13 - Suspects

Phil's question along with my own newfound uncertainties kept floating around in my mind that morning at work, making me a little more distracted than usual. It got so bad my mother finally asked me what was wrong.

I started to ask her if she thought I really loved Sam, but changed my mind. Did I really want to know? "Nothing is wrong, I had a hard time falling asleep last night," I told her some of the truth. I had made it home before she had woken up and had destroyed the note, she did not need to know about my nighttime run.

I steered clear of Phil for the next couple of days, well mainly I was avoiding his question - I worked some more on my applications, the ones I finished were sent off in the mail. Jake and the rest of our little pack must have noticed the leaning of my thoughts but for once they chose not to pry. I kept searching for my Sam through my memories, unfortunately all I kept finding was a boy who while was an all right sort of person did not resemble the Sam I had built in my mind. It was hard to admit the possibility of being completely wrong about the man I thought I loved, there was no way in hell I could ever be able to say it out loud. Maybe admitting it to myself would be enough for me to move on.

I was sitting in the living room after dinner trying to examine all my memories of Sam, things looked completely different now that I was no longer projecting my own dreams and wants onto Sam. Could it really be this simple, all I had to do is admit I was wrong about my feeling and I could restart the building of my dreams? The castle was starting to form in my mind, but I did not want to go as extravagant as I had last time. Maybe the cottage I had been eyeing a few weeks ago was a good idea.

I did call Phil to tell him I was busy trying to apply to college. He seemed pleased that I was finally getting ready. He accepted the excuse and offered up his services if I needed someone to proofread my essays. While admitting that the essays were giving me a hard time I asked for a a little time politely taking a raincheck on his offer of help.

Before I got off the phone with him I had to ask about the trip he had taken out of town, it was bothering me. I could not figure out what kind of emergency a plastic surgeon could possibly have that took him out of town for a week. "What was it, emergency liposuction?" I should have probably been more kind, especially with all he had done to help me, but it was not to harass Phil about his job. It also helped that Phil was one of the most confident people I had ever met and my teasing would not harm his ego in any way.

"Not exactly," he said, going back to the Phil I was used to, the one that never told me a thing.

"What are you being secretive about now? Do you have a wife and kids you are supposed to visit ever once in a while?" I asked only half jokingly. That would make things a little more awkward, not that anything had happened.

He paused for such a long time I though the connection had failed except I heard his breathing on the other side.

"I do certain things to help people, others don't always approve of what I do. There have been some threats, so I don't talk about what I do for safety reasons." His explanation was quiet and sounded rehearsed. He had been asked this question before.

"Oh there you go being mysterious again," I said getting frustrated.

"Not mysterious this time, just cautious." He said, I could hear the smile in his voice.

"How exactly does a plastic surgeon piss someone off?" I could not picture one scenario where this could happen. "Botched boob job?"

"If you were to hurt someone to teach them a lesson, how would you feel about the doctor that came in and reversed the damage?" He asked leaving it at that. I could tell he would not speak on the subject any more.

Phil called me on Friday saying he had an emergency and had to go out of town for a few days. I ran more patrols than normal, I was still going back through the memories and needed the distraction. This time I did not worry that I would lose my cabin haven, I worried about the man who was staying there. What was he doing? Was he really in danger?

He is probably just faking it. How could a plastic surgeon really make someone angry? People go to him because they want to, not because of anything else. Jake did not take it seriously, but he was still pissed off at Phil. As I had suspected Phil had not fallen for any of Jake's tricks during the poker game and had managed to clean them out. That little voice in the back of my head pointed out that Phil was not the type of guy that was prone to exaggeration - I continued to worry.

Phil was gone the week of Thanksgiving, so it was only family and Charlie for dinner. This was our first holiday without my father, it was always at the strangest times that I would get a pang in the vicinity of my heart and feel the tears start to pool in my eyes.

For me the worst moment was when my mother put the turkey on the table and we all looked at it. Finally Charlie had taken up the task, very reluctantly I might add, of carving the turkey.

"We should have asked Phil to come, he could have made it look good." Seth joked, yes it had been a major joke that Phil was a plastic surgeon. Everyone all of a sudden became a stand up comedian - I could see why Phil did not want to tell people.

We all laughed at my expense but I could tell no one's heart was in it. My mother excused herself from the table and walked out of the house. It took her a good fifteen minutes to come back, we did not ask where she had gone. It was obvious that she had been crying, there was nothing to say.

I can't believe how shallow and selfish I had been not to notice how much my mother missed her husband. I had seen her attempts to hide behind work as no feelings instead of her method of coping.

The day after Thanksgiving I had nothing better to do so I reluctantly went over to see the Cullens with Jake. I did owe them a thanks for helping out when Phil got really sick.

Jake was excited, he wanted to show off how cute and wonderful his mate was, and he had caught me in a melancholy mood so I had accepted. I knew how much Nessie had changed over the past few weeks, Jake's thoughts had centered around her during our patrols. Carlisle the doctor had determined with certainty that her aging process was slowing down, but the worry on Jake's mind was that she wasn't slowing down fast enough.

We drove up in Jake's small volkswagen. The Cullen's house always amazed me, it had such understated grandeur, unlike it's owners who were absolutely over the top gorgeous - in a creepy vampire sort of way that is. It was a sunny day so everyone in the family was around, Carlisle had not gone to work today. They were outside teaching Nessie how to kick a ball, she was doing it gracefully despite the mary-jane leather shoes and long pink frothy dress she was wearing. The pink should have clashed with her auburn hair but instead the pale pink complimented her skin tone.

Rosalie was taking pictures, I guess they wanted to make sure she would have a photo album of growing up. They were preparing her to blend in with the human world, and having faked their way through it for the past hundred years or so they knew what to do.

"Nessie!" Jake yelled as soon as he parked the car, he was out even before the engine had fully stopped. He ran over and picked her up in a big hug. Two months ago I would have made some sort of comment about pedophiles. I had come a long way that I was able to bite my tongue.

Bella came over to say hello to me, her eyes were still the freakish red but I could see the steady diet of animal blood was diluting it out somewhat.

She was still scared of me, she did not trust Jake when he said I would not harm them. Bella was a smart girl, I tolerated them, but barely - they were not my best friends. You might be indebted to them over Sam, maybe you would not have figured it out. You might have been stuck in a marriage with a man you did not even know. The inner voice was always pesky but I was not mature enough to listen to it yet, yep I still hated the Cullens.

I had hated this girl in front of me when she was human, that feeling had not changed when she had been turned into a bloodsucker. But I could see why Jake had liked her, she tried too hard to please everyone around her. Sometimes to her own detriment, I really hated pushovers.

Alice heaved a sigh and mumbled something under her breath, I guess she disliked being blind and when we were around her visions tended to fade out.

Carlisle and Esme greeted me from a distance but they did not come close, as freakish as this sounded I think they were trying to be polite. I know what would be more polite, setting themselves on fire. I thought with dark humor.

I heard Edward cough, I always forgot about the mindreader. He was busy rifling through my thoughts, so he must have heard my joke. I would rather he stay out of my head, so I used the same strategy as on the boys from the pack. I had learned well from being part the pack mentality. Thinking about my period was out of the question, I mean blood and a vampire would not mix well. Instead I thought about Phil's ass and how nice it had looked in jeans, especially when he bent over. I thought about how nice his fingers were and pictured what I would like for him to do with those.

For a minute I thought I was just embarrassing myself but then I saw Edward cringe. Bullseye. That would teach the leech to stay out of my head.

"What is wrong Edward?" Bella asked concerned, her need to try to be friendly with wolf girl was forgotten. He just shook his head at her, she looked back at me and narrowed her eyes. I tried my best to look innocent while picturing unbuttoning Phil's shirt. Nessie laughed effectively distracting Bella. Vampires had absolutely no attention spans, I would have to remember that for future use.

Sitting down on the hood of the car I looked around uncertainly, wondering what the heck I was doing here; other than I had nothing better to do. So instead you thought hanging out with vampires would be all that much better?

My college applications had been filled out and sent off. Once I wrote a set of essays for one of the school application I had been able to recycle it for almost all the others. The sheer amount of writing that I had had to do was not really mentally strenuous. I quickly figured out the pattern of the questions. So all it cost me was severe cramps in my writing hand and ink stains all over my fingers.

Now all I had to do was wait very impatiently for their replies, or more likely their denial letters. I really like the variability of programs at the University of Washington, but I did not think they would take me mid-year. It would also put me close enough to the Rez that if anything happened I could come back quickly to help. I could always apply next spring, there was no rule that I knew of to prevent me from reapplying. I was slowly finding new dreams, I did not need Sam to get my teaching degree, I could do it all by myself.

Speaking of dreams I remembered my strange one, the one with the green eyed woman and the three vampires. There was something that was bothering me about it, something that I could not put my finger on. It kept evading me, every time I tried to think about the details the memory slipped and became fuzzy. It was almost like I could remember it best when I was not concentrating.

I don't know why I was so determined to remember this dream, I had much stranger dreams in the past few weeks. But something about this one had stuck with me.

I heard a gasp, I looked up to see Edward staring at me with worry in his eyes. "You saw those vampires in a dream?" He asked in a strange voice.

"It was just a dream, no big deal. Stay out of my head." I warned him with a growl.

"Alice saw those exact vampires coming through this region, but they never showed up. They just disappeared from her visions." Edward clarified. This got everyone's full attention.

"What is going on Edward?" Bella interrupted with a worried tone. Edward moved to his wife and put his arms around her but he did not look away from me. His face had rearranged itself to a look of utter concentration. I knew what he was doing, he was trying to see what he could find in my mind.

"Do you mean they exist?" I asked trying to catch up to the fact that Alice had seen these vampires. That must mean they exist, but then why did I know what they looked like and not remember meeting them. You would think I would remember meeting three red eyed leeches.

"How did you meet them?" Edward ask in a biting tone, not bothering to answer my question.

"I don't know, I have only dreamed of them." I was bothered by this strange detail enough that I did not snap at him for giving me an order. Instead I concentrated on remembering. The few details I had were lost again in a blur.

"How would you know what they look like if it was only a dream? Tell me exactly what you can remember, I need to you concentrate, I need you to think." Edward growled at me coming closer.

"I can't!" I yelled at him, getting angry and frustrated but mostly at myself. How could I not remember it?

It took a bit of arguing and a lot of growling but the story finally put itself together. Phil and I had gone hiking. Somehow, and I could not remember this part well, I fell asleep and saw the vampires. That was the first time. The second time was the night I was really drunk and that was when I saw the green eyes woman as well as the three leeches.

"It could not have happened, in my dream I remember phasing, my clothes ripping apart, when I woke up all my clothes were intact. Unless my clothes magically were put together again." I attempted to joke about it, but I was starting to be a little tense. Why the fuck could I not remember?

"Are you sure you were wearing the same clothes?" Jake asked me. I gave him a dirty look, I was a girl of course I would have noticed if I was wearing different clothes.

When Alice's vision of the three had not come true they had assumed the group had gone a different route. Now we were being a little more suspicious.

It was Rosalie that noted that I had been around Phil during both dreams. She wanted to go question him, right now. I was very relieved that I could tell her he was out of town. She did not look like she was in the mood for Phil's quirky humor, and I did not want his blood on my hands right about now.

Jake had called the rest of our pack, it was nice that he included everyone in the decision. One point for Jake, zero for Sam.

Seth had been quiet since he had come with Quil and Embry. Now he spoke up, "I see two possibilities here. One is that Phil was the one who did something to the vampires and erased Leah's memory. The other is something else was there in the woods that day. I would go with the second option, Leah did see a strange woman."

"We have to know, we need to question him." This was said by Jasper, he was their tactical warrior guy. Carlisle seemed reluctant to agree.

"What if he is something that can take on three vampires at a time, do we really want to mess with someone like that? He has never threatened any of us. In fact if Leah's dream is accurate he saved her life." Seth argued his point. I smiled for the first time since Edward recognized the leeches, my little brother would defend his worst enemy. But he had a very valid point, we would have to approach this carefully.

In the end we all reluctantly agreed on a plan. We would try to pursue this thing with Phil, but we would not take him head on. It was decided there was a chance that he was human and it would not be to his benefit to be immersed in the vampire and werewolf world. I would go talk to him and casually bring up my dream, and Edward would make sure he was in the vicinity to see what Phil's thoughts would be about the matter.

In the meantime one of the vampires or wolves would watch his house, to see if there was anything funny going on. I was surprised it had taken this long for my supernatural life to collide with my human one, still I was not pleased at the prospect.

Phil called a few days later to tell me he had come back, he invited me over with promises of food. I knew he was home, Esme had called me to inform me of this last night. I hated the feelings of mistrust that had suddenly come up to mar my friendship. I called the Cullens and Jake to let them know that I was headed over to Phil's house. Edward offered to drive me at least part of the way but I declined his offer, citing the need to keep this a secret from Sam. It had been a unanimous decision to keep Sam and his pack out of this. The main reason was Sam, he was such a "kill first, ask questions later" type of man it would not be in anyone's best interest to share our suspicions with him.

It felt kind of strange to be plotting with the leeches but as much as I hated to admit this, they were more willing to put themselves in possible danger to protect Phil. Sam would not have accepted the small risk. All except Rosalie, she was for the 'pummel him until he tells us all' plan, but Carlisle had quickly implored her to stop. It was hard not to compare how Carlisle treated his family to how Sam treated his pack. I had to keep telling myself Carlisle had four hundred years more experience.

So here I was taking my super cool bike to Phil's house. Pedal, pedal, pedal. Edward and Jake had promised to meet me close to the cabin. I smelled both of them as soon as I turned onto the long driveway, geez I always forgot how much leeches stunk.

"Remember Leah, be subtle. Don't just blurt it out." I heard Jake from a bush. Good thing they were here, how would I have ever survived without such sage advice?

"If he suspects anything just leave, I do not think he would hurt me." I said in a whisper. I was pretty sure of this, Phil had gone out of his way to be nice to me. I did not know how he would feel about Jake and Edward spying on him.

Jake did not answer but I knew he would never leave me alone, stupid honorable idiot that he was.

I paused at the front door and considered knocking. That would be suspicious, I never knocked anymore. I found Phil in the kitchen, chopping up what smelled like chocolate.

"Hi princess, could you grab the cocoa from the pantry for me?" He said by way of greeting, the dimples were out in full force. No man with dimples like that could be evil.

"Hi," I said lamely. This trying not to act suspicious was making me nervous, and I was acting super suspicious. I sat down on a stool across from him after setting the box of cocoa down next to his bowl. I could smell dinner in the oven, it was going to be pasta with peas and some sort of bacon.

"What's wrong? Hey are you all right?" He said putting down the knife and looking up at me.

"Nothing, just a little tired." This seemed like a good lead in, "I have not been sleeping well, I keep having these strange dreams."

"That is not uncommon, if you are sleep deprived you will have more vivid dreams. Happens all the time with recovering alcoholics." He had picked up his knife again, and was moving the chocolate bits from the cutting board into his bowl.

I watched as he measured and sifted out some cocoa to add to the mixture. "So are you calling me an alcoholic?"

He laughed at me. "There is something called REM rebound. If you are not sleeping well your brain does not get to dream. It really wants to dream, so when you finally do sleep it will result in you spending a larger chunk of you sleep in a dream state. For this reason people report more vivid dreams."

"Don't you want to know about my dream doctor?" I asked partially joking, partially desperate. His attempts to diagnose my problem were far from helpful.

"I am not that sort of doctor, but if you wish I could call someone. One of my cousins has a very nice comfy couch where you can sit down and discuss your dreams of trains going through tunnels." There seemed to be a joke I seemed to be missing here.

"Huh? I don't understand nerd talk? My dreams don't have trains in them." This was not going where I wanted it to.

"It is a joke, one that apparently you did not understand. Call me after you take introduction to psychology, if you still don't understand at that point I will explain it to you. But go ahead lay down on the couch and tell me about your dream. I think I can fake an Austrian accent. I can even speak a little german for you. Zwie Bier, bitte." I watched as he poured hot water over his chocolate and cocoa concoction melting the two together.

"What is that supposed to mean?" I asked confused.

"Two beers, please." He laughed, "I know all the important phrases."

"Yeah, I can tell," I could not help but laugh, as he intended for me to. Right Leah, focus, focus on getting him to think about your dream. "You know you are in my dream."

"Oh now we are getting somewhere, were we ice skating together?" He asked with a little too much enthusiasm. I so was going to have to figure out what the heck he was talking about.

"No, we were walking in the woods when we met some strangers and invited them to lunch. Then I remember this green eyed woman leaning over me. The weird thing is I have never met those people before." Okay that was not subtle but he had been messing with my plan. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

"You seriously want me to interpret that dream. You walking in the forest and meeting some strangers?" He looked really confused.

"No, I was just talking, don't mind me." I felt like a total fool, but I had to ask one more question. "You don't remember meeting anyone when we went hiking?"

"No not really, why do you ask?" He looked more concerned than confused now.

"Never mind. What are you doing?" I had tried my best, I only hoped Edward had acquired the information he needed.

"Making a german chocolate cake with coconut and pecans." He wagged his eyebrows at me, his mood going back to his abnormal happy state.

"Oh, when will it be done?" My mouth was watering at the prospect.

"Sorry Princess, not tonight. I have to let the pudding filling cool in the fridge overnight." I watched as he set the chocolate concoction aside, I wondered if he would let me lick the spoon. It looked yummy and I was getting hungry.

I did my best to pout, "you are such a tease, all talk and no delivery of the goods."

"Do you really want to discuss whether or not I can deliver the goods?" There was laughter in his voice. I could feel my cheeks starting to burn as I realized how what I said could be interpreted. "Lucky for you I do put out, if you would have looked in the freezer you would know there is a mud pie there."

It was silly for me trying to tease this man, inevitably I would lose. He had been playing this game far longer than I. But it was still fun to do so, even if I just ended up embarrassing myself. In the end we would both win these games, he might embarrass me but whenever I batted my eyelashes at him in an exaggerated attempt to flirt he would always give me what I wanted.

Since dinner was not ready yet, I used the excuse that I wanted to work on a necklace to escape to the study. As soon as I had pulled the sliding door shut I ran across to the window and slid it open.

"Well?" I asked the darkness, the sun had set while I was talking to Phil.

I could hear Jake's heartbeat as it came closer to the window. "As best Edward can tell, the man can remember meeting the vampires but nothing after that. He is not sure though."

"Why not?" I hissed, I had thought Edward was the great mindreader. He could not crack one human brain?

"I will tell you about it later, but it looks like Phil does not know about the green eyed woman you seem to recall."

"All right, thanks Jake. See you later." I slowly closed the window.

"Sure, sure." I heard Jake say before he disappeared into the woods. The relief at Edwards verdict was almost overwhelming. I did not care that there was some strange woman running around in the woods that could kill three vampires, all I cared about was that Phil was still human. My little island of peace had not been disturbed yet.

I went back to the kitchen and hugged Phil. He seemed confused. "What is going on Princess?"

"Nothing, just wanted to say I missed you while you were gone. So when do we eat?" I asked him, my stomach was making some pretty loud noises.

"Did you miss me or the food?" He grumbled before he started to laugh. "Set out some plates, while I check to see if the cheese has melted."

Phil refused to let me take my bike home, so he drove me in the truck. I don't know what seemed to bother him more: me riding my bike home and being raped and murdered or the fact that I had not brought a jacket. Phil was strange sometimes, I could live with the human weird.

Jake was waiting for me when I got home, I went to tell my mom I was back but would be going on patrol.

You seem to be in a good mood. He thought at me as soon as I phased. We were running towards the Cullens property. We needed to come up with a new plan.

I could tell Jake was upset that Phil was not the person we were looking for. This meant there was something else running around in these woods, that green eyed woman seemed like a good place to start. This something could take on three vampires and alter memories. It might even be able to put clothes back together again, it was somewhat scary that it had redressed me. I should have been worried, but for some reason that face did not seem all that scary, in fact she seemed kind of nice.

A/N: Hi there ladies, what do you think? Thanks for all your reviews, it felt like christmas morning checking my email today. Is there a Review Addicts Anonymous somewhere?

Connect2tjb: Writing that chapter about the party was really fun, especially since I got to pick on Paul, he is such an ass. The gift was fun to figure out, it was kind of hard to narrow it down to the right combination.

ABarbieStory: Here you go another update, it is a good enough excuse to avoid doing laundry. I hate folding laundry. Glad you liked Phil's present of college applications, it was a good time for her to be pushed a little bit in the right direction. I think you may have a partial idea of what is going on, but the reality of it is really far out there. Anyway it is fun to speculate.

Twiligher: I think you did miss a set of updates, and I worry about everything. It is not a good thing that I have a very good imagination and can come up with these elaborate stories - as a kid if my parents were half an hour late home I would come up with these insane schemes as to how I was going to take care of my little brother and where we would live. Yeah I am insane. Glad you like the story, I am trying to write an original non-fanfic one and it is kind of hard because I am so attached to Phil and Leah - they are real people in my mind and I watch as they have conversations together. I need to develop my new characters to that point so that I can even begin.

Toshii519: It is not stalking if you do it with love, or so one of my friends used to say. I kept telling her that Brad Pitt and the police would consider it stalking. As to why Sue keeps pressing, maybe she is a worried mother, maybe she sees something that her daughter has yet to realize.

Oh well I am off to start the next chapter. Ta ta for now.