Heartbeats Amidst Chaos, Part 2

2. Chapter 2

Chapter two

T he police station interrogation room was nearly as hot and stuffy as the tiny office where Rissa had stood waiting while Elio made his phone call. Now, she highly doubted it had been to his lawyer.

She stared down at her hands, handcuffed in front of her, and then across the table at the one-way mirror. Her reflection stared back at her. Anger, confusion, and weariness were evident in the pale tension of her face.

I cannot believe this is happening to me, she thought. How can they think I had anything to do with Elio’s escape? I was so obviously a hostage, right up until…

She paused, pushing the memory of the kiss to the very back of her mind. Just in time.

The door finally opened, and a man and a woman came in. The same two detectives, Rissa realized, who had been overseeing Elio at the hospital. The same two detectives, she recalled with a slight quickening of her breath, that she had overheard talking together in the hallway about “stacking” evidence against him.

She felt her lips tighten, even as she reminded herself that she had nothing to hide. She had only done her duty as a doctor and good citizen. She had been caught in the crossfire, nothing more. If these shady detectives thought they had something on her, they were gravely mistaken.

“Dr. Mahoney,” the woman greeted her. “I know we met at the hospital, but I don’t believe we were ever properly introduced. My name is Detective Russo, and this is my partner, Detective Cornell.”

As she took one of the seats on the opposite side of the table, the man—Cornell—circled the table and produced a key, unlocking Rissa’s handcuffs and removing them.

“I’m so sorry about all of this,” Russo continued as her partner joined her, facing Rissa across the table. “I imagine the last few hours have been quite rough on you, but we just need to ask you a few questions.”

“I was arrested at gunpoint and dragged into the police station in handcuffs because you need to ask me a few questions?” Rissa didn’t try to hide the incredulity of her tone.

“Again, I apologize. Our officers may have taken things a bit far. We’re just somewhat unclear about the part you played in Elio Accardi’s escape from the hospital.”

Rissa felt her mouth drop open.

“I was his hostage,” she said. “It’s no more complicated than that.”

Detective Russo gave her a knowing look. “Oh, I think it was a little more complicated than that.”

Rissa worked to keep her expression neutral. They couldn’t possibly know about the kiss. And even if they did, was that enough to make her an accomplice?

“Your colleagues at the hospital have informed us that you spent quite a bit of time with the suspect before his escape and that you spoke up multiple times in his defense,” Cornell jumped in. “The officers on guard duty have also testified that you and the suspect seemed to share ‘some kind of connection.’ Would you care to explain to us exactly what that was?”

“I was his doctor,” Rissa said tightly, her heart pounding irregularly. “It was my job to make sure he received proper care. In that regard, I think I actually behaved more lawfully than anyone you have talked to about this.”

The detectives were silent, obviously hoping that a lack of response would draw Rissa to say more, but she had already determined that she was going to say as little as possible in this interrogation. She wouldn’t demand a lawyer yet—that would just make her look guilty. But she wouldn’t feed into whatever delusions these two had concocted about her.

Detective Russo sighed. “There’s also the matter of the ambulance,” she said, as if she was about to divulge the real clincher. “It shows evidence that you cared for the suspect’s wounds even though he no longer had a gun on you or had you restrained in any way.”

“It’s a little hard to care for wounds when you’re restrained,” Rissa said, managing a bitter smile. “Once again, I’m a doctor. It’s what I do.”

Up until now, she had been telling herself that this was why she had taken care of Elio’s gunshot wound—out of a sense of duty and fairness, nothing more. But as she said it aloud, she suddenly felt a wave of doubt. Was it more than that?

Why, she wondered, had she felt more at ease with him—the man who had put her smack dab in the middle of danger—than she could feel with these law enforcement personnel who were supposedly the ones tasked with keeping her safe?

Perhaps we do share a “connection,” she thought, her stomach fluttering as her memory of the kiss tried to push to the forefront of her mind. But it’s not the kind these detectives are getting at.

Russo and Cornell glanced at each other, and Rissa patiently waited them out, forcing her agitation deep into hiding.

“All right,” Cornell said eventually. “We just need you to run us through exactly what happened from the moment you started caring for the suspect in the hospital to the moment he left you in the ambulance. What did you talk about? Who did he mention? How did he leave the parking garage? Did you ever try to escape while you were his hostage? Did you overhear anything when he said on the phone before his escape?”

“Don’t leave anything out,” Russo added in a warning voice. “We’ll know if you did. Remember, Officer Hupp and others were present for much of what went on, and we already have their testimonies.”

Rissa had been opening her mouth to begin, but the detective’s tone riled her. The woman was still treating Rissa like a suspect, not a witness.

She’s going to do anything she can to prove that I was an accomplice, Rissa suddenly thought. But why?

After taking a moment to compose herself, she looked from one detective to the other. “May I have some water?” she asked. “This is going to take a while.”

Once again, the two shared a look, and Rissa found her distrust of them leaped to new heights. She recalled Elio’s insistence that he was being set up. If his claim was true, did that mean these two detectives were in on it? Was Officer Hupp? Who could she even trust?

“Sure,” Russo said eventually. “We’ll get that water for you and be right back.”

She and Cornell left together, no doubt to confer in the hallway and make tweaks to their good cop, bad cop routine. Rissa used the space that opened around her in their absence to put her head on the table and try to decide what to do.

She was starting to wonder if she was fully on Elio’s side in this matter. If what he said was true, his escape may actually make sense. No matter who was in on it, the police would be forced to continue looking into the matter until either he was recaptured or the true bomber was revealed.

But where did that leave her?

Rissa couldn’t believe she was contemplating hiding evidence from the police, but that’s what it came down to. She couldn’t risk them drawing out some detail that they would later use to nail her down and discredit her if it came to her word against theirs.

Lifting her head, she looked at the clock on the wall above the one-way mirror. It was almost eight p.m. again, twenty-four hours after she had begun the graveyard shift that upended her life. She honestly couldn’t believe the two detectives were still on the job. She just hoped they wouldn’t decide to toss her in a jail cell and finish the interrogation in the morning.

Rissa was pretty sure she was already functioning on less sleep and more stress than either of them. If they kept going after her while she was in this state, they might get her to confess just about anything. She would have to be very careful about what she decided to tell them and how she told them.