Page 62 of Nightcrawler
“I never touched him,” I said.
“We know that, kid,” Mike said. “We knew catching him unawares at his apartment was the only way to get him to confess to the lie. As it turned out, he was as stubborn as he could be but his boyfriend admitted all of it after three questions and the promise that we were going to charge him as an accomplice.”
“Boyfriend?” My eyebrows rose. Ned had never mentioned a boyfriend to me before but that didn’t mean he didn’t have one. Still, Cassidy and Mike had pointed out that someone had to break Ned’s wrist and dislocate his arm.
Cassidy nodded. “Yeah. I told you when I ran his name through our database, it turned out he had tried this more than once and it had worked. He’d been on the receiving end of quite a bit of money.”
“His boyfriend—it turned out—had a long criminal rap sheet with several assaults and even an attempted murder conviction,” Mike said. “He’s an ex-con who spent several years in prison and since he already had two strikes, he wasn’t about to beconvicted again. Faced with what we knew of him and his past, he confessed to assaulting Jeffries and being in on the scheme to get you arrested and thrown in jail if we wouldn’t pursue charges against him. You know what a third strike means in California?”
“Life in prison,” I said, dumbfounded.
“That’s right, and apparently this guy wasn’t in love with Ned Jeffries enough to go down with another assault conviction. He admitted to going along with hurting Jeffries and that it was done at his request. Ned told him he liked rough treatment, so it wouldn’t be a big thing for him.”
“He put him in the hospital!” Miguel exclaimed. “I’d say that’s a hell of a lot more than his desire for rough sex.”
“I agree. I’ve met submissives who’ve allowed their Doms to inflict rough treatment,” Cassidy said, “but not ever breaking bones or dislocating an arm. Jeffries’ boyfriend took it too far, but Ned insisted the damage had to be significant for a big civil settlement which he promised to split with Hauser and hopefully jail time for you, when it was all said and done.”
“Hauser is the boyfriend?” I asked.
“Yes, Anthony Hauser,” Mike said. “In the end, he folded like a stack of cards.”
“So, it’s over?” I asked, hopefully.
“Yes, we took Ned Jeffries into custody for filing a false police report, stolen checks, and fraud last night,” Cassidy said.
I narrowed my eyes. “Whose stolen checks?”
“We searched his apartment after finding bloody clothes in his kitchen sink. He got nasty and belligerent when we wanted to process them at the lab for your blood, giving us cause, and we found a stack of your grandmother’s checks.”
“What?”I shouted, then quieted when I felt Miguel’s hand on my thigh. “What?”
“We found a complete pad where none were missing,” Mike said. “He was probably planning on draining her account but I’d check if I were you, just in case.”
“You know, after I fired him, I caught him at my grandmother’s desk. He produced his timecard and said he just needed a signature. I’ll bet that’s when he took them.” I felt violated.
“Right,” Cassidy said, “well, check just to be sure.” He frowned. “I thought you told us your grandmother was blind.”
“I write the checks for her when she has bills to pay and she signs them,” I said.
“Okay.” He smiled. “Well, I’m sure we’ll come up with a list of other charges in addition to what we already have, Raven. I promise you, Jeffries will do jail time.” He frowned. “We also questioned two other men who were in the apartment when we arrived. Those two also had rap sheets but we’re convinced that they didn’t know anything about the scheme and were just friends of Hauser’s who probably hoped he’d come into a large sum of money.”
He smiled at me. “It’s all over, Raven. Ned will do time and hopefully, you won’t have to deal with him ever again. Oh, by the way, you might want to talk to that agency you use for nurses. He was licensed at one point, but his license expired almost two years ago.”
My eyes widened. “That was after he came to work for me, but I will check. I guess I should check Dolly’s license too.”
“Hers is fine,” Mike said. “We checked.”
I nodded, feeling numb from the revelations. I couldn’t believe anyone could be so devious but then again, I’d met a lot of criminals in my line of work. I’d just never met someone who was such a good conman. Ned had completely snowed me.
“Anyway, it’s all over with, Raven. You will probably have to testify at Ned’s trial, but that won’t be for a while,” Cassidy said.
I looked over at Miguel, noting the relief on his face. He was feeling it too. He took my hand, squeezing it under the table. “So, what do we do about my little…or should I say, huge problem?” he asked. He turned to Jarrett and Thayne. “Sorry for taking up so much time on that Jeffries update, guys.”
“Fine with me,” Jarrett said, grinning as he lifted his coffee cup. “Business is business.”
Miguel nodded, looking over at Cassidy. “Did you find out anything about Howell, my fugitive?”
“Well, there’s good news and bad news about your fugitive, Connor Ray Howell Junior,” Cassidy replied as he sat back in the booth, looking across the table at Miguel, coffee in hand. “Mike and I spent most of the afternoon yesterday, finding out about him while all that Jeffries business was playing out.”