Her forehead crinkled. “That doesn’t sound like Maya. She ruined my suede jacket in a snowstorm once and she still hasn’t apologized.”
Was this girl for real? He was in jail and she was ranting about a suede jacket? Talk about frivolous. She was pretty; maybe too pretty, the kind of girl who got by on her looks. The opposite of his sister and his fiancée. He liked brains in a woman.
But clearly she knew Maya, and maybe that meant she could help him out.
“Sounds like you’re pretty close to her.”
“Besties since third grade. Except for sixth grade, half of sophomore year, and part of our early twenties. Long story. Several long stories, come to think of it. I can tell you if you’re interested, since you seem to have plenty of time. You’re literally a captive audience. Our sixth grade fight was the worst, it started when she was sitting in front of me and I pulled her braid to get her attention. I only intended to offer her some Juicy Fruit but she thought I wanted to mess with her about the half-assed job her mom had done on her hair and—“
Oh my God. Was this story going anywhere? Was it worth listening just to pry some information out of her?
Good thing Charley was nothing like this. They might disagree about things like the dangers of PI work, but she was a practical, sensible person just like he was. That was why people trusted her life coaching skills.
“Are you sure Maya wants you spilling all her secrets like this?” he interrupted at the first possible moment.
“Oh, none of it’s a secret. We had an epic fistfight right there in class. Hair pulling, eye gouging, the whole thing.”
“Eye gouging?”
“Attempted eye gouging,” she corrected with a shrug. “It was the class right before lunch and like you said, ‘hangry’ is a real thing. So is it appropriate for me to ask why you’re in jail?”
He was pretty sure “appropriate” wasn’t something that concerned her too much.
“Happy to tell you if you hand over one of those muffins.”
“Do you mean these freshly baked, Rainier cherry buckwheat scones with lemon-cardamom icing?”
She lifted a cardboard bakery container to the bars to give him a look. The aroma made his head spin. Spice and citrus and sugar.
“Please God, yes,” he said fervently. “Those.”
“Perhaps you’d like some coffee with them too?” A metal thermos appeared on the other side of her face. Her sunny smile, combined with the promise of breakfast, made his mood lighten for the first time since the sergeant had knocked on his rental car window.
“You have no idea.” His mouth was watering so much he could barely get the words out. “I have some money in my wallet. It’s somewhere out there, wherever they put personal items. You know what would be even better? If you could find the key and let me out. That way I can get some cash for you. And Maya won’t be quite so angry when she discovers that I’m in jail.”
She pursed her lips and looked up at the ceiling, as if thinking over his proposal. “So let me get this straight. You want me to feed you breakfast, let you out of jail, and piss off my best friend by giving away her coffee?”
He snorted. Maybe she wasn’t quite as flaky as he’d imagined. “Is that a no?”
“I’ll think about it.” She winked at him. “What’s in it for me?”
“I’ll tell you all about the dire acts that put me behind bars.”
“Or…just spitballing…I could wait for Maya to show up and she could tell me.”
“Yes, but you know how police blotters are, they’re very dry and boring. I can tell you the inside story. All the juicy gory details.”
“Gory? Is there blood involved? I’m not good with blood. That’s why I picked baking instead of—”
“Medicine?”
“Fishing.” She frowned at him. “Okay, how about this? Maya never eats more than half a scone anyway because she gets so busy. I’ll give you a nice big chunk of this scone if you tell me what a well-dressed, probably good-looking-when-not-so-tired stranger is doing in our humble little jail.”
Probably good-looking. Not the most flattering description, but at least she was still talking.
“Throw in a sip of coffee and you have a deal.”
“I can do better than that.” She disappeared, taking her scones and coffee with her. He wanted to cry like a baby, watching them go.
In a minute, she came back with a paper cup of extremely dark coffee. She passed it through the bars to him. He took a whiff and made a face. “This is what’s in that thermos?”
“Oh no, this is the station coffee, they must have made it last night.”
“Good God.” He sloshed it in the cup, where it left a poisonous-looking residue on the sides.
“Yeah. That’s why I bring Maya my coffee when I want to butter her up.” She flaunted the thermos at him, and he choked back a tormented growl. “But jailbirds can’t be choosers. Here.” She broke off a piece of scone and passed it through the bars. “This’ll help it go down.”
He set the coffee aside and devoured the scone in two bites. It was the best thing he’d ever tasted, hands down.
“Well?” She waited expectantly. “Juicy details please. As agreed.”
“All right. I hacked into the police department computer system to find out more about the case Maya hired me for. Sergeant Santa got pinged that someone was on the network and decided I should contemplate my evil deeds during a quiet night in lockup.”
She frowned. “That’s it? Hacking? Not even the axe kind of hacking?”
“Not juicy enough for you? Sorry.” The incredible cherry buckwheat concoction had hit his bloodstream, making him feel much more like a regular human. “I completely agree. They should only arrest people for more exciting crimes. So maybe you could find the keys to this place and—“
“What was the case?”
“Excuse me?”
“The case Maya hired you for?”
“I probably shouldn’t talk about that. Maybe it’s supposed to be confidential.”
“Is it about S.G.? Spruce Grouse?”
He looked at her with surprise. Either it was already common knowledge or she wasn’t a bad detective herself.
“I can see by your eyebrows that it is.”
He forced his eyebrows back down to their normal position. “No comment.”
She tapped her fingers on the thermos, barely paying attention to him anymore. “If she hired you to help with that case, something must be wrong, because she’s been knee deep in that one for a while. What kind of help does she need? Who are you, anyway?”
“Okay, you can stop with the interrogation shit, Jess.” The bakery girl’s face disappeared, replaced by Maya Badger’s. She frowned at him, the light sliding off her rich dark skin. “Ethan James? What the hell are you doing in there?”
“That’s exactly what I’ve been wondering all night. Just so you know, I charge overtime for jail time.”
A frown dented her forehead. “Did I say this was a paid job? You hung up before we got a chance to discuss it.”
He sighed. Perfect end to a perfect night.