Chapter 25

Evie was up early to get ready for school. Steve was up like normal waiting to take Evie to school. He would then head to work and then to go and speak to Thomas again, and see if he could find out any more information about Wo Fat.

"Chelsea you are going to be late for your first day back." Cath shouted up the stairs.

Steve and Evie were getting ready to leave, Jay was still getting ready but Chelsea was still upstairs and there was very little sound of movement.

"Chelsea I am not kidding get up, get moving, you will make both you and Jay late, if that happens you are going to be in trouble." Cath shouted again.

It took about 20 minutes before Chelsea came down stairs dressed, hair and makeup done. But she had no bag packed and no lunch.

"I hope you ready to go, because you are only just going to make it if you leave now." Cath said.

"Almost. I just have a few more things to do and then I will be ready."

"You have 5 minutes move." Cath said. She hadn't missed this, getting her kids ready to leave in the morning. They were always slow in the morning and this led to them nearly always be late to places which she absolutely hated.

Chelsea was finally ready to go and Cath gave her kids a lift to school to make sure they got there on time. But she risked being late for work herself, which was something that she could never do.

Later that afternoon...

When Evie got home the house was empty, she knew that her dad and Cath would be at work but thought that Chelsea and Jay would be at home. She really wanted to talk to someone about her day and what had happened, but she could wait, her mother never asked her about her day at school so not telling anyone wouldn't make a difference.

She went into the kitchen to make a snack and was scared to find the back door open. She knew that Chelsea and Jay properly weren't home because there were no bags left and the house was still tidy. She was sure that her dad and Cath would not leave the back door open when they had gone out. She quickly got her phone out of her bag and called her dad.

"Hi Evie, everything okay?" Steve asked when he picked up the phone.

"The back doors open and no one's home. I don't think Jay and Chelsea have been home." Evie said frantically.

"Go and wait outside the front of the house and wait for me I will be there in 10 minutes." Steve said as he was half way out the door.

"Boss, where are you going?" Kono asked.

"Evie thinks someone is in the house." Steve replied.

"Right let's go." Kono said as she quickly followed Steve towards his car.

Steve and Kono drove quickly to the house, Steve was breaking all speed records to get to his house. The back door shouldn't be open. He and Cath never left it open, it was closed when he left this morning and Cath was the last person to leave so she would have locked it back up if she opened. As soon as Steve heard about this the first thing he could think of was Wo Fat. The case they had dealt with yesterday was about Wo Fat and maybe this was him coming through on his promise, trying to scare Steve to stop his investigation.

As Steve was getting to the house he had text Cath, Chelsea and Jay to see if they had left the back door open he heard his phone vibrate in his pocket. As he slowed down outside his house he had three texts telling them they hadn't left the door open. When Steve ran up the drive way he instructed Kono to stay with Evie while he drew his gun and walked into the house.

Evie was not sure what was happening her dad didn't say anything to her before going into the house.

"You okay?" Kono asked Evie as they sat on the wall out front of the house.

"Yeah, it's just really weird, my dad didn't say anything he just went in there. What if there is someone in there?" Evie questioned. She didn't think there was anyone in the house because she thought she would have heard them but someone must have come in to open the door.

Steve was making his way upstairs, he had looked all down stairs and there was no-one in there. He walked up the stairs making sure to check the landing first. As he made his way around the bed bedrooms they all looked empty. When he got into his and Cath's room his phone went off. He opened the message that he had just received.

See how easy it is for me to get into your life. Stop looking into your families path you might not like it. Next time it will be just as easy for me to take your daughter.

Steve looked at the message one last time before calling Chin to get him to run a trace. While he left Chin to run the trace he walked downstairs to see his daughter.

"Are you okay?" Steve asked bending down in front of his daughter.

"Yeah. Is anyone in there?" Evie asked.

"No, there is no one in there. I think the door must have been left open when we left this morning." Steve said, choosing not to scare his daughter and tell her someone had been in the house. He was going to tell Cath when she got home about someone coming in but decided that it was best not to tell her about the text message or Wo Fat's threat to scare her about the kids safety. "How about you go back in and I will be in, in a minute I just need to put my gun away." Steve lied.

"The door wasn't left open was it?" Kono questioned.

"No, it was Wo Fat he text me telling me next time it will be easy to take Evie." Steve said running a hand over his face.

"What are you going to do?" Kono asked.

"I have Chin running a trace to see if the phone was sent from somewhere around here. I want to find out who broke into the house. I am going to stop looking for answers as publically but Evie is not coming home after school by herself anymore." Steve said. "But right now I am going to go and get Evie and go back to office and see what we can find out."

Steve, Kono and Evie made their way back to the office. Steve left his daughter in his office while he was in the Bullpin finding out what his team had. He had a look at everything they had but there were no leads to who broke into his house and where Wo Fat was.

Steve had let his team go home after finding nothing. Danny was on his way to leaving but he asked to Steve to come into his office.

"What are you going to do? I mean with Evie and Wo Fat and case." Danny said.

"I don't know. I can't keep Evie, Chelsea and Jay protected all the time, the only way I can do this is to stop investigating the case and try and look at in without many people knowing. If I tell Cath she is going to freak out and I can't do what my dad did because Cath would never agree to it." Steve said. As he finished he started to think that he had been spending too much time with Danny and following his lead in ranting.

"You need to tell Cath Steve, where her kids are involved she needs to know." Was all Danny said. "Anyway I am going to pick up Grace, I will see you in work tomorrow." Danny said as he left the building.

Steve walked back into his office to see Evie sitting there waiting for him.

"You ready to go?" Steve asked.

"Yeah, I am hungry." Evie said walking out of the office.

"Well I spoke to Cath and she is home and started to cook dinner." Steve said.

He was going to tell her not to mention what had happened to Cath, but Cath would already know because he had text her. He knew what Danny said had some truth in it and he knew that he would have to tell Cath about Wo Fat, they had just finally got there life on the right track and he knew that bringing it up would risk the their relationship going bad again.

"Have you spoke to mom?" Evie asked once they were driving home.

The question caught him off guard, after the conversation they had the other day, he was sure that Evie for now wanted nothing to do with her mother, and he couldn't blame her, but he knew that soon she would start to miss her mom and that he would really need to think about allowing Sarah to be part of their daughters life. He paused for a couple of minutes trying to think of the best way to deal with this. He could either tell her the truth and hope that if Evie did want Sarah back in her life she wouldn't hurt her again, or he could lie and hopefully protect his daughter for anything that Sarah might do.

"Yes, she called a couple of days ago." Was all Steve wanted to say and waited to see if Evie wanted to know more. Telling her the truth made it harder for Sarah to try and turn Evie against him.

"Did she call you?"

"Yes she called me then I called her back and we spoke for a while."

"What did you talk about?"

"Is this twenty questions." Steve asked jokingly but he saw the serious look on his daughters face and knew that know was not the time to be joking. "You. She said she thought she made a mistake, she said that she wanted to be part of your life. But I told her that it wasn't that easy, that she couldn't just leave you and not want anything to do with you, make you feel unwanted and then want to be a big part of your life. She sent you away and didn't care about you, I can't let her make you feel like that again." Steve didn't realise how horrible it sounded until he said it. It sounded like he was trying to turn her mother against him. They rode in silence for the last few minutes, and as soon as Steve stopped the car Evie jumped out and went straight into the house. She walked up to Chelsea's room and went straight into the en-suite not wanting to talk to anyone.

"Steve?" Cath asked when she heard the door open.

"Hey." Steve replied walking over a kissing Cath.

"What's going on?" Cath asked.

"Evie asked about her mom and I told her about the phone call and when she asked what was said it may have came out worse that it meant to, with me telling her that she was unwanted by her own mother." Steve replied.

"Steve, how did that even happen?"

"I am not really sure, as soon as we parked she came running in and straight upstairs."

"Okay, I will go and see her in a couple of minutes."

"You don't have to, I will go in a bit."

"I want to, and I think you have put your foot in it for a now."

"Thank you. Where are Jay and Chelsea?"

"They have gone out with their friends for dinner said they will be home about 9ish, so I have put dinner on, and then me and you need to talk about who came into the house." Cath said as she made her way up the stairs.

Cath walked into Chelsea's room –Evie's room was almost done they just had to put the last few things together before she could move in to her own room- she looked in the room and there was no-one in there. She walked over to the closet and had a look in there and then with no luck knocked on the en-suite door.

"Go away." Evie replied when she hear d the knock on the door. She thought it was her dad and just didn't want to see him right now.

"It's Cath let me in?" Cath asked.

There was a pause for a couple of seconds before the lock on the door opened.

Evie was sitting on the floor with her back to the bath tub. Cath walked over and sat down next to Evie and put her arm around her shoulder and let her cry. They both sat there not saying a word, with Evie still crying.

"You wanna tell me what happened?" Cath asked, when she was sure that Evie had stopped crying.

"What my dad about my mom he was right. Until he said it I have never felt unwanted before, you know? I thought my dad would always be there for me and now he is just like her. I always thought that he was better than my mom because when I was with him and my granddad they never said anything bad about my mom, but mom always bad mouthed my dad and know he is turning her, and if he can turn into her about that how do I know he won't send me somewhere else?" Was Evie's reply.

"I understand that it is hard, and some of the things you dad probably said to you weren't nice, you are not unwanted by anyone, we all want you here. But he said those things because he was trying to protect you from getting hurt again from your mom, he wants you to be happy and if over time that means with your mom in your life then I am sure he will be okay with that, but she has hurt you before and he needs to make sure that it doesn't happen again."

"Thank you." Evie replied.

"For what?" Cath asked, she was unsure what the girl was thanking her for, all she had done was just tell her exactly what Steve told her.

"For everything, for letting me and Dad move in with you, for being more of a mother than my mom ever was." Evie said.

"You're welcome, come on, how about we go and get dinner?" Cath said putting her hand out towards Evie.

"Yeah, I'm hungry." Evie replied taking Cath's hand to help her up.

As the girls made their way downstairs they saw Steve waiting for them in the living room. Cath made her way past Steve and went into the kitchen to give Evie and Steve a chance to talk. But she got to the door and was surprised to see Evie walking over and hugging her dad.

Steve just put his arms around his daughter and let her hug him.

"What was that for?" Steve asked when Evie pulled away.

"Because I love you." Evie's replied.

"I love you too sweetheart."

After Steve replied Evie walked into the kitchen to help Cath finish cooking the dinner. When they all sat down for dinner they started to talk about Evie's first day at school. They had found that she had made a couple of friends, liked all her lessons and liked the teachers that she had, had so far. She talked about extra curriculum activities that she would like to take part in.

Cath was waiting for Evie to go upstairs or start doing something else which meant that she could ask Steve about what happened earlier. Evie had just gone upstairs and Jay and Chelsea came home. They came and sat with them for a while before Cath telling them they needed to go to bed ready for school the next day so they would be up and ready in time to walk to school.

"Are you going to tell me what happened earlier?" Cath asked, when they were both sitting on the sofa.

"Someone broke in and opened the back door, they took nothing and nothing was disturbed." Steve said, that is all he wanted her to know, he knew she would ask for more but he was trying to keep it as basic as possible.

"And then?" Cath asked, but Steve just looked at her. "I am not stupid, I know something else happened and you were worried enough to take Evie back to work with you, and also look for people to fit a new bigger security system." Cath had seen Steve about an hour ago on the laptop looking at security systems that were like something you would see at a Navy base.

"When I was looking around Wo Fat text, he told me that next time it would be easy for him to take Evie, we couldn't trace it and we can't find out who it was. That is why I have stopped investigating my mother's murder and why I want extra security on the house."

"Fine, I want the system put in as soon as possible. The kids go nowhere without you or me knowing about it." Cath said.

"That is fine by me." Steve said. "You ready for bed?" Yeah lets go.

Sorry this chapter is short will update soon. Please review.