Devastating Secret™

Ties That Bind

Noah snuck back just in time, but he didn't escape completely unscathed. Eva found him in the security passageway.

"How do you know about this?" Noah asked.

"This is an old house. It was once the servant's passage." Eva informed him.

"Why are you up then?"

"My husband sneaking around at 2 am interested me, so I sought answers," Eva whispered.

"I wasn't sneaking around," Noah corrected, "I had to speak to the guys at the bureau."

"What did you find?"

"David Green is an uncle."

"That makes sense, but how," Eva wondered aloud. "Daddy never had any brothers and neither did David...Uncle David...deceased Uncle David." She corrected, puzzled.

"Maybe you could ask Ethan at the fundraiser."

"What?"

"I'm inviting Ethan on the pretext as a campaign contributor. You guys can talk there."

"You think Ethan is family."

"He must be. Welker liked keeping things in the family. It seems he trusted no one else."

"He trusted Cooper," Eva said suddenly.

"How much?"

"Enough to tell him about me," Eva stated. "I got the feeling sometimes that me being with Cooper wouldn't disappoint him."

"He was proud of Cooper?"

"He liked him that much, I knew. He thought he was 'ballsy' was the word he used."

"Cooper was that tight with him?"

"He acted as though he was his son, of course, this was when Cooper wasn't around. After all, he had appearances to maintain. Even told me the day he...I killed him that we should get along like a family."

"He said that!" Noah asked excitedly.

"Yes. Why? It was something he said often when Cooper and I argued."

"Because what if Cooper was family?"

Even in the semi-dark, Noah saw her eyes widen then her lips parted, and he stepped forward covering her screams as he held her.

"It's just a guess baby." Noah murmured, "Maybe I'm wrong," Please God let him be wrong! He didn't want the murder of another relative on her conscience.

Her wracking shudders subsided, and Noah cautiously stepped away, "I could be wrong," He whispered again. "It was just a guess."

"I doubt you're wrong." Came Eva's graveled whisper as she moved away heading back to the bedroom."

"It was just a guess..." Noah whispered as he followed her.

"A very good one." She shot back.

"We'll run a DNA test on Cooper and see what we find," Noah muttered as Eva sat on the bed. "Maybe it'll be nothing."

"I can't live like this," Eva muttered her tears flowing silently. "He goes and joins the mafia and ruins everyone's life! He made me kill my own family! If he had told me or told Cooper..."

Maybe he was hoping on incest, came Noah's unruly thought, but he squashed it quick saying instead, "It would've saved his life. I think he didn't tell him to keep both of you there."

"Of course, he did!" Eva sniffed bitterly, "It was another tactic to control us! If only I hadn't... I'm so sorry Noah!"

"It's okay," Noah whispered as he sat down beside her. He put his arms around her and said. "This may not be a good time, but I told Alex, Suzanna, and Richard about you."