"Searching for someone?" Jarod stelled closer. "For you?"

He quickly looked Raphael over. "I don't think there's much patching to be done," he finally declared. "Maybe it'd be better to just throw these" - he gestured at Raphael's clothes - "away and get new ones."

He reached out to put a reassuring hand on the red-haired man's shoulder, overriding the blonde guy's suggestion of getting him elsewhere. Policework had taught him some things were bet gotten out of a witness fresh.

He made his voice as unthreatening, interested and soothing as he could at the same time. "Can you tell me exactly what happened?"