“Why wouldn’t I be? You just cleaned a cell, despite pretending no one was in there last night.”
The deputy puffed his chest out, as if offended. “You callin’ me a liar?”
“I’m saying someone was there. I saw you and another deputy put him on the bed. You even talked to me before you left.”
“If that were true, then why wasn’t anyone in there this morning when John came in?”
“He left.”
The deputy furrowed his brow. “Who did?”
“Whoever was in the cell.”
“How he get out? What was his name?”
“You didn’t introduce him to me,” she snapped. “He unlocked his cell door and walked out.”
He wiggled his eyebrows at her. “How he unlock the cell door?”
“I don’t know; he just did.”
“Sounds like you had a nightmare. I had one the other night. I dreamt—”
“Never mind. It was a nightmare.”
She would rather bang her head against the cement blocks than listen to his nightmare. The deputy was wasting his time being a small-town deputy. He could give lessons on torture to international organizations.
“Since you’re done cleaning, you can leave.”
“Don’t take it out on me that your ass is locked up in there. I’m the one the sheriff pulls from patrolling whenever someone gets their ass locked up.” Crossing his arms over his chest, the deputy leaned against the bars of her cell. “Personally, I’d rather be driving around in my squad car than being stuck inside, babysitting you. Makes no sense to me why you’re even still here instead of that bitch niece of yours.”
Alanna angrily tossed the book aside. “Don’t call Elizabeth a bitch. Who should still be sitting in jail is Owen, and you released him!”
The deputy lifted a condescending brow at her. “I agree with you, but what I want doesn’t count in the eyes of the law about Owen. On the other hand, I think it’s hilarious you’re still taking up for Elizabeth when she’s the one responsible for you looking at some serious time.”
“Elizabeth isn’t responsible for me getting arrested,” she scoffed, trying to resist saying anything else to him, then failing at the pitying way he looked at her. “Mind your own business, and I’ll mind mine.”
“Treepoint is a small town; everybody knows your business, whether you want them to or not.” He shrugged. “Damn if I would put my freedom on the line for anyone, family or not.” He gave a disgusted snort. “How much longer you going to sit here, twiddling your thumbs, expecting her to come and save the fucking day? Elizabeth is going to steamroll you into a prisonsentence, and you’re gonna let her. Then, when you come to your senses at the state pen, you can say Greer told you so,” he mocked. “I wish I had a nickel for how many dumbasses have found themselves locked up protecting someone else.”
“I haven’t done anything wrong, and Elizabeth will testify to that.”
“What she waiting for? Why wait until you go to trial?”
“There are mitigating factors you’re unaware of.”
“Mitigating factors?Jeez, you know what that sounds like? A fancy way of saying you’re fucked. Have you told your lawyer about this information? The sheriff?” The deputy gave her a pitying look. “Just don’t expect her to come visiting you in the state pen when they give you life.”
A crunching fear had her jumping up from the bunk to confront him. “You’re overexaggerating to get me to talk, and it won’t work.Life?” she scoffed. “I didn’t kill anyone.”
The deputy raised his hand, lifting one finger at a time. “Kidnapping, bribery, assault—”
“I did not kidn—” Snapping her jaw closed, Alanna hugged her waist as she turned to give the deputy her back, hiding her expression. “Go away.”
“Owen Hudson is telling the sheriff it was all your plan to get Arin not to give the patent away for the vaccine. That you were planning to sell it to the highest bidder.”
She pressed her lips together to keep herself from talking.
“He’s gonna walk with a sweet deal while your ass rots away.”