Song: Kaleo - Way down we go

(Fair warning, it's a long one.)

"How did you even know where I live?" Nathan asked. The sound of a door opening across the hall, jerked him back to reality and he quickly pushed his door closed behind him, eyes and gun still on Lily.

"You were running around with my daughter, Detective. Can you blame me for finding out where you live, your family history, blood type et cetera," Lily replied, waving her fingers in the air as she counted off her list.

"And you had a key to my apartment made? That's crossing the line," he said, taking a quick glance around the apartment as he lowered the gun to his side. Nothing else seemed out of place, but he tightened his grip on it nonetheless.

"That would be a bit much, even for me," she replied, following the movement of the gun. She quirked an eyebrow at him, but he made no move to put it away, leaving her slightly impressed that he wasn't intimidated by her.

"Then how did you get in here?" he asked, approaching her slowly. 

His opinion of her had been a roller coaster; with major professional respect for her at times and suspicions of murder at others. Looking at her now, he didn't really see her as the type to get her hands dirty with someone else's blood.

"I asked the landlord to let me in."

"And she just did?" Nathan asked, astonished. He stopped a few steps away from where she was sitting on his couch, leaving the coffee table as a barrier between them.

"She owed me a favor." Lily shrugged. "A lot of people owe me a lot of favors," she added, smirking.

If there was ever a reason to leave Pinehive, Lily's sphere of influence was it. In the back of his mind he wondered if she knew just how close he and Natasha had become, and whether that was the reason she was there. 

"Does Natasha know you're here?" He immediately thought of texting her, then remembered his battery was dead. The charger he kept at home was somewhere in his room, but he wasn't about to let Lily out of his sight to look for it, so he put the phone back in his pocket, resolving to call her later.

"No. I've been avoiding her," Lily replied. 

She at least had the decency to look guilty as she said that.

"Don't you care what she's been going through?" Nathan asked, angrily.

She narrowed her eyes. "I don't like you implying that I don't care about my daughter, Detective."

"I'm not the one implying it. Your actions are. She was arrested for murder, again, and you didn't bother to show up."

"All I care about is her safety and she told me she's staying with David, so I know she's safe. I'm trying to do the right thing. If I see or speak to her, I'll lose every bit of courage I've gathered for that, like I've been doing for the last twenty-two years."

Nathan frowned. Natasha was twenty-two years old; was that a coincidence or was Lily referring to something that involved her?

"What're you talking about?" he asked.

"Before I tell you that-" She reached for her bag and pulled out some papers and a pen. "I need you to sign this." She held them out to him and after a moment's hesitation, he took them.

His frown deepened as he scanned quickly through the pages. "Why do I need to sign a non-disclosure agreement?"

"It's insurance," Lily replied.

"Against what?"

"Legal action against me for what I'm about to tell you."

He stared at her, mulling over her words.

"What the hell did you do?" he asked, mind racing with every possible theory he could think of.

"Sign the papers and I'll tell you."

"Is it something that could get you arrested?"

"I'm going to plead the fifth on that one, Detective."

In that moment, he remembered his own version of an NDA with Natasha when he'd given her his badge as a show of faith. He'd regretted the agreement a little when she told him about the gun, but he'd understood why she'd done it. Did Lily deserve the same?

"I'm not signing this," he said, shaking his head and throwing the papers on the table.

Undeterred by his blatant refusal, she gathered the papers and held them out to him again.

"Were you under the impression that I was asking?" she said calmly, but in her eyes, a storm brewed.

"I'm not signing an agreement that could protect you from a punishment you might very well deserve," he said.

"I'm not about to confess to murder if that's what you're worried about."

"Answer's still no," he said firmly. "I don't trust you and I'm not going to compromise myself for someone I don't trust."

"How noble of you." Lily rolled her eyes. "I just want to help you catch the person who's been dropping the Bandieers like flies, and signing this is the only way that's going to happen."

Her words caught his attention. "You know who it is?" 

She leaned back on the couch, not saying a word, but the answer was written all over her face.

"Unbelievable! If you knew, then why didn't you say something?" he yelled.

"Watch your tone, Detective," she cautioned him.

"Three people are dead, Your Honor. And you could have stopped it."

"I'm aware of that."

"Why speak now?" he asked, eyeing her with suspicion.

"Because it got personal," she replied, staring absently at the papers. "I heard what happened to Max and, more specifically, where it happened. That was a message. She's coming for me and  I'm afraid she'll use Natasha to get to me."

Worry replaced his reservations. "Then you should just come clean to protect her and yourself."

"It's not just about me," she said, shaking her head. "If what I did goes public, every part of my career will be affected. Every verdict I've passed, every trial I've presided over, every case I worked as an attorney will be called into question. It might even go as far as having everything re-opened and you know from history how badly that could go. Bad people could end up free and back on the streets.  There was a man, some years ago, who liked to grind his victims up in a meat grinder and sell them in his butchery. Are you willing to risk someone like that being back on the streets just to defend your honor?"

"You're exaggerating," Nathan argued, but he sounded doubtful. 

"Maybe. But haven't you heard; it's better to let the crime of the guilty go unpunished than to condemn the innocent?"

"What am I agreeing to exactly by signing this?"

"I'll give you information and answer any questions you have, but your signature assures me that you won't turn around and use what I give you against me," she explained.

"So this is like an immunity deal?"

"Of sorts."

"And like an immunity deal, if I find evidence outside of what you've told me that I can use against you, I can?"

"That's a big if." She grinned in a way that told him finding that evidence would be impossible.

"Then I just won't sign it."

Sneering, she stood to approach him, papers in hand. He resisted the urge to back away as Lily walked right up to him. In heels, she was almost as tall as him, but the little difference in height didn't damper her defiant stare as she looked up at him.

"Do you know why I came to you and didn't just go to the police station with this?"

"Because I'm the one working the Bandieer case," Nathan replied.

"You and your partner, yes," she nodded. "And I could have gone to him instead, but I chose you. Because you insisted on being part of my daughter's life, even though I told her repeatedly to stay away from you, and I made it abundantly clear that I didn't want you near her. You allowed yourself to care for her, enough to do anything to keep her safe. Well I'm telling you, if this person gets to her, she won't hesitate to kill Natasha and signing this to get the information I have is your best shot at preventing that."

She paused, letting her words sink in then shoved the papers at him. "This is the price you have to pay for mixing business with pleasure."

Holding the papers to his chest, he realized that she wasn't going to take no for an answer. No matter how much he protested. If she was leveraging her daughter's life to ensure his silence, anything was possible with her. Signing the papers would, at the very least, allow him to get answers to the many questions he had. He'd figure out how to bring her to justice. 

Someday. 

Somehow. 

With that thought in mind, he signed the papers and placed them on the table.

"That wasn't so hard was it, Detective?" Lily smiled, pleased with herself as she returned to the couch.

He was really starting to hate the condescending way she kept saying that. 

"Can we get on with it," he said, barely concealing his irritation.

"Since you're clearly uncomfortable with sharing a couch with me-"

She picked up her purse and the papers and strutted to the kitchen with a sense of familiarity that had Nathan wonder how many other times she'd been in his apartment. When he eventually followed her, she was already settled down at the table, papers laid out in front of her and she sat with an air of authority, as if she was in the courtroom and he was on trial.

Lily stared at him, hands laced together on the table until he begrudgingly sat in the chair opposite hers and placed his gun on the table. Smirking, she turned to her purse and pulled out a sealed, clear plastic bag,  which she placed on the table between them, and two phones. Interest piqued, he leaned closer to look at the bag. A big steak knife was enclosed within; with a black, plastic handle and several brown stains on the blade that he was certain were dried up blood.

"This is the murder weapon used on a man named Ben Morris who was stabbed to death by Claire Kingsely 6 years ago," she said, when he looked at her for an explanation. "The knife has her fingerprints on it and I believe those fingerprints will match some from your crime scenes."

Nathan picked the bag up, turning it over in his hand as he wracked his brain, trying to make sense of Lily's statement. Before he could ask one of the many questions going through his mind, she spoke again, sliding one of her phones onto the table.

"This is Claire Kingsely," she said. Nathan looked at the picture showing on her screen, then back up at her.

"That's Natasha," he said slowly, but as he said the words, a dark thought hit him. Was Lily saying Natasha wasn't...Natasha? A sinking feeling filled his chest.

Shaking her head, she swiped her finger across the screen and another picture slid into view. In this one, a middle aged woman with brown hair cut in a bob stood smiling with her arm around a girl with long, curly golden brown hair.

"No, Detective. This is Claire Kingsely." She paused and took a breath as she stared at the screen. "And her biological mother, Miranda, formerly known as Christina Burke."

Nathan stared at the picture until it was burned into his memory. The girl in the picture definitely looked like Natasha and yet Lily insisted it wasn't. "What are you saying?"

"Claire is Natasha's identical twin," she replied, picking her phone back up. 

Relief flooded him for a moment until what she'd said registered in his mind. Natasha having a twin didn't seem like the most outlandish thing. In fact, it explained a couple of things. But what Nathan couldn't quite grasp was the other bomb she'd dropped.

"You said Miranda is Claire's biological mother but Claire is Natasha's twin which makes Miranda her mother too..."

Lily nodded solemnly as Nathan stared wide-eyed at her.

"What does that make you?"

She sighed. "I'm a woman who saw a happy ending and took it."

"Wait, wait, wait," Nathan said, brushing away her cryptic response. "So you lied to Natasha about who her father was, she has a twin sister and you aren't even her mother! Is there anything about her life that hasn't been a lie?"

Lily's face clouded over. "I'm her mother in every way that counts," she said, darkly.

A mix of emotions cracked through the emotionless mask he'd always seen on her face. He'd hit a nerve. Just as Natasha was his blind spot, she was Lily's kryptonite.

"How did you end up with her in your custody?" he asked, trying to figure out which questions to ask.

"Technically, Natasha died a day after she was born. I had her death faked," Lily replied. "And her rightful name was Amy Kingsely. Or Burke rather, given that Miranda had to switch to Kingsely for safety reasons."

"Wow. Just...wow," Nathan muttered, feeling the strong urge to hit something until the jumble of information thrown at him made sense. His gaze fell on the bloody knife again. "How do you have this?"

"When Claire killed Ben, Miranda called me for help and I got some people to clean up the mess and get rid of the body. I kept the knife in my study at home." 

He wasn't sure what was more alarming; that she'd helped cover up a murder or that she was talking about it as calmly as someone weighing the pros and cons of getting a goldfish.

"Why did you keep it and how did you and Miranda know each other?"

She shrugged. "I thought it might come in handy someday." Leaning back in her chair, she folded her arms across her chest and focused her gaze on the table top. "I met Miranda while I was working on Henry's campaign a long time ago. You already know about my affair with him, correct?"

Nathan nodded.

"Well, it wasn't that simple. A long tale of heartbreak and grief came before that; ultimately the untold story that caused this mess." Swallowing hard, she pushed her hair back and laced her fingers together.

"After I graduated from law school and passed the bar exam, I married Elijah Evans. We met when I was interning for the law firm where he was working as an accountant. I was offered a job there after graduation. Our families argued that we hadn't known each other long enough to be getting married, so we eloped."

Nathan vaguely remembered Natasha mentioning something of that nature the day she'd discovered Elijah Evans wasn't her father. At least Lily had been honest with her about something.

"Not long after, we started trying for a baby and that's when everything went to hell." She sighed, digging her fingers into her skin until it turned white. "After a while with no success, we went to a doctor to make sure nothing was wrong. He checked us both and discovered that I had cervical issues that made it difficult to get pregnant and if I did eventually get pregnant, there was a chance I wouldn't carry to term."

"I'm sorry," Nathan said, unsure of what to say. She acknowledged his words with a curt nod and went on.

"We tried anyway and took a lot of treatments and a few months down the line I got pregnant. The seven months I carried that child were simultaneously the happiest and scariest of my life." 

Her lips turned up slightly at the corners as she thought back to the past. Nathan already knew what was coming, but it didn't make him dread hearing it any less.

"She was a stillborn. Two months premature."

He shifted awkwardly. The words 'I'm sorry' seemed redundant, but it was all he could think to say. 

"I graduated summa cum laude from one of the top law schools in the State, but I couldn't understand why I'd been given such a terrible punishment. To never hear my little girl breathe, or feel her heartbeat, or see the sparkle in her eyes-"

She stopped abruptly and squeezed her eyes shut.

Nathan got up and filled a glass with water then came back and placed it in front of her. She gulped down the contents and gave him a small smile of appreciation.

"The grief wrecked us and it didn't help that his family kept making him re-think our relationship. When I couldn't bear it anymore, I extended my leave of absence from work and went back to my family in Pinehive to get a break from all the stress, and that was the time Henry had begun his campaign. My parents were considering investing in him and I figured working on his campaign would be a welcome distraction. Plus it would be an advantage to have a politician in my corner for the future if I ever decided to pursue judgeship."

To his relief, the color was starting to return to her cheeks the more she spoke, so he let her continue without interrupting; logging any questions that arose to the back of his mind for later.

"Working with Henry was a reprieve from the chaos my life had become and eventually we became close, until one thing led to another..." She trailed off and cleared her throat. "I sent Elijah divorce papers not too long after that; partly from guilt, mostly because I didn't have hope for our marriage. He came to Pinehive to talk me out of it and I finally agreed to give our marriage another chance, but Henry wasn't too happy about that. I quit when he started badgering me and decided to move back to the Capital with Elijah."

"I had to handover my duties to someone before I left, so Henry picked Miranda."  A look of regret crossed her face when she mentioned her name.

 "She was twenty and in her first year of college, studying journalism and Henry was having an affair with her too. I got the feeling it was mostly to aggravate me from the way he was behaving, so I tried to caution her but she laughed me off and said I was jealous. I let it go and focused on Elijah and our plan to find other ways to start a family, but a week before we were due to leave Pinehive, he died in a car accident when one of the wheels came off while he was driving."

She stopped again, an involuntary moment of silence. "His car was out being serviced on the day, so he was using mine. A few days after the accident, the policeman who was first on the scene, Daniel Langdon, came asking very strange questions."

"Chief Langdon?" Nathan asked, surprised at hearing another familiar name.

"Mmhmm. It was earlier in his career," Lily explained. "He asked if I'd had any of the wheels changed recently and a lot of technical stuff I didn't understand. He came back again a day later with nuts from the wheels of my car and said he suspected foul play. Some of the nuts on my wheels had come off, which shouldn't have been possible on its own because of the type of nuts, so it was possible someone had sabotaged my car. He'd put his suspicions in his report but the report had disappeared and every time he brought it up to his superior Jordan Miller, he brushed him off or came up with some excuse until he was finally taken off the case, which was closed right after and ruled an accident. It seems Chief Jordan Miller was covering something up for someone." 

"And then years later, Chief Langdon continued the cycle of corruption," Nathan remarked.

Lily raised an eyebrow in question and he briefly told her of their recent discoveries on the Chief's relationship with Margaret and Max.

"I'm not surprised. Margaret was the reason he did a lot of things," she commented after. "They were high school sweethearts until Margaret was married off to Henry, then they got back together when Henry and Margaret were having marital issues and their affair resulted in the conception of Max."

"Interesting. Did he ever find out who sabotaged your car?"

"He tailed Jordan around for a while and the remotely suspicious thing he saw was him hanging out with Henry. Given my history with him, it was possible that Henry could have tried to kill me, but got Elijah instead."

"Because you rejected him? That's a little overboard."

"He was a petty man. They tend to do crazy things." Shaking her head, she continued, "I stuck around Pinehive to help Dan with the secret investigation and even tried to get Miranda to help since she was close to Henry, but she refused. After two months, we still didn't have anything concrete and I couldn't do it anymore, so I called it quits and started packing up."

She played with the empty glass, twirling it on the table until the silence stretched uncomfortably between them.

"Did something else happen?" Nathan finally asked.

"The night before I was supposed to leave, Miranda showed up at my door in the dead of night; wet and bleeding. She'd just discovered she was pregnant and when she told Henry, he demanded an abortion. Obviously she refused and threatened to go public with the pregnancy. Things escalated and next thing, she awoke on the edge of the beach, bruised and bleeding. He must have thought she was dead, panicked and went and dumped her in the lake hoping the water would wash her body and any incriminating evidence away."

"Like father, like son," Nathan said, voice filled with disgust as he remembered Natasha recounting Max's attack on her. Another thought hit him. "Why did she come to you and not her family or the police even?"

"Most of her family were either dead or living in a different country. And also because of this," Lily said, putting her hand into her bag again and pulling out a smaller plastic bag.

"How deep is that thing?" Nathan nodded at her handbag, as he took the bag she was holding out to him. His question went unanswered when he realized what she'd just given him. "Is this what I think it is?"

"One of the missing nuts from my car and it matched the ones Dan had given me. She asked for my help in exchange for the evidence proving that Henry had killed Elijah. For the record, I would have helped her anyway. I'm not a monster," she said firmly.

"Are you trying to convince me or yourself, Your Honor?"

Apart from a withering look in his direction, she didn't respond to this. "She was afraid he'd track her down and finish her off, so I had to patch her up myself before taking her to the Capital with me where a doctor made sure she and the babies were okay. Her paranoia made it difficult for her to go for check ups for her pregnancy, so I hired a midwife who eventually helped with the home delivery. Because of her trauma, Miranda had decided she didn't want to keep her babies after birth and when I offered to adopt them, she said I couldn't because then she'd know where they were and she didn't want anything to do with them."

"That's...harsh," Nathan commented.

Lily cocked her head to the side. "She was afraid and it led to irrational decisions, I suppose. Anyway, Natasha was born first, perfectly healthy. But Claire had the umbilical cord wrapped twice around her neck. The midwife insisted on taking Miranda to the hospital for a C-section and I stayed behind with Natasha." 

Her eyes glazed over and a smile lit up her face. "From the moment I held her, I fell in love with her. It felt like I'd finally found the missing piece of my life. Everyday I see her, I remember that feeling and it takes away every regret I ever had over what I did to keep her."

She snapped out of her blissful daze and frowned. "The doctor managed to get Claire out safely but she had to be under constant supervision in case she took a turn for the worst, because she'd been deprived of oxygen for a while. Miranda wasn't any better. The stress of the birth had taken its toll on her body. There was a chance neither of them would survive."

"But then Miranda started getting better and she was thinking of changing her mind about the adoption. I couldn't lose Natasha, so I kept making excuses to keep Natasha away from her while I sorted out some paperwork, until she was fully recovered and I told her Natasha had died a day after she was born and I'd kept it from her until she was strong enough to take the news."

"And she didn't question that?" Nathan asked, disbelief clear in his voice.

"She didn't have the time to. I also told her Henry was on her trail and she had to get a new identity and move right away; thus the creation of Miranda Kingsely and her re-location to Crenshaw with Claire. We stayed in touch so I'd know her whereabouts at all times."

"Why Crenshaw?" he asked, ears perking up at the mention of his old home.

"It's chaotic enough to be a good hiding place," she replied. "I moved back to Pinehive because I knew she would never return there because of Henry."

"Weren't you worried about Henry?" 

"Not after I told him if he tried anything, I would broadcast all the evidence I had of his involvement in Elijah's death as  well as Miranda's, whom he believed he'd killed."

"That was risky."

"Natasha's worth the risk."

"Your family must have had questions about Natasha though. How did you explain where you got her?"

"Surrogacy," Lily said simply. "Everyone in my family knew of my infertility, so they believed me when I said Elijah and I had frozen sperm and eggs in the hopes of trying IVF and surrogacy one day. I told Miranda the same thing, although I lied to her about Natasha's age and never sent her pictures."

At a loss for words, Nathan simply stared at her, unable to respond.

"Everything went smoothly until Claire killed Ben. Miranda called me, panicking and asking if she could come and hide out with me, but I obviously couldn't let that happen, so I got rid of Ben's body and made sure they wouldn't be suspected of being involved in his disappearance, and they could carry on like nothing had happened, but something about that day changed Miranda..."

"No one reported Ben missing?" Nathan asked.

"I advised Miranda to do that in case his body ever turned up. They would look a little less suspicious, unlike if they kept quiet and then he turned up dead. And in any case, the justice system in Crenshaw is a joke. Unless I commit a crime right under a policeman's nose, I can get away with anything. Even murder."

"I know," Nathan said somberly, thinking of his sister's six year old murder case that hadn't been solved.

Lily picked up on the change in his demeanor but brushed it off. "Then Henry was murdered and at first I thought one of his many adversaries had finally ended him, until you came and arrested Natasha. When I found out about the optogram-"

"How did you know about that?" Nathan interrupted.

"A lot of people. A lot of favors," she repeated her earlier statement with a sly smile. "I called Miranda that night when we got home from the station and asked if she knew anything about Henry being murdered. At first she was evasive, but I told her that Natasha had been arrested for his murder and lied that I was afraid she would find out about Henry killing Elijah, who Miranda thought was her father, so she told me that Claire had been asking about her father and her dead twin sister and she'd carelessly told her about Henry and how I'd saved her life. I figured Claire had found out about Natasha, but hadn't told her mother about it and gone on a revenge mission."

"That was the call Natasha overheard?"

"I see she shares everything with you," Lily said bitterly. "I hoped Claire's mission would end with Henry but just in case, I had a plan to make sure she wouldn't come after me or Natasha." 

She gestured to the evidence bag between them.

"You were going to blackmail her into not ratting you out?"

"More or less," she shrugged. "She sent me a message, asking to meet me since I was her mother's friend. I knew she'd probably try to kill me if I did, so I tried stalling meeting her while I talked to Miranda about getting her daughter to leave Pinehive. Then Macmillan died by a knife from my house and Natasha was arrested again. Claire was angry and upping the ante, so I left Pinehive, hoping to draw her away and I called her from her mother's phone in Crenshaw to negotiate a deal; the knife in exchange for her laving Pinehive and never coming back."

"So you were in Crenshaw the whole time you told Natasha you were in the Capital?"

"That's why I disconnected my official line, in case someone decided to track my whereabouts. I foolishly believed Claire would take the deal, but then Max died and I realized there was no negotiating with her."

"So how am I supposed to help?"

"I need you to arrest me. Make a big show of it, so it's all over the news. I'll tell her that I'm taking responsibility for all three murders, but she has to stay away from Natasha and go back to Crenshaw. She'll relax and because of my arrest, the city borders will be open and she can leave, end of story. Once she tries to leave, you intercept her and arrest her."

"That's a very bad plan," Nathan said immediately.

"Why?"

"What if she kills Natasha anyway and takes her place, then you're stuck in prison until you're forced to reveal everything you just told me?"

"I don't know what else to do. Everything I've tried hasn't worked and-" She hesitated, biting her lip. "I'm afraid of losing Natasha so I'll try anything."

"Call Claire and find out where she is. I'll get backup so we can set a trap for her," Nathan said, standing to find his charger. "I wish you'd come out with this sooner. Could have saved a lot of lives and time."

"I hoped to resolve this without Natasha finding out the truth about her birth," Lily sighed.

"So you told her an endless list of lies instead. She might have forgiven you if you'd been honest, but now..."

Lily refrained from reprimanding him for his comment and turned her attention on the phones in her hand while he hurried to his bedroom and connected his phone on the charger, switching it on the minute it started charging.

Texts and voicemails immediately flooded his screen. Feeling a slight twinge of panic, he listened to the first voicemail, which turned out to be from Michael.

"Where are you? There's chaos at the station. Apparently your girlfriend sent a message to a bunch of people about going after the killer, who she says has her friend Kelsey. I need you to confirm if she's still with you and this is someone playing a very bad prank but, in case it's not, I'm going to check it out. Her text said she was going to Colorado and Smith, so I'm headed there."

The next one played automatically, again from Michael. Sirens rang in the background and loud chatter made it difficult for him to hear, so he had to strain his ears.

"I really didn't want to say this over a message but your phone's not going through and we couldn't reach you over the radio. I'm at Colorado and Smith and- 

Look, I don't know what happened here and so many people have been over this place in the past half hour, so a lot of evidence has been destroyed, but Natasha's nowhere in sight. We found her car here with the engine still running and driver's side door open. There were two smashed phones on the seat, one of which has been confirmed to have belonged to Kelsey and there're drag marks and a trail of blood on the ground, that disappear after the next street. We're searching every farmhouse in the area but so far, they're all empty. Get over here as soon as you can."

***

I'm sorry for the late post (I feel like I say this a lot). There was so much I had to fit in this chapter and I had to do it in a way that wouldn't result in a 100K words, which was incredibly difficult. It didn't help that this past week has been a stressful one, on a National level, but I digress.

Thank you for your patience! I'm really trying to keep this at a total of 40 chapters so if all goes according to plan, 3 more (long) chapters to go. I apologise for the length but if I cut them shorter, I'll still be writing this a decade later, lol.

P.S Something's up with my 'f' key so if you see a word that looks like it's missing an 'f' - please do let me know.