Chapter 10 - Uncovering the Ghost That Haunts the Family Bloodline Record
Mark pulled the police cruiser into an abandoned gas station off an isolated rural road near the New York border.
The rain had begun to fall in heavy, blinding sheets, pounding mercilessly against the windshield.
Lily was wide awake now, sitting quietly in the passenger seat and staring at Mark with big, bright blue eyes.
“Daddy?” she whispered softly, her tiny voice cutting through the heavy silence of the car.
Mark felt a lump form in his throat as he turned to look at her bruised face.
He had raised her as his own niece for three years, believing her real mother had passed away shortly after her birth.
“I’m right here, sweetheart,” Mark said softly, reaching over to gently stroke her golden hair. “You’re safe now.”
He reached into Reynolds’ glove compartment and pulled out a thick leather notebook wrapped in rubber bands.
Flipping through the handwritten pages, Mark found entries dated back to the weeks following Julian’s alleged death.
One entry caught his eye: Subject 42 – Saint Jude’s Private Medical Center, Vermont.
Below the entry was a phone number and a name written in bold red ink: Sarah Vance.
Mark’s breath caught in his throat.
Sarah Vance was the name of Julian’s fiancé, the woman who had supposedly died in a car crash two months before Julian disappeared.
If Sarah was still alive in Vermont, it meant the entire story of Lily’s origin was a carefully constructed lie.
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Mark looked at the dashboard clock and shifted the car into drive, heading north toward the Vermont border.
***
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