's who had worked miracles in an English insane asylum, he noticed something interesting. A young man by the name of Henry Bradford was committed to that very asylum in 1954.

"How odd." Carlisle said to himself, in the privacy of his home office. The name was fairly common, especially in a place like England. There must have been at least a thousand Henry Bradford's, he just happened to read about two of them in the same day. This fact was very funny to him at the moment. However, he couldn't shake the strange, intuitive feeling that it was more than just a coincidence.

He continued to read the article; it seemed to be something he missed in the medical journals during the 1950's. Apparently this French woman was an amazing psycho-analyzer. The asylum became one of the best, producing the largest amount of recoveries at that point in England. It was said that her Bradford case was one of the most devastating and interesting cases at the same time. Bradford was diagnosed as a schizophrenic who had been accused of murder. Although he was proved guilty, he was sentenced to life at the asylum. Apparently, the physiatrist, Veronique Biduemordeau had been making great progress with the patient, until one day he killed himself in his cell.

It was an interesting story, and now that he had read over it, he had recalled some publicity over it. It was a very small amount though because he had been living in America at the time. A sudden thought came over him. Why was the name Veronique Biduemordeau so familiar sounding to him? There was something strange about this case; he just couldn't seem to piece it together.

Carlisle sat at his desk for nearly an hour thinking when a thought dawned upon him. A sudden epiphany embraced him in enlightenment.

"I know Veronique." He whispered to himself in excitement. "She's a vampire."

The thoughts seemed to stream together so fluidly at once. "Henry Bradford never died. He was changed, right there in his cell!" Carlisle said excitedly with a little more volume.

"This means that there is possibly another vampire in this vicinity." Carlisle exclaimed. However, this vampire was not like others, he was diagnosed a dangerous schizophrenic, and Dr. Cullen figured that such things don't change.