10. Chapter 10
Chapter ten
T hey made it down the hallway without incident. The little office was toward the back of the emergency unit of the hospital anyway. Only two people walking in the opposite direction passed them, and neither paid the three of them any attention.
Elio could feel Rissa trembling against his side, but she stood as strong and straight as ever, supporting his weight as they finally passed through the door into the shallow open-front garage behind the hospital. Aside from the two ambulances parked there, it was empty. Elio immediately switched the gun to point at Hupp as the cop turned toward him, hands slightly raised.
“Now what?” the man asked. His voice was grudging, caught between fear and derision.
“Now,” Elio said, “you take these handcuffs—” he tossed one of the two pairs snagged from the cop’s belt in his direction, “—and you handcuff yourself to that handrail over there.”
For a moment, he thought the cop was going to call his bluff—refuse and see if Elio followed through with his threat to start shooting. But after a second of hesitation, caution won and he stiffly obeyed, slipping the handcuffs around the rail and fastening them around his wrists.
Elio then looked down at Rissa. Her face was pale and set, her eyes strangely hollow as she gazed back up at him, waiting to see what he would do next. He hated that he had done this to her—betrayed her trust and used her as a means to an end. But it was too late to turn back time, even if he could. And he couldn’t give her up just yet.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I’m going to have to cuff you too.”
Rissa simply nodded, and she didn’t resist as he tightened the steel bands around her wrists. As a precaution, he also removed the nametag from her jacket, tossing it across the garage.
As it skidded away across the concrete, he was overcome with a sense of urgency. Everything so far had gone without a hitch, but time was passing quickly and the detectives would surely start to look for them. And since they hadn’t shown up here, they were probably checking the airless office at the end of the hall. It wouldn’t take them long to find their way to the garage.
He pushed Rissa toward the closest ambulance and opened the driver-side door, relieved to find it unlocked. The keys were in the driver’s seat. As if left for me, Elio thought, his optimism beginning to soar as freedom became a real possibility. As if all Nonno’s talk about the stars aligning was real after all, and they’re working together to help me prove my innocence.
Grabbing Rissa’s elbow, he nudged her toward the step into the ambulance, but she balked, pulling away from him. Her eyes were full of tears when she turned around.
“Why are you taking me with you?” she asked, an edge of panic in her voice. “Why aren’t you leaving me here with him?” She nodded toward the glowering cop at the handrail.
“I need you for a little longer,” Elio told her, his momentary lift of spirits vanishing in response to the cold dread on her face. He couldn’t leave her just yet. Not only did he need her, but something inside him begged for a chance to redeem himself in her eyes. If he could just have a few more minutes with her to explain, maybe she wouldn’t completely despise him at their parting.
He could not have explained why he couldn’t bear the thought of her forever despising him, even if his escape had depended upon it.
“To make a clean getaway. Please,” he added. The gun hung at his side. It had been enough of an effort to keep it buried in her side on their trek through the hospital. He wasn’t sure he could point it at her again now even if he wanted to.
Rissa stared at him, her eyes assessing him and probably noting that his pain medication was beginning to wear off again and he was still getting waves of dizziness. He waited for her to refuse, to dare him to try and force her into the ambulance. But to his relief and surprise, she abruptly turned and climbed into the ambulance herself, stumbling over the console into the passenger seat.
He was about to step up after her when the big doors behind them flew open with a bang. He spun around to see both detectives barrel through, their guns already drawn and ready as they swept across the length of the garage. At the handrail, Hupp finally came alive.
“He’s there!” he yelled, and Elio dove for the ambulance doorway as the crash of pistol fire erupted, echoing against the cement walls of the garage. Fire tore through his left leg, and Elio yelled in pain, but he didn’t slow down. Slamming the driver’s side door after him, he thrust the key into the ignition, and the ambulance roared to life.
He could hear the detectives shouting as they ran toward the vehicle, but at least they weren’t shooting any longer. Probably because they didn’t want to hit his hostage—which was the entire point of a hostage, he reminded himself. Criminals escaping from the law didn’t take hostages to try and explain to them why exactly they were going on the run. Not usually, anyway.
His thoughts were rambling, slowing his reflexes as he jammed the gear shift into drive. He stomped on the gas, sending the big vehicle lurching forward. As they swerved out of the garage and into full daylight, Elio glanced over at Rissa. She was clinging to the handle above the door, no doubt made for just that purpose. Her expression was a mix of fascination and horror as she looked at him and then craned back over her shoulder to see if the detectives had followed.
Elio barely had time for a glance in the rearview mirror before he was spinning the wheel once again, turning them onto the road. All he saw were the detective’s backs as they hightailed it back into the garage. They would be heading to their car to give chase, he thought. Would he have enough of a head start? He couldn’t say.
His left leg felt as if a hot iron rod was pressing against his calf muscle, and he could feel the blood soaking his pant leg and sock. Additionally, he realized that the sutured gash across his abdomen felt as if it had been torn back open, probably when he jumped the cop in the office; adrenalin had just kept him from noticing it until now.
He shook his head as his vision threatened to cloud over once again, taking deep, slow breaths. He glared at the road ahead, watching for his turnoff, shaking his head once more as if he could shake the fog right out of it.
“Are you feeling faint?” Rissa asked, her voice hesitant yet tinged with the same quiet authority he had heard when she first took over his care at the hospital.
“Yes,” Elio said. “It’s okay, though. I won’t crash us.”
“You’ve already done that,” Rissa said bitterly. Elio swung his head to look at her and spotted his turn at the same time. He spun the wheel, the ambulance tires screeching as it skidded onto one smaller side road and then another.
What was she saying?
“I had to get out of there,” he said, his tongue stumbling over even those simple words. I’m bleeding out, he thought. The spike of fear that pierced him at the thought momentarily cleared his brain and vision. He took another turn, entering an empty parking garage that was still under construction. The place you met your cousin, Nonno had said. This was it.
The ambulance swerved along the aisles as he scanned for the promised vehicle.
“I was being set up,” he explained to the silent doctor who was still clinging to the handle across from him. “I may not be the most stand-up guy in town, but I’m no bomber. And if they had been able to pin the whole thing on me, what about the real bomber? Someone has to be out looking for him. If not me, who’s going to do it?”
There was the car: a small, dark blue Honda parked in the shadow of a concrete beam. Elio swung the ambulance in beside it and stopped the engine. All was silent.
They had time. He looked down at his leg. There was a pool of blood on the floor beneath it. Standing up, he popped open the door between their seats and stumbled into the back of the ambulance, searching haphazardly for something to stop the bleeding. But the dizziness was back in full force.
He heard a sound and turned to see that Rissa had followed him.
“Please,” he said, thinking of her words moments before about him already having crashed them. It had to mean that she felt some of the same things he had in the hospital during their time together. “Help me one more time. I promise you—I’m not who they say I am.”
Even as he said it, he relinquished all hope that she would relent. She was so beautiful. Like a sad, disapproving angel. And good. She was entirely out of his league and had been from the beginning.
He stepped toward her, staggering slightly, and took her hands in his. He pulled the handcuff key from his pocket and unlocked her handcuffs, letting them fall with a clatter.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You can go. I never should have. . . “
And then he fell, the blackness swallowing him whole.