Juliet was looking after him, clearly bewildered. “I don’t understand. He’s a cop. Just like you guys are cops. Why is he being a jerk?”

Sherlock said on a short laugh, “Territorial rights, and to be honest, I wouldn’t be happy either since, as I said, it’s my fault Harper got shot. This is a local matter now, as he sees it, no reason for the federales to stick their big noses in. Come, sit down and I’ll tell you what happened.”

Juliet thought Sherlock looked both exhausted and angry, with blood splattered all over her white shirt, black and stiff. She ran her fingers through her beautiful curly hair, making a clump stick up. Like Sherlock, Juliet still couldn’t believe Kent had been shot, couldn’t believe he could die. And how could he live with two bullets in his back? She knew Mia was as shocked as she was. She watched mesmerized as Sherlock picked at the dried blood on her blouse. What would she do if she was covered with someone else’s blood? Kent being shot was real. Juliet had to get her brain around it. It was too much, really too much.

Sherlock said, “Before I tell you what happened, did anyone tell you about Harper’s condition?”

Mia saw Sherlock was back fully in control again, her voice clipped, matter-of-fact. Mia said, “The ER nurse couldn’t give us any information himself, but he did say if Kent hadn’t gotten here so quickly he’d be dead. He said because you were so fast, Sherlock, you gave him a chance, that, and you slowed the bleeding.”

Sherlock sighed. “Thank you for saying that. The EMTs arrived within three minutes. What with the vile weather, so no traffic, they got down here to Bellevue in record time. He was in surgery in ten minutes. But the truth is, I should have stopped it. I wasn’t fast enough—”

Tommy stepped forward, lightly laid his hand on her arm. “Sit down, take a deep breath, take us through what happened.”