Chapter 6 - Unmasking the Deception
I pinned him against the wall before he could recover, the heavy wood of the walking stick pressed hard against his throat.
"Who are you?" I demanded.
In the dim light of the kitchen nightlight, I saw a face lined with old scars, eyes wide with a mixture of shock and pain. He was holding his broken wrist against his chest.
"Name's Marcus," he choked out, gasping for air. "I'm... I'm Michael's brother. His real brother."
"The one who poisoned him?"
Marcus let out a grim, bloody laugh. "Poisoned him? Old man, you've got it all wrong. Michael wasn't being poisoned by me. He was poisoning himself."
I frowned, lowering the stick just an inch so he could speak, but keeping his weight anchored to the wall. "Explain."
"Michael owed a lot of dangerous people a lot of dangerous money before he took off, changed his name, and played house out here in the middle of nowhere," Marcus hissed. "They found him a month ago. He knew he couldn't run again with a wife and two kids. So he devised a plan. He started micro-dosing himself with thallium. Just enough to get admitted to a hospital, just enough to look like a victim."
The pieces began to fall into place with terrifying speed.
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"He wanted to frame Clare," I whispered, the horror washing over me. "If he was a victim of a local poisoning, his old enemies wouldn't look for him. They'd think it was a domestic dispute. He’d disappear from the hospital, leave his family to take the fall, and start over with a clean slate."
"Smart kid, my brother," Marcus muttered. "He always was the favorite. He left the ledger here to make sure the police found the evidence against her. I came to get it before the cops arrived, because that ledger has names in it that belong to people I work for."
