In Death 21 - Origin in Death

the baby up to bounce her casually on his hip.
    "You'd be Eve. I'm your cousin Eemon, Sinead's son. It's lovely meeting you at last."
    Before she could speak, he'd wrapped his free arm around her, pulled her into a hug, and into intimate proximity with what was on his hip. Tiny fingers shot out, grabbed her hair.
    Eemon laughed. "She's a fascination with hair, as she has so little of it yet herself." Competently, he tugged the fingers free.
    "Um" was all Eve could think of, but Eemon flashed that smile once more.
    "And here you are, barely in your own door and we've got you surrounded. We're already scattered about the place, and sure a beauty of a place it is. Roarke and some of us are in the parlor there. Can I help you with your coat?"
    "Coat? No. Thanks." She was able to ease away, peel it off, toss it over the newel post.
    "Gran!" Scan raced forward, and some of Eve's tension faded when she saw Sinead step into the foyer. At least this was someone she'd already met.
    "You'll never guess it." Brimming with excitement, Scan danced in a circle. "Cousin Eve said there was a murder at the skating place. A dead body."
    "Murder usually involves a dead body."
    It occurred to Eve, quite suddenly, that murder probably hadn't been an appropriate point of conversation. "It was last year. It's okay now."
    "I'm relieved to hear it, as there's a considerable horde who's looking forward to taking a spin on the ice." She grinned, stepped forward.
    She was slim and lovely. Delicate white skin and fine features, golden red hair and sea green eyes. The same face, Eve thought, her twin-Roarke's mother-would have had if she'd lived.
    She kissed Eve's cheek. "Thank you for having us in your home."
    "Oh. Sure, but it's Roarke's-"
    "Whatever he built, it's the home you've made together. How is it you manage such a place?" She hooked an arm through Eve's as she walked back toward the parlor. "Sure I'd be lost half the time."
    "I don't, really. Manage it. Summerset."
    "Competent, he looks it. A bit intimidating as well."
    "I'll say."
    But she'd have handled him better than the sight in the parlor. There were so many of them. Had he said there were so many? They were all talking and eating. More kids-the couple others she'd seen outside. They must have come around the side, she thought. Or just whizzed through, invisibly.
    Roarke was in the process of serving an older woman a cup of something. She sat in one of the high-backed chairs, her head crowned with white hair, her eyes strong and blue.
    There was another man standing by the fireplace having a conversation with yet another who might have been his twin if you carved way the twenty-odd years she judged came between them. They appeared to have no problem ignoring the two kids who sat at their feet and poked viciously at each other.
    Another woman, early twenties, sat in the windowseat, looking dreamily out wile a baby of some kind sucked heroically at her breast.
    Jeez.
    "Our Eve's home," Sinead announced, and conversation trailed off. “Meet the family, won’t you?” Sinead’s arm tightened like a shackle, and moved Eve forward. "My brother Ned, and his oldest Connor."
    "Ah, nice to meet you." She started to extend a hand, and was enveloped in a bear hug by the older, passed to the younger for the same treatment.
    "Thanks for having us."
    "That's Connor's Maggie there, nursing their young Devin."
    "Pleasure." Maggie sent Eve a slow, shy smile.
    "Scattered about on the floor would be Celia and Tom."
    "She's got a blaster." Since it was the girl who made the whispered observation, Eve assumed it was Celia.
    "Police-issue combo." Instinctively Eve laid her hand over it. "It's on stun. Lowest setting. I ... I'll go up and put it away."
    "Somebody punched her face." Tom didn't bother to whisper.
    "Not exactly. I should go up, and ..." Hide.
    "My mother." Sinead tugged Eve forward another step. "Alise Brody."
    "Ma'am. I'm just going to-"
    But the woman got to her feet. "Let's have a good look at you. Don't you feed her, boy?" she demanded of Roarke.
    "I try."
    "Good face, strong jaw. Good thing if you're going to have to take a punch here and there. So you're a cop, are you now? Running about after murderers and the like. Good at it?"
    "Yes. I'm good at it."
    "No point in doing something and not doing it well. And your family? Your kin?"
    "I don't have any family."
    She laughed, hard and long. "God sake, child, like it or no, you've got one now. Give us a kiss here, then." She tapped