Page 54 of Nightcrawler

“Just like that.”

“And Raven? You can’t think he did this, right?”

Cassidy and Mike both shook their heads. “No way, man,” Cassidy said. “He doesn’t have it in him to hurt another person.”

I understood what Cassidy was saying. I was Force Recon while he was a retired SEAL. I knew I’d most likely killed a lot of people while in the Corps, just like he’d done his duty in the Navy. That’s just what happened when you were a highly trainedspecialty branch of the military. You were the tip of the spear. It’d been our jobs to kill people who’d needed killing which is why Uncle Sam had put a gun in our hands.

Raven, on the other hand, was anything but dangerous but then again, he didn’t have half the training to know good from evil the way we’d been taught. And Cassidy was right. Raven couldn’t hurt a fly. The first time I’d met him he’d questioned me about why I carried a firearm on my belt. I’d not yet told him that his little lecture to me out there in front of the Capitol Records building, had been a wakeup call for me, and I hadn’t carried a gun on my person since.

“Okay,” I said, following them out into the squad room. “Where’s Raven?” I looked around, and Mike pointed at him as my gaze landed on him. “Right there.”

Raven was slumped in a hard-backed chair pushed up against a wall. He was scrolling on his phone and hadn’t looked up.

I smiled at Mike and headed in Raven’s direction. The minute I got close, he looked up and then practically leapt out of his chair and threw his arms around me. I was a little embarrassed by his public display of affection in front of a room full of cops and our friends, but I pushed the thought away as I hugged him.

“God, that was awful,” he said.

“It’s okay, Sunshine.” I pulled out of his arms and looked into his beautiful eyes. “Let’s go home.” I broke the gaze and glanced around the room, spotting Cassidy and Mike watching us. “I need to piss.”

“The men’s room is right over here,” Mike said with a grin as he came forward. “You’ll need a key. Follow me.”

“Thanks.” I turned and looked at Raven.

“I’ll be right here. Take your time,” he said, reading my mind.

I nodded and followed Mike to the bathroom.

When I came out of the men’s room wiping my hands on a paper towel, Raven was waiting right outside with the detectives.

“I’ll take you two back to your place, Raven…or do you want to go someplace else?” Mike asked as he and Cassidy escorted us out of the Hollywood station.

“No, that’s good, Mike. Thank you.”

We headed toward a Toyota Prius, and Mike clicked the key fob. When we stopped at the car, I turned to Cassidy. “Now what?”

“Mike and I are going to talk to this Ned character,” he answered.

“You haven’t talked to him yet?” I asked, surprised.

“Not in depth, just a conversation,” Cassidy replied. “We tried to catch up with him at the hospital, but he’d been released and sent home with painkillers after surgery. He said he was too fragile and in too much pain to be interviewed.”

“Fragile I can believe…but surgery?” Raven asked, sounding panicked. “What exactly happened to him that required surgery?”

“Not invasive surgery, Raven,” Cassidy reassured him. “His arm was dislocated so he had to be sedated and reduced as well as having a wrist fracture that needed what would have been painful tending. The doc decided to do it all under anesthesia since he said he’d rather be knocked out. They did their work on him, woke him up, and he’s been sent home as of an hour ago.”

I watched Raven check his watch. It was late afternoon and even without my watch, which was still sitting on Raven’s bedside table, judging by the height of the sun, I could tell it wasnearing five. We’d been at the police station all fucking day and I was hardly happy about it.

Raven looked over at me with worried eyes and then back at our friends. “So, you’ll talk to him and get him to drop all this?” he asked hopefully. “I still can’t believe he blamed his injuries on me. Maybe I should talk to him.”

“NO!” I said at the same time Mike and Cassidy did.

“Listen, you are not to go and start something with that little jerk,” I said. “You’re going to let our friends handle it. Don’t worry. He won’t get away with this. Liars always get found out eventually.”

“Miguel is right, Raven,” Mike said. “You leave this in our hands. With injuries as bad as he sustained, someone had to be working with him. He couldn’t have possibly dislocated his own arm or broken his own wrist. Cassidy and I will interview him, and then start investigating all this crap. I have a feeling he plans on suing you civilly, since no criminal prosecutor is going to be able to make a case for him as long as your alibis stand up, but the criminal case will have to come first. It’s my job along with Cassidy’s, to prove that there’s no criminal case to be made.”

“As far as his claim that you threatened him, it’s ridiculous,” Cassidy said, looking at me. “You’ve explained why you did it and your explanation makes more sense than his fabrication. The fact that he’s so over the top in his descriptions of how his life was in danger is ludicrous, though, Mike and I believe he’s going to try to push that ridiculous narrative as far as he can. We’ll fact check everything he says and follow up with the people he says were witnesses. When we checked, we found three other similar complaints made by Ned. All of them were settled out of court with unspecified damages in civil lawsuits.”

“There were witnesses?” Raven asked, clearly worried about witnesses which were probably made up. He sounded frantic again and I walked over, circling his shoulder with my arm, pulling him into my side. I kissed the side of his head and bent until my lips were pressed against his ear. “Stop freaking out. It’s going to be okay. Cassidy and Mike say he’s done this before. He probably sees your big house and knows it’s worth a bundle of money. He’s a liar, Raven, and he’s not going to get away with this.” I lifted my face and looked at Cassidy. “You and Mike will take care of it,” I stated, knowing there was no question about it.