There were voices all around me. Some laughed, some uttered things like “newbie” and “fresh meat.” Someone else told me to can it.
Arletta was kneeling next to me, her arms around me, her dark eyes full of motherly concern. Ella and Asia looked on, Ella’s purple-rimmed eyes registering boredom, Asia’s a thinly veiled sadness. “Drugs,” I heard her mumble.
“Did you see her?” I gasped. “She was here.”
“Who was here, honey?”
“Ophelia.” I kicked back against the cement floor and struggled to stand up. “And my mother.” I felt the warmth from the rope around my neck. “She made me see—she made me ...”
“No one was here, Sophie. Just the four of us.”
Ella and Asia offered patronizing smiles.
“She’s making me crazy,” I said, rubbing my temples. “She’s not going to be happy until I’m in the nuthouse.”
“Drugs are a terrible mistress.” Arletta shook her head sadly.
“It’s not drugs,” I said, sinking my hands into my back pockets. My fingers touched a piece of paper and I tugged a business card from my pocket. I gaped at it. “What the—?” I turned the card over in my hand and shook my head at the raised gold lettering: Will Sherman, Guardian. I had a vague recollection of seeing him in the vestibule, but I couldn’t recall him ever handing me a business card.
And I would have remembered if it had said Guardian. I turned the little white card over and over in my hands, then bit my lip.
“I need to make a phone call,” I said slowly.
I called out for a guard, praying that Ophelia and her sex-crazed warden outfit wouldn’t show up again. I guess I was in luck as Officer Houston ambled down the hall toward me, his arms crossed in front of his chest, his expression wary.
“You need something?”
“Can I make a phone call?”
“You got your one call.”
“But there was no answer. That doesn’t count. Right?”
“Hey, Trevor!” Asia did a delicate finger wave in Officer Houston’s direction. She batted her heavily made-up lashes, raked her talonlike fingernails through her hot-pink hair. “I didn’t know you were working tonight.”
Officer Houston offered what I supposed was a grin to the ladies. “Didn’t know you were working tonight either, Asia. Hey, Ella, Arletta.”
“Can I make that phone call now, Trev—er, Officer?” I offered my sweetest smile, batted my eyelashes.
“Got any gum?” Asia asked him, her breasts thrust out in front of her.
Officer Houston pulled a stick of gum from his pocket and fed it through the bars to Asia.
“Look,” I whispered, “if you’re going to give them special treatment ...”
“Special treatment? It’s a stick of gum. And besides—Asia didn’t kill a man.”
Asia and Ella stiffened and shrank behind me.
“You killed a man?” Ella asked, her dishwater-blond hair straggly as it fell over her bony shoulder.
“No! No. The phone call, please?”
“Hands.”
“What?”
Officer Houston tapped his nightstick on a horizontal opening in the cell bars. “Hands.”
I set my hands through the slot and he clamped a set of handcuffs around my wrists, then sunk a key into the lock and escorted me out of the holding cell.
My heart beat with each ring of the phone. Come on, come on, answer, I silently prayed.
“’Yello?”
My heart caught in my throat. “Oh, thank God, Will.”
“Yes, this is Will. My I ask who’s speaking?”
“Will, it’s me, Sophie.”
“Sophie, Sophie ... doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Sophie Lawson!” I shouted into the phone. I lowered my voice trying to cover the mouthpiece with my shoulder. “You know, from your apartment building?”
“Oh, right! How are you, Sophie?”
“Terrible. I’m in jail.”
I heard a snort of laughter. “What’s that? I didn’t hear you. It almost sounded like you said you were in jail.”
“I did—I am!”
“In jail?”
“Yes. Look, forget the pleasantries and get me out of here!”
“Calm down, love, I’m on my way.”
I listened to the drone of the dial tone for a full minute before I let Officer Houston shuffle me back to the holding cell.
I don’t know if it was the damp cigarette smell of the holding cell or my sheer fear of being in the pokey, but it felt like it took hours for Will to arrive. Relief poured over me in waves when the heavy hallway door opened and an annoyed-looking Officer Houston, followed by a grinning Will, pushed through.
I rushed to the bars and gripped them. “Oh, Will, thank God you’re here!”
Will looked around, whistled through his teeth. “This is all right, I kind of like it.” He grinned at me. “It’s a little like picking up a puppy out at the pound, isn’t it?”
I ignored his comment and looked at Officer Houston. “He’s my friend. Do we get to talk face-to-face?”
“Better n’that,” Officer Houston said, sinking his key into the lock. “You’re free to go.”
Ella, Asia, and Arletta flooded to the front of the cell. Officer Houston held up his hand stop-sign style and inclined his head to me. “Just her.”