Bad Girl Reputation by Elle Kennedy

“We’ll get this straightened out.” Conflict and indecision contort his face.

Not that I’m feeling especially magnanimous, given my current situation, but I’ve had some time for deep contemplation lately, and I can appreciate that the fragile worldview of a rookie cop is perhaps a bit shaken when confronted with such blatant shitfuckery. These are his people, after all.

My tone softens. “It was sweet of you to check on me. Even if it was just to confirm I’m stuck here.”

His tense posture relaxes. “I’m sorry. I feel like there’s more I should do, but I really don’t hold a lot of cards here.”

“Tell you what,” I say, sticking my hand through the bars to hold his. “When they give me the chair, I want you to be the one to throw the switch.”

“Jesus.” Harrison coughs out a disturbed laugh. “You’re something else.”

Which is a nice way of saying I’m better in small doses. “Yeah. I get that a lot.”

“I’m going to see what I can find out. I’ll try to make it back if I can. You want me to call anyone for you?”

I shake my head. As much as I want out of here, it’ll be worse if Dad gets the call from Harrison instead of me. Besides, I’ve just gotten used to the smell in here.

“Go on, Deputy. Get out of here.”

With a last regretful nod, he walks away.

Harrison never does find his way back. Instead, it’s a sleepless night and an impatient morning before I’m allowed to make a phone call.

“Dad …” The embarrassment I feel when he answers, knowing what I have to say to him—I’ve had all night to agonize over it, and it’s still worse than I anticipated. “Listen, I’m at the sheriff’s office.”

“Are you okay? What happened?” Dad’s concern ripples over the line.

I hate this. Standing at a phone on the wall with a line behind me, I etch nervous patterns into the chipping paint with my thumbnail. My stomach churns queasily as I force myself to say the words.

“I was arrested.”

He’s quiet while I rush to explain. That the purse wasn’t mine. That Randall’s got it out for me. And the more I talk, the angrier I get. All of this started when I wouldn’t accept the sexual advances of a married man with a badge. For so long, I felt guilty for wrecking that family with my drunken intrusion, but it hits me now that I didn’t do that to him. He did. He set this entire year-long chain of events in motion because he’s a sick, petty person. I should have kicked him in the scrotum when I had the chance.

“I swear, Dad. It wasn’t mine. I’ll take a drug test. Anything.” My heart clenches tight against my rib cage. “I promise you. This isn’t like before.”

There’s a long silence after I’ve stopped talking, during which I start to panic. What if he’s had it with my shit, and this is one time too many? What if he leaves me in here to learn a lesson he should have taught me a long time ago? Gives up on his worthless, wayward daughter who was going to run out on him and the family business anyway.

“You sure you’re okay?” he asks gruffly.

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

“Alright, good. Hang tight, kiddo. I’m on my way.”

It’s only minutes before a deputy calls my name and opens the cell. As he escorts me from the holding area and through the bullpen of desks, I’m relieved that Randall isn’t skulking around somewhere waiting for me. After our first run-in when I returned to the Bay, I understood that he had an ax to grind. When he showed up to hassle Harrison and I after our date, I prepared myself that he would become a perpetual annoyance. But this was a drastic escalation. And who knows what else is in store for me? This time, he throws me behind bars. Next time, maybe he isn’t satisfied with conventional means of retribution. I’d hate to see what happens when he decides to be creative.

The deputy opens an office door and points me inside, where the sheriff is sitting in a polo shirt behind his desk. My father stands from his chair and gives me a tight nod.

“Good?” he says.

“Fine.” As fine as I can be, anyway. When I notice the paper bag and cup of coffee sitting on the corner of the desk, I quirk a brow. “That for me?”

“Yeah, I brought you something,” Dad says. “Figured you might be hungry.”

I tear into the bag and practically inhale the two greasy sausage-and-egg sandwiches. I don’t taste any of it when I wash it down with hot black coffee, but I feel better immediately. The exhausted haze has been chased away, my belly no longer fighting itself. Though now I really need to pee.

“Let me say,” Sheriff Nixon speaks up, “I’m sorry about this whole mix-up.”

That’s a start.

“I had a look at the purse,” he continues. “The ID, credit cards, and other personal items clearly all belong to a young lady named Katrina Chetnik.”

I look to my father. “That’s what I tried to tell him.”

Dad nods, then narrows his eyes at the man behind the desk. “Sitting next to a purse at a crowded bar ain’t a crime. Correct?”

“No, it isn’t.” To the sheriff’s credit, he looks irritated with the whole scenario too. Annoyed to have been dragged down here on a Sunday to clear this mess up. “We’ll make an effort to locate the owner.”