Chapter 10 - The Road to Nevada
They found the car before they found Lily.
Abandoned near a desert highway.
Blood on the passenger seat.
No body.
No footprints leading toward the road.
Stallone stood beneath the Nevada sun, staring at the open door.
“Whose blood?”
Bell shook his head.
“Lab needs time.”
“We don’t have time.”
Ethan and Sofia were safe back in Los Angeles with Maria and police protection.
Stallone hated leaving them.
But Lily had spent twelve years waiting.
He wouldn’t make her wait another hour.
State police searched the desert.
A helicopter circled overhead.
Then an officer found a bracelet fifty yards from the road.
Plastic beads.
The letters spelled LILY.
Stallone picked it up.
“She was here.”
Bell scanned the ground.
“Tire tracks.”
A second vehicle.
Lily had been transferred.
But why?
Keller was dead.
Vanessa was in custody.
Unless Vanessa wasn’t the person at the top.
Bell had been thinking the same thing.
“She had help twelve years ago.”
“Who?”
“Someone with hospital access, money, and enough influence to bury records.”
Stallone looked at him.
“Keller.”
“Keller was a doctor, not a magician.”
They returned to the local station.
Bell laid out the timeline.
Rachel gave birth to twins.
Vanessa and Keller falsified records.
Rose was placed where she could be watched.
Lily stayed closer to Vanessa.
Years later, Ethan was born.
Rachel had somehow survived long enough after the twins to later become pregnant again.
But Ethan had been told a false story about his mother.
Then Rachel died when Ethan was young.
Too many lies.
Too many changed documents.
Stallone pressed both hands against the table.
“Why?”
Bell looked at the evidence.
“Money usually explains complicated crimes.”
“Vanessa had money.”
“But maybe she wanted more.”
An officer entered.
“We identified the blood.”
Stallone stood.
“It’s not Lily’s.”
His knees nearly gave out.
“Whose?”
“Dr. Keller’s.”
Bell frowned.
“Keller was killed in California.”
“No. He wasn’t.”
Silence.
The officer continued.
“The dead man identified as Keller used false dental records.”
Bell stared.
“Then who died?”
“We don’t know.”
Stallone looked at the blood in the abandoned car.
“Keller is alive.”
His phone rang.
Unknown number.
Bell nodded for him to answer.
Stallone put it on speaker.
A weak male voice.
“Keller?”
“Listen carefully.”
Stallone’s hand tightened around the phone.
“Where’s Lily?”
“Alive.”
“Where?”
“I can’t tell you on the phone.”
“You have ten seconds before I give this number to every agency in the country.”
Keller coughed.
“You’re still looking at Vanessa.”
“She stole my children.”
“She helped.”
“Helped who?”
Long silence.
Then Keller said:
“Rachel’s father.”
Stallone froze.
Rachel’s father had been dead for nine years.
“What are you talking about?”
“He never wanted you in the family.”
“Where is Lily?”
“He built a place outside Reno.”
“A place for what?”
“To keep people who knew too much quiet.”
Bell was already tracing the call.
Keller whispered:
“I tried to get Lily out.”
“Then tell me where she is.”
A sudden noise.
Keller gasped.
Then whispered:
“They found me.”
The call ended.
Bell looked at the trace.
“We have an address.”
Stallone grabbed his jacket.
Bell caught his arm.
“This could be a trap.”
May you like
Stallone looked at Lily’s bracelet in his hand.
“Then they’d better hope I walk into it before they hurt my daughter.”
