Read Heaven to Betsy (Emily #1) for Free Online Page B

it was better than officing in the kitchen, I supposed, since I hadn’t noticed any other rooms in the office space.
    “Also, when you come in each morning, if you could ring the bell on the front desk before you come down the hall, that would be great.”
    I stared at him a few beats then burst into laughter. Obviously he was kidding. I winked. “Okay.”
    “Thanks, and, really, do it any time you come down the hallway. Just give it a few good rings.”
    “You’re serious? Why?”
    “Why what?”
    My mouth worked a little, but no words came out.
    He threw his hands up. “I like my privacy. Just ring the bell, okay?”
    I opened my eyes wide and raised my brows. “If you think that will be sufficient to save you from a sexual harassment lawsuit when you’re back there doing,” I waved my hand in the air, “you know, pervy stuff, it won’t.”
    He rolled his eyes at me. “If that’s all the commentary you have, it’s time to leave for the jail.”
    He unfolded his long body, and I tried not to imagine the kinds of things I wasn’t supposed to catch him doing in his office.
    “I’ll meet you at your desk in five,” he said. “It’s booted up. Username is Emily. Password is RodeoQueen, no space.”
    I performed the mother of all eye rolls back at him, but he’d already left.
    ***
    The Potter County Detention Center was a twenty-minute drive from the office out to the middle of nowhere on Highway 60, past the International Airport, near the defunct Air Force Base, and halfway to the metropolis of Panhandle, as in the town of Panhandle, and not the general geographic area. Today was my first visit to the jail, despite my mother’s warnings of delinquency and nights in the pokey when I’d come home tipsy three or four times in high school. A spooky, abandoned building loomed on the left side of the highway.
    “That’s the old jail,” Jack said.
    It looked like a set for
The Walking Dead
. Gunshots echoed, and I gripped the armrests as cramps hit me again.
    Jack saw me tense up. “Shooting range.”
    We were passing a huge earthen berm. I relaxed, a little. How vulnerable Sofia must have felt on this long, scary drive. Not only was she caught dead-to-rights shooting some guy, but she wasn’t even a citizen of this country. If I’d been her I’d have died of a coronary before ever reaching the jail.
    Finally, on our right, we approached a large brown sheet-metal building that could have been a warehouse, or a furniture store, or a church—but was none of those. It was the jail. Jack pulled into the parking lot. The building was new-ish, and from the outside it looked like a giant cow poop had fallen from the sky and gone splat. Around it stood nothing but prairie, tumbleweeds, railroad tracks, boxcars, and cattle.
    Jack led me through the glass doors into a foyer with linoleum tile squares, brown walls, and a plastic brown “rope” about eight feet long that separated a walkway along one side of the room from chairs on the other. At the end of the walkway was a brown-uniformed deputy behind glass. Jack moved to a line of tape on the floor in front of the deputy. Ahead of us was a sign on the glass that read “Wait behind the line until called.”
    I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself. The county was paying to keep this place subarctic, but they weren’t wasting any money on air fresheners. It smelled like sweat, body odor, and overfull Pampers.
    The deputy waved us forward. Jack put his driver’s license in a drive-up bank teller drawer. I added mine, and the deputy slid them in.
    Without looking up, she said, “What’s the purpose of your visit?”
    Jack cleared his throat and adjusted his tie, because that’s what he had on. A tie. And a sports coat with his slacks. He still rocked his lived-in boots, but otherwise, he looked ready to go to church.
    “I’m an attorney,” he said, then pointed his thumb at me. “She’s my paralegal, and we’re here to see a client.”
    The woman