Chapter 15

"Daddy!" Joya's voice echoed throughout the house as David walked through the door. Eve had contacted Mira shortly after explaining the new knowledge to David, and in turn she had sat the girls down and told them what had happened. There were still questions, but they had their dad back, and for the moment everything else took a back seat.

"Hey honey. Are you ok?" Mira greeted Eve as she came in at a more sedate pace to David, Roarke's arm tight around her shoulders.

"Well. Twelve hours ago I said goodbye to my brother and left for work. Eleven hours ago I shot him dead. Four hours ago, I went to arrest my sisters killer only to find my dead brother who wasn't dead. I spent the last two hours interrogating him, and now I've brought him home again but still am absolutely no closer to the truth than I was forty eight hours ago."

Mira blinked. "That'll be a no then?"

Eve smiled wryly. "Ya think?"

"Evie, dinner out? My treat." Smiled David, and despite herself Eve couldn't help but grin back at his enthusiasm. But before she could answer him, Roarke interrupted.

"Eve, commander Whitney and your team will be here soon, and you need to set up." Eve mentally rolled her eyes at his tone, elbowing him.

"Sorry David, he's right. I have a meeting, and I think people are going to want answers from you too. We'll do it tomorrow." Roarke disappeared with Summerset, leaving Eve with Mira as David spent time with his daughters.

"What's wrong with Roarke, eve?" Mira asked as they made their way into her office.

"He'll if I know. He flipped out about how easily I let David back into my life, then started going on how easily I forgave him."

"He's jealous?" Said Mira in surprise.

"Apparently. Which I could understand if David wasn't my brother. And honestly, I have one other man in my life and he begins to freak out, but if I freak about the women in his he would tell me I was overreacting! If I was jealous of every women in his life I would never get anywhere with the amount he's slept with over the years."

Mira chuckled at Eve's indignant expression, laughing internally at how perfectly right for each other Eve and Roarke were, even if they couldn't always see it.

"I think it's cute." Said Mira as she began to fill the board with details of Keely's murder.

"Yeah, well, you would. You pretty much have a perfect husband!" Laughed Eve.

"Oh, sweetheart, that I do. But you would be so bored with perfect!"

"That's true." Conceded Eve.

"Oi!"  Eve turned and laughed at Roarke's injured expression as he came through the door.
"It's true! Life would be dull!" She laughed as she stood on tiptoes and kissed him.

"Aw, you two are so cute together." Eve drew away from her husband quickly her partner entered the room, McNab and Feeney close behind. She shifted uncomfortably, glaring at Mira when she laughed.

"Hey kid. How ya doing?" Asked Feeney.

"Ask me again next year." Said Eve, shooting a small grin at him. He chuckled, and they all turned as Whitney entered, followed by Chief Tibble.

"Dallas, have you put the pieces together yet?" Asked the chief. She glanced at David, who had appeared in the doorway.

"I think so sir." She gestured to the seats around the room, and made her way to the front as everyone sat, but let Peabody take centre stage.

"Okay, Jonathan smith. He was found in Miami as a baby, abandoned in an alley two days after David was found in Houston. He grew up in foster care, and was first arrested at the age of nine, for boosting a car. His criminal record grew, as did his reputation. He was arrested for drugs as a young teen and was sent to prison due to his previous convictions. He never really recovered. By the time he was 18 he'd been in over 40 different foster homes.

"Wow." Murmured David and Eve simultaneously, shooting grins at each other.

"Once out of foster care, he continued his life of crime, bouncing from prison to prison normally returning to the system within weeks of being releases. He arrived in the same town as you, David, approximately 5 years after you moved there."

McNab stopped in, waggling his eyebrows at Peabody as they swapped seats. She glared at him, frowning as she desperately tried to stop from smirking back at him.

"From what we can figure out from his computer records, he saw you in the street David and spent hours researching your past. He figured out you must be twins, and became jealous of the life you had. " he continued to talk, outlining what the EDD had discovered on his hard drive but Eve stopped listening, suppressing a smile as she noticed two shadows hovering outside the door. She slipped out her seat, gesturing for McNab to carry on as she slipped out of Roarke's office and round the back.

"Shush, Joya!" Evelyna hissed as she pressed against the wall, desperately trying to hear what was being said in the room.

"I wanna hear!" Whined the young girl as she tugged on the teens shirt.

"What on earth are you doing?" Asked an amused Eve. Both girls let out a high pitched squeak, whirring around to face their aunt.

"Nothing!" Evelyna said quickly, causing eve to raise an eyebrow.

"Really? Because I would have sworn you were trying to eavesdrop on a classified meeting." She said pointedly. She felt her heart sink as she saw tears well up in the elder girls eyes, frowning as she watched her face become a mask before any could fall.

"Joya? Could you possibly go ask summerset what's for dinner please?" She asked causing the young girl to skip away happily.

"So. Are you going to tell me what's really going on?" She asked, quashing the urge to run in the opposite direction.

"Does it matter?" She asked sullenly, refusing to look at Eve.

"Yes." Eve said firmly, realising for the first time that the young girl was hurting more than she let on. And,really, who was she going to talk to? "It matters to me."

"Why? You don't even know me." She lifted her gaze to Eve's, who flinched at the pain there. And understood that her answer would quite possibly affect this child's life-yes, she was still a child deep inside- for years to come. Crap.


I'm so sorry for how long this took! Apparently, instead of easing off in the last week of term like normal the teachers decided to heap homework and surprise assessments on us, plus I have a maths gcse next week, and then I'm trying to sort out sixth form applications and the one I want to go to doesn't do one the subjects I want,  then I have a formal Friday and then... You get the picture. Anyway, a belated happy Halloween and as always, thanks for reading!! X