Chapter 8 - DR. BELL
Daniel and Anna meet Nathan Bell in a modest Wisconsin home under police surveillance.
Bell is not a mastermind.
He is a frightened former physician who helped falsify parts of Anna’s medical record, then regretted it.
He admits he participated in the early stage of the cover-up.
He also reveals the crucial distinction:
Voss did not initially plan to kill Anna.
He planned to discredit her.
Make her appear mentally unstable.
Use false medical records.
Force Daniel to doubt her.
Then remove her from access to Mercer corporate files.
Victor turned the plan violent when Jennifer stole evidence.
Bell confirms Anna was pregnant before the crash and that Voss knew.
However, Lily was never valuable because of her genes.
The real danger was simpler and more believable.
A prenatal sample proved that Anna had been medically tested without consent using a database that supposedly had been destroyed twenty-five years earlier.
If Lily’s sample existed, so did the database.
That alone could expose decades of illegal research and blackmail.
Bell gives Daniel the location of the surviving archive.
Before they can leave, Daniel receives a photograph.
Lily at school.
Under it:
YOU KEEP LOOKING.
WE KEEP GETTING CLOSER.
Anna stares at Daniel.
For the first time, she does not say they should run.
She says:
May you like
“Then we finish this before he gets another chance.”
---
