We were still poised like that, staring at each other, when the sirens and flashing lights arrived and the kindly officer took the gun away from me.

And took Drew away in handcuffs.

Chapter 18

A couple of hours later, on the houseboat, inside the circling comfort of my beloved’s arms, and with a purring Eddie on my lap, I told Rafe the rest of what I knew.

“We were inside the city limits,” I said, “so the city police took the call. But given the very awkward circumstance of having to arrest their boss, they called the sheriff’s office.”

The deputy who’d arrived on the scene had called Ash, who’d called Detective Hal Inwood, who’d called Sheriff Kit Richardson, and it hadn’t taken long before Keith’s driveway was so full of police vehicles that it became a neighborhood spectacle. The sheriff had taken one look at the gathering crowd and pointed her chin at Drew.

“Get him to the jail,” she said to the deputy. “Wolverson, tape this off and be here at dawn to catalog evidence. Inwood, I need to see your notes on everything that led up to this debacle.” Finally, she looked at me. “Minnie.”

Her tone was just as flat and commanding as it had been when she’d addressed her officers. Frantically, I tried to think of what I’d done wrong and came up with far too many things. “Um, yes?” I asked.

The sheriff snorted a laugh. “Have you looked at yourself?”

I had not. But now I looked down. Bits of leaves and sticks and who knew what covered my shoes. The knees of my pants were filthy with ground-in dirt and torn in more than one place. More leaf and stick pieces were stuck to my front and arms and I was suddenly aware of a stinging sensation in my elbows, which no doubt looked a lot like my knees. And my hands hurt. Slowly, I turned them over and held them to the light.

Sheriff Richardson clucked at me. “Those hands need tending to. Don’t they hurt?”

“They do now,” I said, amazed that I hadn’t noticed the raw scrapes until now. Adrenaline could be an amazing thing. “Can I hope that my hair is still reasonably tidy and doesn’t look like something an eagle might nest in?”

The sheriff reached out and plucked a whole leaf from the side of my head. “You can hope. But you should also be realistic.”