Not Famous in Hollywood (Not in Hollywood Book 1)

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

Once again I was in the interrogation room with Griffin, only this time I was the one with an icepack on my face.

"Do you actually think before you do things?" asked Griffin.

"Usually yes," I said, touching the icepack against my bruised cheek gingerly. "But lately things seem to be getting away from my control. Is Sean okay?"

"He's in the other room talking to Ramos."

Despite the pain I smiled. "That'll make him happy."

"Why is that?" Griffin asked.

"He's a teenage boy and she's hot." I lowered my voice. "So what happens now?"

"Well," said Griffin, "Mendoza is going away for a while. Adam Hendricks has agreed to press charges so he's going down for kidnapping and assault at least. Sean's mother and her boyfriend are also pressing charges but we don't really need them to make the case. Probably just as well as I'm assuming you're going to press charges against the boyfriend for assault."

"Hell, yes," I said.

Griffin nodded approvingly. "Thanks to Sean's photos and a search we've done on Mendoza's house, he'll be going down on drugs charges. We've also got him on firearms charges. Mendoza's insisting he didn't kill Ryan Hendricks, but the situation now gives us enough reason to do a deeper investigation into the tox screen on his body. We can see if there is anything that we don't know about that's been injected in Ryan's system. Lucky for everyone involved, it looks like Mendoza's Uncle Johnny has decided he's too much trouble and maybe a stint in jail will do him some good. He's cutting him loose so there shouldn't be any threatened reprisals against anyone."

That was good. I really wanted to keep off the mobster's radar. My face throbbed.

"Man, this hurts," I said.

"A hit to the face always does." Griffin smiled, obviously remembering the one I had given him. I grinned at the memory.

"What's the smile for?" asked Griffin. I would have thought it looked more like a grimace considering how much my face hurt, but obviously Griffin had a different interpretation.

"I've got to say, a couple of years ago I would never have seen this happening to me."

"Why is that?" asked Griffin.

"Two years ago I was living in the town I was born in. I was engaged to my best friend. I was going to get married, have children and live in that town forever."

Griffin cocked an eyebrow. "Doesn't really sound like you."

"It was back then," I said reflectively.

"What happened?" asked Griffin.

"I got slapped up the side of the head with a dose of reality," I said, surprised to find the old note of bitterness in my voice. I really thought I had let it all go, obviously I hadn't. Griffin just sat there. He didn't push and I knew if I stopped talking he wouldn't press me for anymore.

"Paul was my best friend from when we were kids. We got engaged on my twenty first birthday. Paul and our life together was everything to me. I worked in a job I didn't really enjoy to save money for our future. A couple of years ago we went out with friends one night. I didn't want to go but it was expected that I would. I wanted to leave after a couple of hours but Paul wanted to stay. One of his friends offered to drive him home so I headed out early. On my way home a car coming the other way swerved and ran right into me. Found out the guy was drunk. I woke up in hospital a week later unable to feel my legs. I had some swelling near my spine. Everyone was hoping it would just be a mild bruising but at that stage no one knew if I was going to walk again. We hoped, but we didn't know. Paul wasn't there when I woke up. I asked for him and nobody would give me a direct answer as to where he was. A few days later Paul walked in with some flowers. It was obvious his family had made him come. Everyone left us alone and Paul told me that he was sorry but he didn't love me enough to be a full time caregiver for a cripple. That was the last I saw of him."