Max had come down this way from his office after his secretary Cassie had told him that his daughter had been seen running from his office not long before, and from that he could piece together than he figured she overheard his conversation with his sister, and that meant she had overheard the news that Jake was going to need surgery.
Which meant unchecked his daughter would be an emotional time bomb and piecing together her path, it took him down towards the Sheriff’s office and that only meant he had to stop her from doing something that would wreck her future. But as he was debating with himself how to proceed he heard the young girl talking to herself and heard his name mentioned.
“What did you say?” Max asked again.
Alexandra shaken by the encounter couldn’t speak, rattled speechless, she acted like any thirteen-year-old would and turned around and ran into the Sheriff’s department with Max in hot pursuit all the while Jim was dealing with a shaking Grace.
“I am sorry sweetheart,” Jim was saying quietly. “I didn’t want you to find out this way and for that I am truly sorry.”
“You are telling me something that is completely false, that my mother... a woman who died is actually alive?” Grace asked meekly. “How, because to me it doesn’t make any sense because she’s dead.”
“I know that it’s too painful to be true or to comprehend,” Jim said quietly. “It’s very complicated and not all the pieces have fitted together yet and you look like you need some time to digest it before we talk about it so why not tell me why you came here in the first place,” he asked.
“I came to confess!” Grace said weakly. “You know for hurting Jake and Tommy!”
“Good god Grace, you can’t.” Jim said as his attention fully swung to the matter at hand as he knew that Grace confessing was the last thing any of them needed. “You know how it would hurt your father, family and friends. Jake would never allow it.”
“It’s not up to them. I am the one who did the crime, and I should do the crime.”
“I can’t talk to you this without your father present as your lawyer,” Jim pleaded with the girl. “But as someone who is very close to your family and not as the town Sheriff. You can’t because there is way to explain how you injured Jake. You can’t explain how the branch came down.”
“I could say it was weak, thanks to those storms we had a few weeks back,” Graces said as she tried out Jake’s excuse.
“You’re not implicated in this Grace, and so far, you haven’t so you have nothing to confess to.”
“I did it,” Grace said stood stubbornly with her arms against her chest as the door swung open and in ran Alexandra, and behind her mere seconds later came Max. “Dad!”
“Grace,” Max said trying to gain breath from running after the teenager. “I was right with my hunch, you did come here” he asked forgetting about the teenager he was in hot pursuit with all his attention on his daughter. Jim exchanged a questing glance at Alexandra who was still looking pale, and he had to wonder how Max came up on the girl and how they ended up in his office.
“Yes, I came to confess my crime.”
“As your father and lawyer,” Max muttered, “You are to say nothing further on this matter.”
“I don’t need a lawyer because I am guilty. I put Tommy in the hospital, and I hurt Jake by forcing a tree branch to come which in turn made a gun that Tommy was holding to go off injuring Jake Guerin.”
“Damn it Grace,” Max muttered. “Shut up. You know Jake is not going to let you take the fall. Elizabeth won’t either as we both know her to be pretty persuasive.”
“It’s not taking the fall when I committed the crime using my powers. I struck the branch, and brought it down hurting Tommy, and causing the gun to go off and shoot Jake in the leg.”
“You are only sixteen and a minor,” Max reminded his daughter. “You are not up on charges. If anything, it was accident,” he argued.
“It was not an accident that the branch fell,” Grace demanded.
“You heard what I was telling your aunt about Jake didn’t you?” Max asked. “You heard he needs surgery.”
“What?” Jim piped into the conversation. “Surgery?”
“The leg injury was more extensive than thought,” Max muttered. “And they need to surgically correct it. Surgery is still being scheduled, so they don’t know how soon it will be completed.”
“I need to call my wife, I’ll take the call in the other room,” Jim instantly said forgetting also about Alexandra and leaving the father and daughter to battle each other all the while Alexandra watched the situation with fascination. Was she in the same room as her biological father, and older sister? They looked so much alike it was eerie and what was this was about powers she thought.
“Dad, be reasonable here. I did the crime, I should do the time,” Grace asked.
“You’re only doing this because you’re feeling guilty. Honey they wouldn’t able to prove there was a crime or that it wasn’t an accident. The gun going off was a total accident. You couldn’t have predicted that,” Max reminded his daughter.
“I used my powers. I set it all in motion,” Grace said.
“You can’t admit it as it puts our secret out in the public realm and we can’t have it, and second the police will never be able to confirm that it could have happened given they are going to question how a teenage girl was able to bring down a large branch to be able to inflict the damage you did.”
“I still feel guilty. It’s my fault,” Grace cried with real tears coming down her face. “Maybe it’s time this all ends.”
“Look I know how it feels to feel guilty. I have done enough in my life that I am not proud of, and it would have been putting me in serious jeopardy if the cops ever found out about it. You feel guilty, and you will carry that for the rest of your life. We can’t stop it, but Jake will be fine. You know very well it could all been dealt with, but Jake wanted it to be like this because he feels his own level of guilt.”
“He doesn’t need to be feeling guilty,” Grace muttered as the tears still sat in her eyes as she knew what her father was referring too.
“He thinks he could have prevented everything that happened in the last few months, and that eats at him and it’s his burden just like this will be your burden. Look I am a lawyer I should be about upholding all laws. But until it’s warranted or worried about lets the cops deal with the events of last night and deal with it later.”
“I know,” Grace admitted.
“They can’t prove anything,” Max told his daughter. “Let us worry about a confession if they do become able to prove it.”
“Okay,” Grace said as she was more sufficiently calm as she took a good size of the room and then focused on the girl. “Good god!”
“I was hoping you would forget about me,” Alexandra admitted.
“I did,” Grace admitted and realized with her father, the situation with the girl was even more now dicey. She had never wanted her father to be hurt, and that is why she always did the things she did and kept quiet whenever something did go wrong enough to the point of bottling up her true feelings and now she had something she couldn’t control.
“Hey,” Max said realizing with his daughter calm and not confessing for the moment that someone else was in the room, a stranger, and the reason he had ran in after in the first place. “Who are you? And Grace knows you?”
“She doesn’t,” Alexandra admitted. “I don’t live in Roswell. I am a newbie. I am not that important.”
“Yes, you are,” Grace sighed as Jim came back in the room. “You talked to Jake?”
“Yes,” Jim nodded. “He says he left you a message, and to call him when you are back home. And he’s hoping you’re not doing something rash yourself.”
“Dad’s calmed me down for the moment. But I still am guilty, and I should be paying the price for last night.”
“Grace!” Max asked sternly.
“Well last night’s actions haven’t been officially confirmed and right now, the preliminary cause is an unforeseen accident.”
“But if Tommy....”
“If the Tommy situation changes then we will see what will happen at that time but right now the Ellis family isn’t challenging the police report and you should be glad about that.”
“I am,” she admitted to the Sheriff. “And now about that other matter we were discussing before you got me to divert to a whole other discussion.”
“Grace,” Jim sighed. “Now isn’t the time. I have to get this young woman over to the motel she’s spending the night at.”
“She’s spending at the motel?” Max asked. “Where are her parents?”
“Back home. She’s a runaway in a matter of speaking,” Jim acknowledged. “I have made arrangements with her mother to let her spend the night and it can be decided in the morning what will be happening as it’s just her mother. Her father isn’t in the picture.” He admitted which got Grace’s eyes rising.
“Where is she from?”
“Connecticut,” Jim said simply, and Grace’s eyes perked up and focused in on the girl with more intensity.
“Funny state,” Max muttered.
“Yeah,” Jim acknowledged.
“What’s your name?” Max asked the teenager that appeared to be not that much younger than his own Grace.
“Alexandra,” the teen said quickly, and shortly.
“Nice name,” Max smiled as Grace’s brows rose. What does your mother do for a living?”
“She’s a doctor!” Alexandra said and that rose Grace’s hackles enough to want to stop this walk down memory lane because it only recalled her mother even if she wasn’t old enough to have experienced it.
“Dad, can we go?” Grace said as she tried to defuse the situation to protect her father from any hurt and pain. “I want to check in with Jake.”
“In a minute,” Max said not wanting to give this line of questioning he was pursuing and Jim could tell he was moments from finding out the truth and Grace knew it. “What is your last name?
“Evans... Alexandra Evans,” she said quietly as she knew the impact her name would have on the room.
“How in the hell,” Grace eyes shot towards Jim as her silence came to a screeching end. “How can she be....an
Evans?”
*******
“Get packed,” Serena ordered her friend as she arrived at the house in Madison after finishing up with her final patient of the day and she had closed down her practice and on the way home she had stopped in on Beth. “Keith is offering you the company plane to fly you two to Roswell. I am told there is a small landing strip on the edge of town, and you could be with Alexandra in mere hours.”
“I can’t,” Beth said.
“You can and it’s an order from my sweet husband. He’s not happy at the firm, and he’s thinking of his options and in the mean time he wants you to use the perks he’s afforded while he’s still there.”
“What, Keith is thinking of leaving the law firm?”
“Yeah,” Serena smiled. “I haven’t wanted to talk about it with everything you’ve had going on in your life the last few weeks. But he’s upset with his boss and not happy and he also not liking the idea of staying around to make partner. So, he’s inches away from making a drastic change in our lives.”
“God Serena,” Beth said quietly. “I am sorry.”
“Well his boss is a real SOB. So, I am not that unhappy or dissuading of my husband at the moment.”
“Still I don’t feel comfortable,” Beth tried.
“You want to see your daughter don’t you even if you’re not happy about facing the past,” Serena asked.
“Yes,” Beth admitted.
“Then take the offer,” Serena smiled.
“Thank you very much,” Beth smiled back and hugged her best friend. “I really appreciate all the support you have given me.”
“I want you to find out the truth about your past,” Serena acknowledged, and she was willing to help her friend anyway she could and that meant sending her to Roswell even if finding out that truth meant that her best friend would be taken away from her especially if she had a family in New Mexico.
*******
“I am sorry,” Alexandra sighed as she was getting a starred down by both Grace and Max. “I never intended for any of this. I actually don’t know what I intended to tell you the truth, so I am sorry.”
“Jim what is going on?” Max asked the town Sheriff and close family and personal friend. “Why do I feel like we should know something we don’t know?”
“I didn’t want this be done now, but it’s become a necessarily I am afraid. Alexandra, do you want to step out and get a drink from the machine down the hall as Peterson is back now, so you can ask him for some money out of petty cash and if you want grab a snack.”
“Sure,” Alexandra said relieved to escape the room.
“Jim” Max asked.
“Mom’s alive, that is what Jim is saying right?” Grace asked fast to the point. “I know what I overheard before and she looks like a clone of Mom when she was roughly my age and younger. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to make the connection,” she said to the shock of her father. “Connecting the name Alexandra from Alex Whitman to Mom is pretty simple, and the last name...it’s pretty damn eerie.”
“Impossible. Liz isn’t alive,” Max declared. “Jim, if you’re thinking that then you can stop thinking it because she’s not alive. There was a body. We declared her dead due to dental records and they matched to the heartbreak of myself, Jeff and Nancy and Maria, and the rest. She’s simply dead.”
“There was a match,” Jim sighed. “As for the woman, we know as Liz she’s dead, but there is a woman who is not, and her name is Beth Evans and it may be a case of the fact that Liz and Beth are the same person. I know how this may sound to you.”
“That is impossible,” Max shouted. “She’s dead.”
“Max, I would love to say she is, but we simply don’t know. I have Michael on it.”
“Michael” Max asked as Grace’s blood pressure rose as well. “He knows?”
“He didn’t until he went to Connecticut or Madison. I didn’t tell him before hand because I needed an honest assessment instead of a preconceived idea of the situation, but I did have him investigating a woman named Beth Evans who lives there, and is a doctor at a hospital in New Haven, Connecticut.”
“And” Max asked.
“He figured out very quickly once I had him and Kyle travel there to identity the woman for me because the resemblance is uncanny.”
“Well they are wrong,” Max insisted. “Someone is playing a horrific prank on all of us.”
“I wish I could say it was a hoax,” Jim said. “I truly wish I could Max, but it simply looks like it has to be true. Too many dots are connecting and too many coincidences that are too incredible not to be the truth.”
“Why?” Max asked.
“The woman I was investigating. Beth Evans. She was in a car crash five day after Liz’s outside of New Haven, Connecticut. She barely lived through the crash, at the hospital they discovered she was pregnant, and she slipped into a two-month coma before waking up with amnesia.”
“Amnesia?” Grace asked in a tiny voice.
“Pregnant,” Max asked. “Liz wasn’t pregnant when she died.”
“Do you know for a fact she wasn’t?” Jim asked.
“Of course, not,” Max said. “We wanted more children after Grace and she lost a baby when Grace was a year old.”
“She did?” Jim asked shocked and even more so was Grace who never knew she almost had a sibling. “You guys never said anything.”
“It was early enough that she wouldn’t have been showing, and we were heartbroken and decided to keep it to ourselves. We had begun to talk about trying again when we lost her, which only made it more difficult for me when I had to deal with losing her but gave me relief to know I hadn’t lost her so soon after another baby.”
“She could have been early on in her pregnancy here in Roswell and just had not known before her crash.”
“Jim!” Max asked.
“I am sorry Max for what this is dredging up for you. I wish it wasn’t, but I promise you that if Liz is alive than it’s best for all of us to deal with this now. Michael and Kyle have made enough connections on their trip to think that Beth might be Liz.”
“How aggressive was this amnesia?” Max asked.
“She lost her memory upon waking up. She has had no memory of life before she landed in the hospital, and only what she’s built in the nearly fourteen years since the crash.”
“How old is Alexandra” Grace asked as she couldn’t remember if she had asked before.
“Thirteen years old as she’s a Halloween baby,” Jim said.
“She’s not Liz,” Max said as he turned to focus on his daughter. “I am sorry Grace I know how much you want this to be true, but your mother died fourteen years ago, come June. It’s a pure coincidence as both Alexandra and Evans are popular and common names.”
“I believe you,” Grace said.
Jim wanted them to be right but deep down he had his doubts “She looks like Liz and the resemblance is pretty uncanny and eerie,” Jim commented aware that Max was sliding in the disbelief and denial phase of acceptance.
“There are a lot of brunettes in this world,” Max commented. “I do want to thank you Jim for your help on this matter along with everything to do with last night and Grace, but I am sure this is an elaborate prank, and someone is lying to you.”
“I wish I could agree with you but it’s probably prudent to tell you that Alexandra here matched the genetic sample that was in the system for both Jeff Parker and your daughter Grace.”
“What,” both Max and Grace asked.
“You can’t be serious,” Grace asked. “That’s like impossible.”
“Grace your recent hospitalization in New Haven raised a red flag and before you worry that it’s about your special gifts don’t as it isn’t that although when the DNA was put through the system recently on behalf of Alexandra, they came up with a match with you from your hospital records,” deliberately neglecting to mention that there was another child in Carrie.
“Oh, my god,” Grace muttered. “That can’t be true.”
“I don’t get it, how?” Max asked. “How can they know that she matches Jeff?”
“Jeff encountered some issues when he was a teenager, and it involved the legal system and while never officially charged, his fingerprints and DNA were in the system and once we were put on with the country wide system about five years ago, a chance like this could always come up.”
“I am aware Roswell was slow in going country wide with its database?” Max said. “My clients aren’t happy that long-ago dalliances can cause more of an issue now than it did years ago.”
“It took us a long time to wake up to the technology age,” Jim commented. “And even now we’re only begrudgingly going along with it.”
“I can’t take this,” Grace muttered as she tried to take in all this about her mother, and potential other connections but she was too stressed. “I can’t deal with this Dad. I need some air, and I need to see Jake.”
“Go,” Max said pushing his daughter to leave. “I can handle this. I love you honey, and I’ll see you back home.”
“I love you too Dad,” Grace said with a sad smile and hug for him. “Nothing we learn can change that.”
“Go,” Max said and pushed Grace to leave and she did.
“I am sorry Max,” Jim said quietly. “This is putting a lot on both you and your daughter and I never wanted this to happen. I wish I could prevent it.”
“You and me both,” Max muttered.
“It does seem to me that whatever bonds your daughter and Jake have has been solidified even further with the event of the last twenty-four hours, so are you prepared for whatever comes from it?” Jim asked.
“God, don’t I know it and no I am not prepared, but it does have a certain aura of heading to the point of no return,” he warily said. “And given my experience with Liz when we were teenagers ourselves there is only so much I can say that either helps or hurts that bond they have and whatever comes from it.”
“Maria wishes they would wait,” Jim said.
“I wish they would wait. But just like we couldn’t be stopped when we were teenagers no matter how much our parents tried and therefore I am afraid we’re going to have that same fate.”
“And the emotional ringer Grace has been put under the last few weeks can’t but help it,” Jim admitted.
“Nope...it’s only adding fuel to the fire.”
“Max, about all this with Liz...and this Beth woman,” Jim said as he got around to the point of their conversation.
“Jim it’s a hoax. DNA results can be glitches, or false positives,” Max said determined to hold onto his denial with a fierce determination otherwise he didn’t know how he would react if he was forced to confront that the last fourteen years had all been a lie and the life he’s been leading and crafting for himself and Grace had all be on a basis of a horrific act. “I know you have to believe it given you are Sheriff.”
“I don’t have to believe it, but as Sheriff I have to follow where the facts lead me and right now they lead me to the fact that Liz could be alive.”
“Jim!” Max pleaded almost for his denial to be kept alive.
“Max there is something you should know,” Jim said quietly because he knew he was about to shatter whatever denial wall his friend was keeping intact so to shield his sanity. “Yes, initial lab results can be overturned by official testing at times but there is something that won’t shake these results.”
“What could that be?” Max asked.
“Alexandra has powers!” Jim said simply.
And Max’s heart shattered.
*******
“Aunt Maria,” Grace said as she walked into the Guerin home. Maria was all settled back in her home after his misbegotten adventure up to the cottage. Belle would be place back in school the next day and she would get back to leading her life, and now she just waited the first sight of her husband in days.
“Grace,” Maria smiled.
“Is Jake home?” Grace asked.
“As if he’s going anywhere,” Maria smiled. “He’s in the back den. It’s being made into his temporary bedroom.”
“I heard,” Grace groaned. “Again, I am sorry for all this.”
“Grace, take all that guilt off your head,” Maria smiled. “I don’t blame you. Jake doesn’t blame you. Michael won’t blame you when he gets home. What happened was something freakish that my son aided by fighting with Tommy in the first place.”
“I am the one inflicted the harm.”
“If you hadn’t, you would have seen a worse tragedy happen. I am aware Tommy was waving a gun before you did what you did.”
“Yes, but doing what I did brought the gun to inflict harm added with the tree branch.”
“It’s not your fault,” Maria smiled. “Tommy is the one who brought the gun into the situation and you can’t know how the gun was situated when the branch hit Tommy and the gun flew off its handle.”
“I know,” Grace began...
“Go see Jake, and don’t worry about anything regarding the accident. The injury is more severe than we would hope but he’s the same son who keeps getting on my case, or his siblings and he’s simply still Jake.”
“Okay,” Grace said. “I will but I’ll always regret it.”
“You should. Just like we all have regrets from our lives. I certainly have them, and just like your dad or mother if she were still alive,” Maria lied.
“Aunt Maria, you should talk to my father.”
“Why?” Maria asked.
“He’s been getting an earful from Jim at the police station,” Grace said simply. “Not about Jake or my legal issues. But about something more personal, about Mom.”
“Oh god,” Maria whispered.
“Yeah,” was all Grace said before disappearing to the back of the house to see Jake leaving Maria to wonder if everything was colliding all at once? “Don’t tell me,” she whispered to herself before she went to the kitchen to work on dinner.
“Guerin,” Grace sang as she walked into the den and found Jake working on his laptop from his wheelchair. “I wish this hadn’t happen.”
“Grace,” Jake smiled as he looked up from the project he was dealing with on his laptop. Given he was house bound until the surgery he knew he had to be dealing with school work to keep his parents off his case and his chance at graduation intact. “You are okay, aren’t you?”
“Nope, the world has caved in,” Grace admitted as she walked to sit by Jake’s wheelchair.
God how it’s caved in
“Please don’t tell me you did something incredibly stupid,” Jake asked in fear as he saw the emotion all over his friend’s face and that instantly put fear coursing through him.
“Almost,” Grace said. “Dad stopped me, and your grandfather helped him at risk to his future as town Sheriff if anyone finds out. But still I can’t be responsible for my actions.”
“Why,” Jake asked.
“Because I am going to do this,” Grace said the turmoil she was under kept pushing her further and deeper towards the land of no return, and before she knew it, she placed a kiss on a stunned Jake who couldn’t help but respond and their kiss turned deeper and more personal as this time fireworks exploded into an impressive display as they continued to deepen the kiss.