Page 107 of Forget Me Not

Penn stopped, although her hand gestures got sharper. “Look, I should tell you… Shortly after Ross, before the trial, when people began to drop away from you, and a little from me too, when it was… bad. You were occupied with the trial and a new ma—with Cal. I looked around for what it was supposed to be.” She stared at Ray’s shoulder, then abruptly raised her head to look him in the eye. “The bad apple was gone, right? So no one else could be bad because that’s how it works? Except obviously not. He thought—Ross thought it would be all right, what he was doing, what he did. And to a lot of them, itwasall right. Maybe he was too careless, maybe he shouldn’t have fixated on his male, were coworker. That’s what they said. They didn’t even think you should be angry that he’d tried to kill Cal. So it was more than a few bad apples even if no one was going to say it. But Ross was gone, and all the others who insist that they aren’t like him should have been happy.”

“And they weren’t.” Ray didn’t guess.

“No.” Penn resumed pacing, two circuits before stopping again. “You got more resolute. More private. More growly. And I… I considered joining IA.” She glanced at him as if still worried about his reaction to that. Ray held his breath so he wouldn’t know how much she fear and doubt she had about him. “I didn’t because it would have meant leaving you—and because I couldn’t see the use in it.” She laughed without humor. “There’s a truth in that which I didn’t want to look at. Then things happened, and I just…. It isn’t that I didn’t see an end coming. Or the truth. It’s that I didn’t want to. Some siren, huh?” She dropped her shoulders before meeting Ray’s eyes again. “And not a particularly good person.”

Inside the house, they were talking. Ray stayed focused on Penn, waiting for her breathing to slow, for her to unclench her hands.

“You don’t have to do this with me,” he said at last. “If that worries you. I wouldn’t blame you, although I would miss you.”

She gave him an incredulous look, then expelled a breath and turned away. “But youaredoing it, pursuing this to the end.”

“I have to.” Aside from the fact that they would never believe Ray if he said he would let it all go, aside from the fact that whatever they were doing was wrong and hecouldn’tleave it, this whole situation was a threat to Cal and the people Cal cared about. And it was that which allowed Ray to add, “But that doesn’t make me a particularly good person, either.”

Penn scoffed. “I think you were already doing it, Ray, already on this path. The information you pried into. Pissing off the wrong—right—people. Choosing Cal in the first place.”

Ray had to be dragged into that, from the sound of it. “I’m not noble, Penn. Even if I personally did not do the things I know or suspect they did, I wore their symbol every day.”

Penn crossed her arms before giving Ray a sideways glance. “Whereisyour badge, by the way? Where are your suits? It’s not often I see you without either.“ Her smile was twitchy. “You made your mind up… when exactly? That first night after the visit to Cassandra’s? The next morning? After we went to the station together? I’m not arguing. Everything just feels so… all at once.”

Ray raised his eyebrows, then lowered them in a soft frown. “Did you know that I had two files on my desk, my desk here, for Cal’s work that I must have been helping him with? Itfeelsall at once. I don’t think it actually is. But I don’t know. I might never know. I might only have from now on, and I have no idea how long that will even be.”

Penn took a deep breath, held it, then let it out. “Fuck.”

Ray agreed with the sentiment. He’d be terrified if he wasn’t so exhausted. “Aside from all of that, the situation isn’t safe for everyone else. And there are no guarantees it will be, even if I say nothing.”

“Which of course you won’t.” She wasn’t asking.

He nodded. “Which is why you don’t have to do this with me.”

“Oh, fuck off.” Penn glared at him, then swooped in to wrap her arms around Ray and squeeze him in a way that actually hurt. Ray put his chin on the top of her head. Penn swore against his shoulder. “Istoo latebetter thanneverfor seeing your mistakes and trying to do something about them?”

Ray sighed. “I wasn’t kidding before. I really am too tired to deal with those questionsandtake care of the immediate problem. Intangible ideas seem like more Cal or Benny’s area than mine.“ Ray would prefer something he could get his hands on.

“They tried to kill you.” Penn pulled away just enough to look up at him. “With ease. With plans ready to go, which meant withpeopleready to go. As though they’d done it before. That’s proof in itself, even if not for a courtroom. I’m with you. Fuck off with that loneliest knight in the kingdom B.S.”

Ray spent several seconds absorbing that, then Penn stepped out of his arms and turned to face the yard. The yard was not a garden in the traditional sense. It had plants, and a space in the middle that was just dirt, where someone ought to put a table or a bench. But according to Cal, with one exception of a fuck under the full moon, he and Ray weren’t out here much. Spending time on home improvements seemed ludicrous now anyway, with things so uncertain. But Ray found he liked the idea of Cal puttering around the yard, of years down the line, and the dirt replaced with flowers or a tree or some vines. Whatever Cal wanted.

Penn cleared her throat a few times. “So. Things are even more complicated than we originally thought.”

“Yes.” Ray let himself be pulled from a dream of the future. “But just us.”

Penn glanced over. “What?”

“The others in there already suspected a bigger problem because they could see the department, the city, as it is. Cal,” saying the name made Ray’s throat tight, “has been waiting for me to realize, I think. But I only met him a few days ago so I could be wrong.”

Penn snorted, then outright laughed, if only for a moment. Then she was all business. “What were we—or you—working on that necessitated someone putting this plan—and itwasa plan—into action?”

Ray met her stare. “You should probably ask the geniuses back in the house.”

Penn nodded but didn’t move to go inside. “Have they realized the danger they might be in?”

Ray considered it. “Calvin has. Possibly, oddly, Lis. Or not so odd; Calvin pushed her away for a reason and she let him. It wasn’t entirely the reason everyone thinks. I wonder who she pissed off, back then.”

“He’s a rat bastard for doing it anyway,” Penn muttered without heat. “Though you would do the same, and you’ve only known Cal three days.”

Ray was alive at this moment because of Cal and he didn’t feel like pretending otherwise. “Imagine what I would have been if he hadn’t walked into that alley when he did.”

“I’d rather not.” Penn shuddered, then went still. “Oh.“ The frozen, shocked note in her voice made Ray turn to look directly at her. “Maybe someone already did. Forget removing you and then me from the field, that’s just a side benefit. Let’s talk about your horrible theory, but specifically one aspect of it. The village. It isalreadytense and getting tenser. Probably like it was in the ’80s but now with social media.“ Penn somehow did sarcastic spirit fingers as she said those last two words. “Imagine what would happen if you had gone Lon Cheneythereof all places. Oh, that’s good, in a horrible way. Very good. That isn’t just public, that is…. You know that real estate joke, how everything is aboutlocation location location? And—you already thought of this, didn’t you?”

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