Page 2 of Heartbeats Amidst Chaos: Part 3

“Morning,” she replied. He couldn’t tell if she was glad, surprised, or disappointed to see that he was still there.

“Are you up for some breakfast?”

“This place serves breakfast?” Rissa raised her eyebrows in surprise.

“No,” Elio said. “But the diner across the street does.”

There was a knock on the door, and Rissa started to get up.

“Stay put,” he said, feeling almost shy as he added, “I’ll bring it to you in bed.”

He went to the door and waited a second to be sure the delivery person had left. Once certain, he opened it and picked up the boxes, bags, and two Styrofoam cups of coffee. Turning back into the room, he was glad to see that Rissa had done as he’d asked. She propped the pillows against the headboard and scooted backward so that she could lean against them—still cross-legged, still in her underwear.

Elio brought the food to the bed and sat down beside her. He handed over her coffee and then divvied up the cinnamon sugardonuts, egg bagels, fruit cups, and home fries between the two Styrofoam trays. All the while, Rissa watched him with a curious smile.

“What?” he said finally as he tucked the foot of his good leg under his opposite knee, keeping his other leg outstretched. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Rissa shook her head, dropping her attention to the food in front of her.

“Nothing, I just—well, I was thinking thatI’msupposed to be the one with the caretaker personality, right? I’m the doctor. But you kind of have a thing for feeding people, don’t you?”

Elio shrugged and nodded. “I take care of the people I care about,” he said.

I just admitted that I care about her.

His heart sped up slightly as he watched for her reaction. Rissa’s hand stilled over her steaming home fries. Then, she picked one up and popped it into her mouth, tossing her hair back and turning her face toward him with a tiny smile as she chewed.

Elio was unsure what to make of her response. Forcing his attention back to his own food, he picked up the egg bagel and took a large bite.

Rissa swallowed her fry.

“I just listened to a message from my friend, Reagan,” she said.

“The investigative journalist?” Elio asked around his mouthful, and she nodded, frowning slightly. He immediately regretted reminding her that he knew things about her that she hadn’t told him.

“A contact of hers was able to find out that the detectives investigating the fundraiser bombing started with two main leads,” she said. “One was security video footage of you entering the concert hall with a black bag.”

Her gaze bore into him, and he almost choked swallowing his bite.

“It was money,” he mumbled. She raised her eyebrows, her expression intimating that this didn’t make things look much better for him. But she was still sitting in bed eating breakfast with him, which must mean she didn’t really still suspect him of being the bomber. Right?

“Reagan’s informant told her that the other lead has been brushed under the rug in favor of going after you,” Rissa continued. “It’s a car caught on security cameras exiting the parking garage just before the explosion. It was the only car they were unable to match with one of the concertgoers, musicians, or fundraiser personnel. However, before the lead was buried, they were able to trace it to a lakeside vacation resort about two hours from here. Apparently, it was a ride service provided by the resort.”

“Someone took a taxi from a resort?” Elio asked, his bagel forgotten as he processed the information that a leadwasactively being buried by the police. It was just as he had thought: With him for a fall guy, they didn’t need to search for the real bomber.

Rissa shrugged. “Possibly.”

She tucked a silky strand of hair behind her ear as she picked up one of the fruit cups and an individually packaged plastic fork, opening the cellophane wrapping with her teeth. Elio watched her, half mesmerized by the sheer gracefulness with which she seemed to do even the most mundane activities and half occupied with piecing together a plan from the fragments of certainty he still retained.

“That’s where we should go,” he said. “The resort. Even if whoever rode from there to the concert is no longer there, maybe we could pick up their trail. And it would give us a place away from the city to lay low in the meantime.” His words came more quickly as he warmed to the idea and prepared to spill the fact that he had already taken steps to implement part of it. “We’ll pose as a newly engaged couple on a getaway,” he said. Keeping his voice steady required an effort. “I already have a guy getting papers for us.”

Once more, Rissa’s eyebrows shot toward her adorably mussed hair, but it wasn’t his choice of cover that she questioned first.

“Secret identities?”

Elio nodded. “They’ll help us disappear for as long as we need to and allow us to hide in plain sight.” He shrugged. His relief that she hadn’t immediately decried his plan was surprisingly intense, but he tried to hide it beneath casual confidence. “If we’re going to go on the run, we might as well do it right. That’s how I usually like to do things.”

As he said it, he let his gaze run briefly over her body before returning to her face. She had obviously caught his innuendo, and he noticed her cheekbones flush as she tilted her chin upward, a small smile curving the corners of her lips.

---