Page 11 of Hunting Justice
“Thanks, I think.” Jonah slumped in his seat. He’d always struggled with the inability to stay focused due to attention deficit disorder. In fact, he had no idea how he’d made it through medical school. But his current state zoomed off the charts even for him.
“How’s the head?” Noelle took a sip of her iced tea.
He came close to brushing off her question, but they’d made a pact over the summer, when he’d monitored her concussion, to be honest about injuries.
“My head is throbbing, and I don’t expect that to heal overnight.” He shrugged. “That’s not unexpected after a bomb went off that close and sent me flying. The cuts and scrapes on my hands, knees, and cheek sting, but in a few days, I won’t know they’re there. Now, the bruise on my thigh—that might take a little longer.”
She raised a brow and smirked.
Jonah gently shook his head. “Too much honesty?”
She lowered her glass to the table. “No, not at all. I expected that I’d have to pry the truth from you.”
“You almost did.” He raised a shoulder.
Hands full of plates and bowls, the waitress bustled to their table. She placed steaming bowls of chicken noodle soup and fresh individual loaves of bread in front of them. Steam rose from the food, carrying the mouthwatering aroma with it. “Anything else?”
“No. I think we’re good.” The waitress ambled away and Noelle picked up her spoon. “Eat.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The corner of his mouth lifted, but he couldn’t muster a full smile.
She rolled her eyes, then pointed her spoon at his bowl and took a mouthful of her own. “Mmm. I just love Ricky’s chicken noodle. I wonder what he puts in it to make it so flavorful.”
“Oregano.” Jonah scooped another spoonful into his mouth.
“Excuse me?” She scrunched her nose in the cutest way.
“Oregano. I overhead him one day grumping at his new cook, saying he’d skimped on the oregano.”
Noelle ducked her head, and her gaze shifted from one end of the café to the other. “Your secret is safe with me.”
He laughed at her ridiculousness, then put his fingers against his forehead. “Stop being a doofus. You’re making my head throb.”
“Admit it. Even though it hurt, you needed the laugh.”
She wasn’t wrong. The day held a heaviness that threatened to smother him. His time with her had lifted the heavy blanket of confusion. “You know me well.”
Her shoulder lifted and fell. “Enough, I guess.”
The truth of her statement hung between them. They’d paved the way to a great relationship, but both had untold secrets lingering in the background, neither of them willing to reveal the darkness of the past.
They sat in silence until their meals disappeared.
What was it about chicken noodle soup that had a healing effect—whether physical or emotional?
“I needed that.” Jonah wiped his mouth and dropped his napkin on the table. He stretched his back, relieving the ache settling deep in his muscles.
Noelle neatly stacked her plate and bowl, then his, and moved them to the side. She clasped her hands and rested them on the table. “Are you ready to tell me what’s going on? Or are we going to sit here and pretend nothing’s wrong?”
That was the problem. He had no idea what he’d stepped into. “Well, there was this bomb.” He gave her a cheesy grin that lacked enthusiasm.
She glared at him with her classic you’re an idiot look.
“Okay, fine. I had finished my last autopsy for the day and went to my office to work on the report.” Jonah ran his finger around the mouth of his glass and released a long breath. “Ken called and told me he wanted to speak with me. That he needed my help.”
“Did he tell you exactly what it was about?”
“I’ll say,” Jonah mumbled under his breath. He shuffled through his options. He planned to keep his promise to Ken and stay quiet, wait until he had proof before he told the detectives. But he couldn’t do this alone. Mind made up, he steeled his spine. He had to tell Noelle. He rested his elbows on the table. “Ken dropped the proverbial bombshell that he’d falsified autopsy reports.”