"Hello?" Eva says advancing on the trio.

"Miss Eva they are here to speak to Master-", Eva holds her hand up to stop the Butler. 

"Yes, I believe he is in the study with Tristan. I'll take them there." Eva says before going to the trio.

"Hello, my name is Eva Chesterton and I'm Tom's friend. If you would like to follow me I'll take you to him." Eva says introducing herself and offering her hand first to the men then she makes sure to offer it to Lizzy as well.

"Eva?" Tristan's voice makes Eva over balance since she had crouched down to be on a level with Lizzy.

Picking herself up, "Tristan. These gentlemen would like a word with Tom and I'm sure that he would like to see this young lady as well."

Tristan's eyes go wide when he realizes who is with Eva. "Of course, please come this way." Tristan says going to the group and helping Eva stand back up.

"Tom, you have some visitors." Tristan says opening his study door. Tom lifts his head from the laptop he was looking at.

"Lizzy?" Tom's shock is profound. She was never to come here unless... He looks horrified at the two older men and his face drains of blood. "No! It can't be."

Lizzy by that time has run to him and thrown herself into his arms. "Mom and dad are dead, Uncle Tom." That's all Tom and the others can make of her words before she breaks down into tears.

"Sir, last night about ten o'clock Rachel and Brad were coming home from visiting with his family when they were involved in a very nasty multicar pile up. There were several fatalities among them, Rachel and Brad and of course their unborn child." One of the older men says after taking a seat across from Tom at Tristan's urging.

"Elizabeth? How did she survive?" Tom holds his sobbing daughter in his arms. He allows the tears to fall without shame.

Eva hurts for him. Another one of the ones that Tom loves is gone. Not just her but her husband and his unborn child again.

"She was staying with her maternal grandparents. When the state troopers informed them of the accident her grandmother collapsed. Her grandfather is unable to care for Elizabeth at this time."

Tom closes his eyes in further pain. He'd met and liked Rachel's parents. They of course know the truth about Elizabeth's parentage. He's just as heartbroken at Elizabeth's grandmother collapsing as he is about losing Rachel and Brad and his unborn child.

"Mommy's gone, uncle, and my little brother with her. I want my mommy." Elizabeth says looking at him with tears streaming down her face.

"I know you do, Baby. I'm so, so sorry. I miss your mother too. Your father too. They were both wonderful people." Tom pulls her in closer to him.

"Sir, there are some problems. Brad's family is demanding that we turn her over to them." The younger of the lawyers tell Tom after Tom's words to Lizzy.

This brings Tom's head up. He is unable to hold back the anger at their words. Eva feels that now would be a good time to take charge. 

"Elizabeth," Eva holds her hand out to the young girl. "Would you like a cookie? Then after wards you can play with my daughters? Your uncle also has a daughter you could play with. She's just a few months old, though, so you would have to be careful with her. Also, my son will be there, maybe, if he takes his head out of a book." Daniel loves to read and has proven himself to be just as intelligent as Eva. He quickly caught up with the missing schoolwork and with the homeschooling he's receiving passing his peers. It won't take him long to pass several grades.

"You have daughters?" Elizabeth asks hesitantly. Elizabeth was well loved, but didn't have very many friends. Mostly just a couple that would talk to her at school. None of them really played with her at home.

"Uhhuh. They are just turned three so they are younger than  you, but they are both very friendly. Would you like to play with them?"

Lizzy looks hesitantly to Tom and at his nod she takes Eva's hand and goes to the kitchen to see about a cookie.

While they are there they run into Daniel. "Hey, mom, who's the girl?"

Lizzy looks at the boy only a couple of years older than her with awe. "This is Tom's niece. Her parents were killed last night in an accident. She'll be staying here with us. Can you take her up to your sisters and introduce them?"

Lizzy holds tighter to Eva's hand and so Eva kneels down to be more at her level. "Daniel and one of my daughters, Crystal, are my siblings, my brother and sister. I adopted them and Yenni not too long ago. They know what it's like to not have parents. They are nice kids if you give them a chance."

"Won't you take me?" Lizzy says hesitantly.

"Daniel, I wasn't expecting you in the kitchen." Eva says as they walk up to the girls' room.

Daniel blushes, "Well, I kinda got hungry and I knew that cook was making cookies. So, I decided to not bother Elenia and just went to get some on my own."

Eva looks at him with a raised eyebrow. "How many did you take?"

"Just two each, mom. I promise." Daniel is quick to say. He knows that snacking is strictly controlled. Eva lets them have snacks, but not many in between meals.

Eva introduced everyone to Lizzy and talked to Elenia about what happened. Elenia promised to keep an eye out on her. Once she was sure that Lizzy would be okay she slipped out of the room.

Eva slips back into the study and stands near to Tristan, who takes her into his arms and holds her. Eva can feel him holding back his sobs and her heart hurts for both Tristan and Tom. She can see Tom no longer holding back on his own sobs now that Elizabeth wasn't in there.

"We took the liberty of locking the house and sealing it. I'm afraid that means that we weren't able to get more clothes for Elizabeth. We figured that you would be able to deal with Brad's family to keep them out of the house. There's been a report of an attempted break in once already. Thank goodness they have an excellent security system. The police were on hand before anything could be stolen. We ordered the windows to be boarded up as if for a hurricane." The older lawyer says and holds out his hand that holds keys.

"You are named as executor of the will. I have already had my team submit the will to the court for probate. I had a judge name you as guardian of Elizabeth until the will can be probated. The judge was willing, seeing as how both parents requested you to be their child's guardian should anything happen to them."

Then both lawyers take out sealed letters and hand them to Tom. "These were left into our care and to be given to you upon their death. They both spoke very highly of you and we are confident that Elizabeth will be well taken care of."

"Of course she will. I love her as if she was my own daughter." Tom manages to say through his tears. The lawyers nod as they hand the envelopes to Tom.

"We are sorry at your loss. We don't know exactly how you are related to Elizabeth and quite frankly, we don't care. It is evident that you cared deeply for her parents and her."

"I want to have their bodies buried here. What do I need to do to make that happen." Tom manages to say.

The older man gives him a sad smile. "There were instructions in their will to give you custody of their bodies to bury where you wish. I believe they would like you to bury them where ever you have decided."

"Rachel had three friends that were very close to her in school. All three of them have died before her and I have buried them together. There is space for both Rachel and Brad as well."

The two men nod sadly. "As soon as their bodies are released we will let you know. We will also let you know once the will is finished with probate." The two lawyers stand up as do Tom, Tristan and Eva. They all shake hands before the lawyers take their leave. The lawyers refuse the offer of lunch Tristan offers them citing that they want nothing more than to sleep. They'd been up most of the night driving to bring Elizabeth to Tom.

"Thank you, for watching out for my niece and her interests."

"Be careful of Brad's family, they are like sharks circling in for the kill. They mean to take everything they can from that little girl."

Tom looks angry at that, "Believe me sir, that they won't touch a cent of her inheritance. I watched as Brad worked his ass off to build up his company when his family made it obvious that they wanted nothing to do with Lizzy. I won't let them destroy all that he worked so hard for."

Tristan smiles darkly and the lawyers are quick to leave. They feel that things are going to go very badly with Brad's family shortly. They've heard the rumors about Tristan Wederer of course. After spending time with him, they have no trouble believing those rumors.

Once the lawyers are gone, "You should offer a house here on the estate for Lizzy's grandparents. If her grandmother doesn't make it her grandfather might not like being in their house all alone or so far away from his grandchild. Unless there are other children?"

Both Tristan and Tom shake their heads. "No, Rachel was their only child and they absolutely doted on Lizzy and were just as excited about the new baby as Lizzy, I think."

"Do they know the truth?" Eva says softly so that no one outside of their group would hear them.

"Yeah, they do and they even like me." Tom says sadly.

"There is a house farther from the house then the others. It is just a small one, two bedrooms, but that will allow Lizzy to visit or others to visit them overnight or for extended stays." Tristan says. "Go ahead and take the next few days off. Go visit Rachel's parents and tell her father what's going on and the offer of the house. If you need more time off, just let me know."

"Thanks, Tristan, will you set into action the plan to destroy his parents and siblings?"

Tristan smiles darkly, "Oh, yes, it will be my pleasure. I've been wanting to set it into motion for some time now. How dare they call my niece a bastard?" That was just one of the nicer things they called Lizzy.

That was two months ago. Brad's family was completely ruined when certain things came to light. 

Lizzy's grandmother never recovered. She was buried not far away from her daughter and son-in-law. Her grandfather did move to the estate to be near to both his grand daughter and wife and daughter's grave.

Tom was soon overwhelmed with taking care of a grieving six year old girl. With him working eighteen hour days it was too much.  He finally asked Eva if she would be willing to adopt his daughter as well. Elizabeth wasn't upset at the idea. She had already bonded pretty tightly with Eva's other children. Daniel is very protective of her especially.

Then came the call the night before. Eva wonders just how true the emergency was or if it was just contrived to make Tristan not be there when she needed him the most.

Eva just shakes her head, now she's just being fanciful.

She climbs into the car. She tells the driver, another one of her bodyguards a hello before cooing over Calli, who is now seven months old going on eight. Gina and RJ climb in and buckle up as well.

Eva plays with Calli until she drops off to sleep, then she just lets her mind wander.

Because of that she doesn't see the car that runs them off the road. When the car stops spinning she is unable to open her eyes. She hears a gunshot. She blacks out after that. She thinks that she'll never see Tristan again.