Chapter 8 - THE SISTER WHO LEFT A TRAIL OF STARS
The clinic outside Milwaukee had closed four years earlier.
Its records were incomplete.
Its former director had died.
And the building had been converted into a dental practice.
But Detective Sullivan found something the original investigation never examined.
A former night nurse named Grace Ellison.
Grace lived in a small Wisconsin town with her husband and two dogs.
She was eighty-one.
Her memory was sharp.
And when Chloe showed her Lily's photograph, she began crying.
"Oh, that poor girl."
Chloe's heart stopped.
"You remember her?"
Grace nodded.
"She arrived in terrible condition. Bruised ribs. A head injury. She kept asking for her sister."
Chloe pressed her hands together.
"Did she say my name?"
"Chloe."
Tears spilled down Chloe's cheeks.
Grace continued.
"She said you were nineteen and studying art. She was afraid someone would hurt you."
Chloe couldn't speak.
For seven years, she'd wondered whether Lily had forgotten her.
Now she knew her sister had been thinking about her even while injured.
"What happened to her?" Chloe whispered.
Grace looked toward the window.
"Two men came for her."
Chloe froze.
"What men?"
"One was older. Heavyset. He claimed to be her guardian."
"Russell Keegan?"
Grace nodded slowly when Sullivan showed her a photograph.
"Yes. That looks like him."
"And the younger man?" Sullivan asked.
Grace hesitated.
"He had a bandaged arm. Dark hair. Very handsome."
Matteo leaned forward.
"Did he look like this?"
He showed her Enzo's photograph.
Grace stared.
Then shook her head.
"No."
Matteo's shoulders fell.
Grace continued.
"He looked similar. But this young man had a scar across his forehead."
Chloe studied the photograph.
Enzo didn't have that scar.
She glanced at Matteo.
He looked devastated.
The possibility that his brother had survived was slipping away.
Then Grace said something unexpected.
"The young man called the older one Dad."
Chloe froze.
Tommy.
Tommy had been younger then.
Nineteen.
And he'd had a scar near his hairline since childhood.
Her stomach turned.
"He was Thomas Keegan."
Sullivan showed Grace a photograph of Tommy.
The retired nurse nodded immediately.
"That's him."
Chloe sat back.
The person seen with Lily hadn't been Enzo.
It had been the man Chloe would meet four years later.
The man who would become her controlling partner.
The man who'd spent three years asking questions about her family.
The realization was horrifying.
Tommy hadn't met her by chance.
He had known about Lily all along.
Grace leaned toward Chloe.
"There's something else, sweetheart."
Chloe looked up.
"Yes?"
"The girl escaped."
Chloe stopped breathing.
"What?"
"One night, she disappeared from her room. The window was open. Her hospital clothes were folded on the bed."
"Did anyone find her?"
"Not that I know of."
Grace smiled faintly.
"But she left something for me."
From a drawer, she retrieved a tiny paper envelope.
Inside was a small blue glass star.
Chloe covered her mouth.
Lily used to make those stars.
She slipped them into birthday cards and Christmas stockings.
Grace placed it gently on the table.
"She told me that if anyone ever came looking for her, I should tell them she was still fighting."
Chloe began crying.
Grace touched her hand.
"Your sister was frightened. But she was determined."
Chloe stared at the little star.
"Did she say where she was going?"
Grace hesitated.
"She mentioned a lighthouse."
Sullivan leaned forward.
"Which lighthouse?"
"She didn't say."
Chloe closed her eyes.
Lily loved lighthouses.
As children, they'd spent summers visiting their grandmother near Lake Michigan.
Their grandmother collected postcards of lighthouses.
Lily always said lights existed for people who couldn't find their way home.
Chloe suddenly remembered a childhood game.
Lily would hide paper stars around the house.
Each one contained a clue.
The final clue always led to a painted picture of a lighthouse.
"She left a trail," Chloe whispered.
Matteo looked at her.
"What?"
"My sister was trying to tell someone where to look."
Chloe turned toward Sullivan.
"There's a place near our grandmother's old cottage. A small lighthouse museum. Lily volunteered there when we were teenagers."
The detective made a note.
"What's it called?"
"Harbor Point Light."
Chloe looked down at the glass star.
For seven years, she'd believed Lily had vanished into darkness.
Now she had the first evidence that her sister had escaped her captors.
May you like
And perhaps, somewhere, she was still waiting to be found.
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