Chapter 3 - Vanishing Act
The back of the unmarked ambulance smelled of rubbing alcohol, leather, and old coffee.
Marcus slammed the rear doors shut, and the vehicle immediately lurched into motion, throwing me back against the padded stretcher. Up front, a driver I didn't recognize navigated through the rain-slicked Chicago streets without sirens.
"Drink this," Marcus ordered, pressing an amber plastic bottle into my hand.
"What is it?"
"Activated charcoal suspension with Prussian blue," Marcus replied, his jaw tight as he set an IV kit on the tray beside him. "Your dad had a toxicologist at Northwestern prep it off the books an hour ago. Prussian blue binds to thallium in the gut and bloodstream, forcing your body to excrete it before it permanently shuts down your nervous system."
The liquid tasted like thick, chalky mud, but I swallowed every drop, gagging as it scraped down my raw esophagus.
Marcus grabbed my arm, his touch remarkably gentle despite the calluses on his fingers, and expertly slid a clean butterfly needle into my vein, hooking me up to a bag of saline mixed with chelating agents.
"How long have you known?" I asked, watching the clear fluid drip.
"Your father called me three weeks ago," Marcus said, keeping his eyes on my IV line. "He noticed you lost twenty pounds in two months. He noticed Ethan stopped letting him visit your house without calling forty-eight hours in advance. Arthur might be retired, Claire, but a twenty-year homicide detective doesn't stop reading red flags. When Ethan took out a three-million-dollar supplemental life insurance policy on you last October, your dad put me on surveillance."
"Three million?" My voice cracked. "We already had policies through my family trust."
"That was the baseline," Marcus said with cold disgust. "The new policy had an accelerated payout rider for terminal illness. But there was a catch: suicide or suspicious deaths under criminal investigation freeze the funds for up to five years. Natural organ failure, confirmed by a certified physician? Payout in fourteen business days."
A bitter, hysterical laugh bubbled up in my chest. "That's why they didn't shoot me. That's why they didn't stage a car crash. They needed me to wither away slowly in a hospital bed."
"Jennifer was the inside link," Marcus continued. "She transferred to St. Jude’s oncology wing as an agency nurse three months ago. She was the one logging your vitals, the one spiking your saline bags during the night shifts. She and Ethan have been sleeping together since last summer. We have photos of them meeting at a motel off Route 83 every Tuesday while you were at physical therapy."
I leaned my head back against the stretcher wall. The nausea was already beginning to recede slightly, replaced by a cold, predatory focus.
"What happened at the hospital after we left?" I asked.
Marcus pulled an encrypted tablet from his tactical vest. "Your father handles the hospital end. When Jennifer wakes up, she won't go to the police. How could she? 'The patient I was trying to poison cracked a pitcher over my head and vanished'? She’ll call Ethan in a blind panic. And Ethan will realize he has a massive problem."
"What about the doctor?"
"Dr. Robert Sterling," Marcus sneered. "Diane’s third cousin on her mother’s side. He was the one who signed your original diagnosis of idiopathic hepatic necrosis. Arthur had two federal agents pay Dr. Sterling a visit at his private residence fifteen minutes ago. Sterling is currently singing like a canary to avoid twenty years in Stateville for medical conspiracy to commit murder."
The tablet chimed. Marcus looked down at the screen, and his dark eyes narrowed.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Our tap on your home security system," Marcus said, turning the screen toward me.
The live feed showed my living room. Ethan was standing in the center of the plush Persian rug, holding a crystal tumbler of Macallan scotch. His mother, Diane, was sitting at my antique mahogany desk, surrounded by stacks of my mother’s heirloom jewelry boxes and my father's family stock certificates.
Then the front door flew open on the video.
Jennifer staggered into the foyer, a bloody towel pressed to her cheek, her scrub uniform soaked.
Ethan dropped his glass. It shattered on the hardwood floor.
I leaned closer to the screen, watching their panic unfold in high-definition silence.
"They don't know where I am," I whispered.
May you like
"No," Marcus said, his voice dropping low and lethal. "They think you ran. But they don't know who has you. And by tomorrow morning, Claire, we’re going to make them think you're already dead."
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