Page 52 of Into the Light

“I can’t get into that. Trust me, I don’t want to be doing this.” He took a step forward and looked Raf in the eye. “Come on, man. It’s me. You know I believe you. But I have to do my job properly or someone else will come and do it for me.”

“He’s right, El.”

“What are we going to do? You can’t even tell us what’s happening?”

Theo shook his head, clearly warring with himself. But then he looked around, and stepped closer.

“Look, we found Raf’s fingerprints on a glass from Annie’s hotel room.”

“What?” The word passed through my lips in a whisper. The air felt thick.

“What the hell, man. I was never in there. I swear on my mother’s grave, I was never in that room.”

I felt sick, my stomach sinking, a chill running from my head down to the tips of my toes. I didn’t want to doubt Raf, but I didn’t know how else that could be explained.

“Come on, we’ll talk about it at the station.”

“Ellie, you have to believe me. You know me.”

I nodded, but my throat constricted and I couldn’t speak. Nothing would come out, and I realized I didn’t know what I would have said in the first place.

Theo didn’t use handcuffs, and he let Raf ride up front. He arrested him without the spectacle, because he trusted Raf.

But instead of trusting the man I love, I stood there, questioning everything. I watched as Raf kept repeating over and over “I didn’t do it, Ellie.” Theo said something to me before he got in the car, but I couldn’t even hear it. All I heard was “I didn’t do it, Ellie. You know me.” over and over on a loop.

I did know him. But I froze. The shock of it all froze me, and I didn’t stand up for him the way he would for me. The pained look on his face as he pleaded with me to believe him would be forever burned into my memory.

I watched Theo take him away, and sank to my knees knowing that I just broke Raf’s heart.

twenty-six

RAFAEL

The booking was a fast process,probably because I was friends with most of the people who arrested me. But giving fingerprints and having my mugshot taken damn near took me out.

After growing up the way I did, with my father in and out of prison, and my friends all criminals, I really thought I’d avoided it once I moved out of Boston. That now, here in Moon Harbor, I’d created a life that mattered. A life that was good and true. It all came crashing down.

I sat in Theo’s office and tried to not let it consume me. The stress, the fear. The disappointment I felt when I realized Ellie didn’t know if she could trust me. My heart felt like it’d been speared.

I couldn’t blame her. After everything, I still couldn’t blame her. But it hurt more than I ever could have imagined.

Theo walked back in and sat down at his desk.

“I guess I should thank you for not putting me in the holding cell yet.”

“Well I’m trying to keep it that way. We have some people from the state doing all sorts of oversight after what happened with Sheriff Olsen. They’re still not convinced he didn’t know more about what his wife and son did. But when I took over, I promised that I would run a clean department. So I have to make sure everything is done by the book.”

“Right.” I appreciated it, but I was the one with my life in the balance, not him. Platitudes didn’t mean much right now. He seemed to know that, though.

“I shouldn’t tell you anything about our investigation. But besides knowing you and your personality, looking at this objectively, I have concerns about this so-called evidence.”

“I told you I was never there in that room. The only time I saw Annie in over a decade was at Landry’s weeks ago. We ate dinner, we caught up, talked about some of the people we used to know. That was it. I said goodnight, and we went our separate ways.”

“And she left the next day?”

“That’s what she said. The next morning.

“You don’t know why she came back to town?”

---