WRONG DECISIONS

Disclaimer: The Cullen's, the Swans, and most of the characters mentioned in the story that are known from Stephanie Meyer's beloved Twilight Saga, are all hers and hers alone. I neither have nor wish to pass them off as mine. I do appreciate the fact that she did bring them to life and allows us to play with them in our imaginations. The only thing I will claim is the current storyline.

The awesome and talented dowlingnana searched out my errors and corrected them.

"Hold, please, while I see what I can do to get the message through to the Chief." And, with that said Alice was put on hold for what seemed to be forever before the dispatcher came back on the phone to tell Alice to please call back within an hour.

Alice thanked her and hung up.

CHAPTER 9: TIME TO TAKE ACTION

Alice impatiently waited out the hour before calling back to the Forks Police Station and once again asked to speak with Chief Swan. However, once again Alice was forestalled from speaking with Charlie as she was told that when he had returned to the station an emergency call had come in that required his attention.

Feeling nothing but frustration at this point, Alice was about ready to start acting out by throwing anything that she could lay hands upon. Fate was getting in the way of her getting the message through to someone that could maybe help to prevent whatever was going to happen to Bella, from happening. And, if not prevent it, at least, keep it from being too bad.

It seemed that everything was popping up to stop her from getting her message across, she just didn't understand. She had never been blocked before, but then she had never had to go outside of the family with this kind of information before, either. And, in a way she did feel like she wasn't going outside the family since in her opinion Bella was still family.

True, the officer that had answered her call did ask for her name and number so the Chief could return her call, but Alice had been so frustrated at the delay once again that she had hung up on the person without realizing what she was doing.

She didn't want to tell anyone else about what she was feeling or seeing since she couldn't make sense of any of it herself. If she approached anyone else in the family, there was no telling what they might do. Esme was bad enough. So, right now she would just have to try to rein in her impatience and try again after she had more information. Hopefully nothing would happen until then.

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Later that night after Charlie had returned from the emergency call, the dispatcher had told him about the call he had received. He asked if the caller had left a name, a number and the purpose of the call to which he was told no, that the caller had simply hung up.

"Well, don't worry about it then. If it's important enough they'll call back." Charlie offhandedly remarked. Then he left to go home to try to get some rest before returning for his shift the next day.

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After Paul had escaped his interview with the nut-job, Aro, he contacted his cousin, Sam Uley. Poor Paul had made the mistake of telling Sam about what he thought Aro was planning, so Sam decided that he had wanted to see if he could act before Aro so he could have money of his own. So, Sam had blackmailed Paul into furnishing him with all photos that Aro would be receiving. Paul gave Sam the requested pictures of the twins and Bella Cullen Swan.

Now Paul had to decide what he needed to do; stay with Sam's planning to kidnap the children, continue to go with whatever plan Aro might come up with or continue with his plan for striking out on his own with an accomplice. Someone that could take the fall if caught.

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Irina let Bella know that she had made arrangement for the two of them to have lunch at a quiet restaurant so they could place the return call to Esme Cullen. And, that she had also arranged for the twins to have a play date with their neighbor for a couple of hours so she and Bella would be able to get the call out of the way.

So, after dropping the twins off at the neighbor's, Bella and Irina continue on to where Irina had arranged for them to have lunch. Upon arrival, Bella had to agree that Irina had indeed chosen well. The restaurant was quiet with a very relaxing atmosphere; just the type of place to make the call without giving anything away as to where they were.

Bella and Irina had lunch and chatted about the book Bella was getting ready to send off to her publisher. Both women knew that this was a delaying tactic to putting off making the call that needed to be made.

Bella knew that Esme wouldn't be trying to get in touch with her unless something was wrong. Some kind of trouble that was affecting the Cullen family in some way, but Bella couldn't imagine what the problem might be.

"Well, I guess I've put this off long enough; time to make the call." Bella commented which was the signal for Irina to reach into her purse for her phone.

Dialing the number that Bella knew by heart, she waits for the call to be answered. But instead of receiving an answer the call goes to voice mail. Bella tries once more after conferring with the number that Charlie had given her just to be satisfied that she had dialed the correct number the first time.

However, it was the same results the second time around, no answer until voicemail picks up. Bella did leave a simple message this time that she had returned the call.

After being unsuccessful in reaching Esme, Bella and Irina left to return home, stopping on the way to pick up the twins.

The rest of the day passed peacefully with Bella spending time with her kids and then getting them ready for bed.

Irina had finished her work for the day, so she left to go to her home.

Sometime later after putting Annabella and Anthony to bed, Bella grew tired and decided to head for bed. But first like she always did she checked on the twins like she always did before retiring for the night. She found that each was peacefully resting which never failed to bring a smile to her face. So, with a great big yawn Bella headed to her bedroom and a restful night's sleep.

Bella awakened feeling refreshed, but still slightly puzzled about why Esme had been trying to reach her, and why her ex-mother-in-law hadn't answered the day before when Bella had tried to return the call.

Stretching and then tossing the covers to one side, Bella got up and headed for the bathroom to get ready for the day. She always had the habit of waking up before the twins so she could have a few moments to get ready and start the day with a cup of coffee before the kids got up.

But after a time and not hearing any noise coming from either of the children's rooms, Bella decides to go check on them. However, to her surprise neither child was in their bed.

She quickly searched the bathroom but found no child. She knew that they hadn't gone into the kitchen for anything because she would have seen them. So, where could they be?

After searching the entire house, Bella returned to their bedrooms and searched each room once more. That was when she saw the piece of paper that was on Anthony's bed. Running back to Annabella's room, she saw a piece of paper on the bed and snatching it up she saw that it read the same as the note that had been left on Anthony's bed.

Bella was totally stunned by what she had just read. Still in a state of shock she quickly ran to get her phone and called Irina telling her to come immediately. That something had happened to the twins.

Irina didn't hesitate to try to reassure Bella by telling her that she was on the way and to try to stay calm until she could get there, and they could see what needed to be done.

Once she arrived and read the note, she began getting just as upset as Bella had.

Neither woman was able to speak for a period of time and then Bella asked, "Irina, what should I do?" Bella asked her friend as she reread the note that had been left on Annabella's and Anthony's beds.

If you want to see your brats again then have five million dollars ready for delivery within three days. There will be no further communication until you are contacted on where to leave the money.

Don't contact the cops or tell anyone else about this or you will never see them again.

"Bella, you need to let Charlie know about this. Then you need to get a hold of the twins' father so he can help get this taken care of." Irina told her friend.

"You know I can't do that. He doesn't know anything about having any children and I refused to allow a child of mine to be brought up in the lifestyle that he had chosen to lead.

"That's why I divorced Edward and left without having anything else to do with him."

"Bella, I know that you are able to handle the amount being demanded because of how well you've done with your writing, but this isn't something that you can deal with by yourself. Also, because of the money that your ex deposits each month into a bank account for you. Because of both bank accounts the funds they're demanding are there.

"However, you need to get a hold of Edward Cullen and let him know about this situation. He has more resources than you or the law has to be able to get this resolved." Irina continued to tell her friend.

"I can't." Bella said as she began sobbing uncontrollably falling down into the chair she had been standing in front of.

Irina was just as upset about the disappearance of the twins as Bella was, but she knew that Bella needed to get in touch with the Cullen's. She seriously believed that that was the only way they all stood a chance of getting Annabella and Anthony back home.

The Cullen's had the resources that even law enforcement didn't have. They would be able to find the children and deal with the individuals or the group that had perpetrated this scheme. A scheme that endangered the lives of innocent children.

Irina, as upset as she was about the current situation, knew that she needed to give Bella, her friend and employer, time to calm down before approaching her again about getting a hold of the Cullen's.

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KIDNAPPER'S POV

'Well, that went off without any problems. All I had to do was to put a little chloroform on a rag and hold it over the face of each child while they were sleeping. No problem or worry about either of them waking up and sounding the alarm.' He thought to himself.

The other party to the kidnapping was finishing up with getting the two kids settled on the bed before turning to look at the partner in crime.

At first, this idea seemed like it was crazy especially when it was learnt that the kids had been fathered by a Cullen. That demanded time to consider the whole damn thing and once it had been decided to go ahead with it the planning carefully became extremely important.

The money being demanded would give each of them a chance to start over in a different place and to follow a different way of life. No one would know who was involved. And the best part was that the children would be found only after they had gone away. Not even the children would be able to identify who had taken them.

Everyone would assume that the more obvious groups were the ones responsible for taking the children; no one would ever consider the true kidnappers.

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After Bella had calmed down, she turned to Irina and told her to book a private jet that could leave within the hour for Chicago. Then she quietly rose and left the room to go pack a few things for her trip.

AN: Okay, the twins have been taken, but by who? What is Bella going to do once she gets to Chicago? How is she going to be able to explain things? Who will she approach first once she is there? What is going to be the reaction by everyone?

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