"Is Eliot going to hurry up and get me out of here," Sophie complained as she paced in circles around the dingy interrogation room.

"Judging on his reaction, it could be a while," Nate informed her. "Did you want to run a…"

"Absolutely," Sophie replied as she sat down determinedly at the interrogation table. "Let the games begin."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Let's squeeze her like a grape," Lassiter declared walking decidedly towards the interrogation room.

"What about Shawn?" Juliet reminded him as she followed him, struggling to keep up with the determined man in her heels.

"It's been three hours O'Hara," he replied, opening the door quickly so she could not complain further.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The older detective walked through the door, followed quickly by the female detective; she looked innocent, Sophie decided. He looked competitive, angry and like no had ever hugged him in his life.

"Miss Myers," Lassiter began. "So you're the interim curator down at the gallery?"

"Of course," Sophie said smugly.

"Why interim and not assistant?" the detective queried. "Or, better yet, why not just curator?"

Sophie raised her eyebrow; she could see what the detective was doing, playing on her ego. But she had been doing that for a lot longer than him.

"I'm gonna get her what I can on this guy," Hardison began, typing the detectives name into his computer.

"No, no, she won't need it," Nate stated; he had complete faith in Sophie's grifting abilities.

"Have you any idea what's involved in being a curator?" Sophie asked.

"Money, good career, profile…" Lassiter stated.

"Travel," Sophie finished bluntly.

"Travel?" O'Hara confirmed.

"Yes! Travel here, travel there, travel back there again," Sophie explained, waving her head from side to side, gesturing the here and there's. "It's a nightmare. Spending all that time cramped up in buses and planes. No thankyou, I like my cosy little bungalow just fine."

"What about the money?" Lassiter enquired, obviously unconvinced.

"What about it?"

"A real curator would certainly make more than the assistant," he clarified and Sophie glared at him. Had she actually been an assistant curator, that real curator jab would have made her furious."

"It's not about the money," Sophie replied "It's about the art!" she continued, flourishing her hands.

"The art?" Lassiter said in disbelief.

"Yes…"

"Sophie, this guy really likes his guns," Hardison informed her. "Have a dig at that."

"He's like the anti-Eliot," Parker noted, reading the file over Hardison's shoulder.

"Take that gun for example," Sophie continued, now armed with new information. "Dismantle it, paint some of the pieces, set it on top of an image of a famous artwork, you have a comment on how guns are destroying the artistic side of the world."

Juliet shifted her weight uncomfortably, knowing her partner and how he would react all too well.

"Gun's destroying…. Dismantle and paint?" Lassiter asked, the sheer audacity and inconceivable nature of Sophie's comment rendering him unable to complete a sentence.

"Where were you when LaFleur was killed?" O'Hara asked, running interference.

"When was he killed?" Sophie asked honestly; the only timeline they had on his death was two days ago and there was a lot a bunch of thieves could do in two days.

"Wednesday morning around 11:30am to one pm," the female detective replied, pausing to look at some notes.

"Wednesday morning? Well I was consulting with an artist on his artwork," Sophie replied.

"That would be you," Nate said to Hardison, patting him on the shoulder.

"A young man by the name of Lance…"

"Not Lance, not Lance," Hardison said quickly. "I aint got no ID for any Lance. Uh, go William Sykes." Sophie rolled her eyes slightly at the uninventive name.

"Sorry, that was the meeting I had yesterday," Sophie corrected. "William Sykes is his name."

"Well, we'll need to speak to him," Lassiter said bitterly.

"Of course," Sophie smiled as she pulled out her phone. "William's number," she prompted sliding the phone over to the detectives, who quickly wrote it down."

"How do we know he's not in on it?" Lassiter questioned suspiciously.

"Of course he's not in on it. La Fleur was giving him his big break by hanging his art. I, on the other hand, was not a fan of his pieces," Sophie explained. "They were so passe, depicting the civil war. There's so many better things more you can speak about in art, like anti-government protesting rather than silly cowboys."

Lassiter's jaw opened wide; he couldn't believe his ears.

"We'll follow this up but if everything clears you'll be free to go," Juliet said quickly as she practically dragged the older detective out the door.

"Evil Sophie!" Parker cackled enthusiastically.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Several minutes later the detectives returned, Lassiter more irate than he had been before; clearly he wasn't happy with Sophie's innocence.

"Looks like your story checked out," Juliet stated, smiling politely at the grifter.

"Of course it did," Sophie replied then stood up out of her chair. "Might I leave now, I have a job to get back to."

"You can leave when we say so!" Lassiter snapped and Sophie shot her eyes at him. She sat back down slowly, without breaking eye contact.

"What Lassiter means," Juliet began, hinting at her partner to change his attitude. "Is we have a few more questions to ask you. Do you know why LaFleur was staying at a hotel."

Sophie paused for a minute; she did know why LaFleur was in a hotel. They had needed to get him out of the gallery for them to be able to run a con on him, so he had miraculously one a week's getaway in one of the best hotel's in Santa Barbara. With massages, food from a five star restaurant, personal driver and entertainment paid for, it was a difficult offer for him to refuse.

"I think he said something about winning a week away," she told them instead, sticking to the truth as much as she dared.

"Do you know about who he had any disagreements with, anyone who might have wanted to hurt him?" the female detective continued as Lassiter sulked, his eyes still squinting at Sophie.

"We'll leave that to Eliot?" Hardison asked the Mastermind.

"Yeah," Nate replied. "Let him bring up the man's skeletons. It'll be more credible."

"No, sorry," Sophie informed. "He was a very private."

Juliet sighed; she had hoped, in the back of her mind that this would be an easy case.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"How was jail?" Hardison asked without looking up from his screen as Sophie walked, huffing, into the hotel room.

"Just oodles of fun," she replied sarcastically. "How's everything going on this end?"

"I've spent the last few hours going through our mark's history to see if there's anything that could tell us who wants him dead."

"And?"

"The list is long."

"Maybe they all did it," Parker chimed in. "Maybe it's a web of conspiracy and they all teamed up to kill him."

"Uh, sure girl," Hardison obliged her. "I'll put that on the list."

"Sophie outta custody yet?" Eliot's voice came over the comms.

"Yup," Hardison replied. "Which you would know if you had your comms in. How goes the family reunion?"

"Painful," he said simply. "How'd she get out?"

"She's Sophie. She talked her way out of it," Hardison stated as he grinned. "You shoulda heard it too; detective didn't know what hit him!"

Eliot grinned; leave it to Sophie to drive a couple of cops mad.

"These guys Eliot, they going to be an issue? Or a help?" Nate asked, joining in the conversation.

"Much as I hate to admit it, the latter," Eliot confessed.

"Good," the mastermind replied. "We may need their help."

Hoped you guys liked that. Sorry it took me longer than usual to update. Extreme weather has meant extra work which means less time to write. Not to mention said weather makes it hard to write.

I'll probably be only doing one update a week for a little while, just until I get some things back on track.

Also, sorry I haven't gotten back to your reviews (something I usually try to do) soo.

nas2439 - You should definitely watch it. And if you haven't watched Psych, I really appreciate you reading this so thank you.

Yua-hime - glad you enjoyed it (especially the scream) that's what I was going for. Eliot's my favourite too (followed by Parker and Hardison second) and I'll do my best to make the interaction between Shawn and Parker epicly fun!

jinxcat21 - three times? high praise indeed! Thank you. I'm so glad you enjoyed it that much

SweetyKinz- glad you thought it was funny, I certainly did. And neither can I.

Ta,

A Lyrical Dreamer