Chapter 7: The Heartbeat

My hand went to my mask.

Then my father's good hand shot out, grabbed the monitor lead on his chest, and ripped it off.

The alarm changed to one long flat tone.

"Papa!" Ilaria screamed.

His eyes locked on mine over her shoulder, calm and clear.

They said, go.

Three nurses and a doctor came running through the glass doors.

Ilaria threw herself across the bed, sobbing, and the doctor pulled her off by the shoulders.

"Everyone out! Clear the room!"

The driver in the doorway was shoved aside by a gurney.

I walked out between a nurse and a trolley with my head down and my mask tight.

Nobody stopped me.

Behind me, the flat tone broke and began to beat again.

He had faked his own heart failure to buy me a way out of the room.

I made it as far as the stairwell before I was sick in the corner.

Santo was waiting on the landing.

He caught me by the arms, and I folded over his hands.

"He knew," I said. "He knew I could not stay, and he scared the whole floor to get me out."

"Your father is still alive. The doctor put him back on the line. Come."

We did not go back to the cliff house.

He drove me in his truck to a farmhouse in the hills, where an old woman in a cardigan opened the door without asking a single question.

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