Chapter 8 - The Flight to DenverThe notification on Daniel's tablet changed everything.
Status: Confirmed Match.
Location: Denver, Colorado.
Date Captured: Three Days Ago.
Lily stared at the screen until the letters blurred through her tears.
"I need to see him," she whispered.
Rachel placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "If that man is your father, we'll find him. But we have to do this the right way."
Before anyone could respond, Daniel's phone rang. He answered, listened for only a few seconds, then covered the microphone.
"Hospital security just detained someone in the underground parking garage."
Rachel frowned.
"Who?"
"They were trying to remove several boxes from Diane Harrow's vehicle."
Minutes later, two officers entered the room carrying three sealed evidence boxes. One box had split open during the seizure.
Thousands of shredded documents spilled across the floor.
Mixed among them were hard drives, USB flash drives, and several old paper files tied together with faded blue ribbon.
Rachel carefully picked up the top folder.
Across the cover, typed in bold black letters, were the words:
LILY BENNETT – CONFIDENTIAL
Lily's breath caught.
"I've never seen that file."
Rachel opened it carefully.
The first page wasn't a medical report.
It wasn't a custody document.
It was a private investigator's report dated seven years earlier—more than four years before Lily had even met Ethan.
Someone had been watching her long before the marriage.
Page after page detailed her life.
Her university records.
Her first apartment.
Every employer she'd worked for.
Her promotion to the State Attorney's Office.
Even photographs of her shopping alone, visiting her mother's house, and having lunch with friends.
Ethan stared in disbelief.
"My family... investigated you before we even met?"
Lily slowly shook her head.
"No."
She looked closer at the report.
"The surveillance began almost a year before I ever met you."
Rachel turned another page.
There was a payment ledger.
The client name had been blacked out with thick marker.
But whoever had tried to hide it had been careless.
Under the light, faint embossed letters were still visible.
Daniel angled his flashlight across the paper.
The name slowly appeared.
Not Diane Harrow.
Not Marcus Harrow.
The client was listed as:
Jonathan Bennett.
Lily's hands began to tremble.
"That's..."
"My father's name," she finished.
The room fell silent.
Ethan looked from the report to Lily.
"Why would your father hire someone to watch you?"
"I don't know."
Rachel carefully removed another document from the file.
This one was a handwritten note.
The ink had faded, but the words were still readable.
If anything happens to me, never let Lily marry into the Harrow family. They already know who she is.
No signature.
No explanation.
Just that warning.
Daniel immediately sealed the note inside an evidence sleeve.
"This changes the timeline completely."
Rachel nodded.
"Your father wasn't hiding from Lily."
She looked directly at her.
"He was trying to protect her."
At that exact moment, Ethan's phone vibrated.
The caller ID displayed only two words:
Private Number.
He answered cautiously.
No one spoke for several seconds.
Then a calm, unfamiliar male voice said:
"Tell Lily she has exactly forty-eight hours."
Ethan's grip tightened around the phone.
"Forty-eight hours for what?"
The caller ignored the question.
"Her father has waited twelve years."
A brief pause followed.
May you like
"He won't survive another two days."
The line went dead.
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