Sprayed Stiff by Laura Bradley Page B

to teach me a lesson. Emotionally, I learned it in the first thirty seconds. Intellectually, though, I refused to let it change my future course of action. I’m hardheaded that way. I hate to be intimidated.
    The strip-search officer was kind, which made it marginally less humiliating. I hated Scythe about that moment, but no more than I hated myself for answering my damned phone at nearly midnight and for not being able to say no. But what if I hadn’t? Lexa would be getting searched now, and she’d be having a harder time handling it than I was.
    The fingerprint ink was cold. When I fought off a shiver, someone asked, “Do you need a blanket?”
    I didn’t think the processing cops were usually so solicitous of their charges. I slid a glance at Scythe, who was talking to another detective as they leaned against the wall. I wondered what he’d said in undertones to the cop in charge when we’d walked into the bullpen. Scythe was ignoring me now, but a couple of times I’d caught him shooting me a glance, flexing his jaw, and balling his fist in the pocket of his jeans. Guilty? I was getting the impression this was harder on him than it was on me.
    Good.
    Finally, the woman officer who’d been processing me turned to Scythe and said, “I’m taking her to get her picture taken.”
    “Don’t let that dumb hairdo break the camera,” he quipped.
    She stared at him, aghast. “What are you talking about? Her hair is awesome. Meg Ryan messy is the best. And the color, that amber brown, is so rich. Look at all the cool highlights, a little blond, a little auburn…”
    “Thanks,” I told her. “Now, about his hair…”
    “Oooh, girlfriend. Trailer park trash.”
    I grinned. Scythe rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, shook his head, waved at the buddy he’d been talking with, and stalked off. I did notice him looking at his hair in the glass as he passed through the door.
    As soon as I sobered up, I felt alone.
    I smiled when the flash went off anyway. My mother taught us always to smile for a camera, because you never knew where the picture might end up. I might be wrong, but back in the seventies, I don’t think she was being prescient about the Internet and digital imagery. Still, that was today’s reality, so if my face was going to end up on some porn site on Pamela Anderson’s body, I might as well look happy about it.
    For all the apparent chaos, they were pretty darned organized at the jail, so I didn’t wait long to be arraigned. I wasn’t sure what charge I was being held on. The fact was, it could be a host of them. Scythe had promised to call my next-door neighbor Tessa Ugarte, who was an attorney, to help me through the process. I wondered what the hell was taking her so long to get there. I mean, I knew it was early (or late, considering your point of view)—almost six o’clock in the morning—but still. After all, I did feed their cat, Merlin, when they went out of town.
    Time to return the favor.
    Scythe had been MIA since before my photo session. I really hated to miss him, but, damn it, I did. Of course, I was sitting in night court between a twitching, sweaty crack addict going into DTs and a chanting street preacher wearing nothing but a grimy gunnysack that read IDAHO GOLD POTATOES , so I probably would be missing Jack the Ripper as long as he wore antiperspirant and real trousers and could carry on a semblance of a two-way conversation.
    The bailiff called my name and I was led to the judge’s bench. Still no Tessa. The damned cat could starve the next time they flew to Cozumel.
    I kind of missed the beginning as I was plotting how pissed-off to be at Tessa, but I did hear: “Reyn Marten Sawyer. You are being released.” The gavel went down. The bailiff tried to shoo me out the door. I ignored him and stood stubbornly in front of the bench.
    “Why?”
    “What?” The judge looked up from the next file on his desk.
    “Why are you letting me go?”
    “Not enough evidence to hold