“How about the diner? King shorted us a baked potato yesterday. It’ll show him that he’ll lose the jail’s business if he doesn’t keep the quality we expect from him.”

“Whatever.”

“You’re in a pissy mood today, ain’t you?”

The sarcastic jab had her doing what she had sworn not to do.

“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.”