“Couldn’t exactly use my own, could I?” he hissed.

Suddenly I thought about that picture on Trevor’s Facebook page. The one of the drag queen whom I’d seen across the street from Chez Tango after discovering the slashed tires on Jeff’s car.

As I looked at Frank DeBurra, it was all coming together.

He was that drag queen.

And if Trevor knew, maybe that money that he had coming in under the table was blackmail money, like Charlotte suspected. From Frank DeBurra.

It was possible Trevor had put that picture on Facebook to taunt him. And as I’d suspected before, but hadn’t known the true reason why until now, DeBurra made those Facebook pictures disappear. So no one could identify him. Like me.

“How much did you pay Trevor?” I asked. “Was it just that fifty thousand?” As I spoke, I remembered something else. How quickly DeBurra had shown up at Trevor’s apartment the day Jeff and I got shot at. “You were in Trevor’s apartment,” I said, not able to stop myself. “You were the one who shot at us. You took that money. You put it in Ace’s bank account to set him and Charlotte up. You probably have lots of ways of getting into bank accounts, being in Homeland Security.”

He stared at me, not admitting anything but not denying it, either.

Tim had been surprised that DeBurra was at Chez Tango the night Trevor got hit with the champagne cork. He said he thought DeBurra was racking up some overtime. But I was beginning to think there was another reason he was at the club that night.

The guy with the champagne. How tall was he? I’d been concentrating so much on the tattoo and the bottle and the sweatshirt that I hadn’t thought too much about his height. DeBurra was about my height. I was about as tall as the guy in the club. I’d subconsciously registered that.

I also flashed back to a comment DeBurra had made when Wesley Lambert’s body was found. About how this made “that queen’s death” suspicious. At that point, I hadn’t thought anyone suspected Trevor’s death of being from anything other than natural causes. Tim and I had discussed the possibility of poison, but that was later.

“You killed Trevor to get him to stop blackmailing you. Did you pay Wesley Lambert for that ricin on the champagne cork?” I paused a second. “You were after Charlotte because you knew she might have something in Trevor’s documents that could incriminate you. And what about the investigation into Lester Fine? Was that for real?” When I was on a roll, I couldn’t be stopped. But then I made a mistake.

“Does Shawna know?” I asked.

I didn’t even see his hand until it made contact with my cheek. My head whipped back with the impact, and it felt as though my neck snapped.

He laughed as I instinctively put my hand to my face, which was hot.

“It’s the job,” he said again.

“What? You dressed up like a woman for the job but then decided you liked it too much to stop?”

I touched a nerve, because he stepped closer, reaching out for me.

He underestimated my instincts. Just as I’d automatically kicked Rusty Abbott in the groin, my foot shot out and nailed him right in the shin. His knee buckled, and I took off past him, back toward St. Mark’s Square, to the canal where the crowd had formed. I needed people around me. He couldn’t touch me if there were that many witnesses.

I had to get back to the shop to call Tim. My gut told me if I tried to tell the uniforms who’d responded to Charlotte’s accident, they might not believe me over the word of a detective.

And that said detective was gaining ground on me and holding out his badge as he shouted, “Stop her!”

I looked around like I didn’t know he was talking about me, even though I was the only one running. I glanced at the scene in the canal as I passed: Charlotte being taken out of the water by a couple of paramedics, Bixby helping, a gurney waiting on the walkway, two uniforms. Uh-oh. DeBurra got the attention of the two cops, directing it toward me. They were young and eager to help. Now we had a conga line, but no one was dancing.

I spotted Joel on the footbridge ahead, among a throng of people. I needed to get over there.

“Joel!” I shouted. “Joel!”

He looked over at me and waved. I pushed my way to him.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” I panted, clutching his arm. “We have to call Tim.” I started to nudge him down the bridge the other way.

“Do you know if Charlotte’s okay?” he asked, indicating the gurney, where she now lay. She was lying flat, but her eyes were open and she was smiling at one of the paramedics.

“Looks okay to me,” I said, nudging a little more forcefully now.

“Hey!” He frowned. “What’s your problem?”

I felt my problem in the small of my back. I twisted around slightly to see Frank DeBurra and the gleam of his service revolver.

Chapter 58

I guess he figured I’d gotten away from him too many times, so he felt he had to resort to holding me at gun-point. Still, it was risky to do it in a crowd. Even if I ran, I doubted he’d actually fire at me. Cops are trained not to do that. But then again, this particular cop was a bad guy, so all bets were off.

Joel was talking to me.

“What’s going on?”

I sort of cocked my head back, hoping he’d notice DeBurra behind me, and because Joel and I have that kind of karma, he did. His eyes narrowed just slightly, and he blinked twice.

“You’re not getting away from me again,” DeBurra hissed from behind, throwing me off any psychic connection I had going on with Joel. He pulled my left arm around, and his hand encircled my wrist.

The pressure was off my lower back now, and I twisted a little to see him putting his gun back in his hip holster. He reached around behind his back, and I guessed what he was going for.

Handcuffs.

Crap.

I had to do something.

My right hand brushed the front of my jeans, and I felt it. The brooch. It was still in my pocket.

I had an idea.

Joel was staring at me; it had been only a couple of seconds, and he was still waiting for some sort of sign. I pulled the brooch out of my pocket and undid the clasp with one hand. I raised my eyebrows at Joel, then turned fast so I was facing DeBurra. At the same moment that he slapped the bracelet around my wrist, I shoved the pin into the top of his hand as hard as I could.

The queen of hearts winked at me as she stuck to DeBurra.

DeBurra yowled, pawing at his hand to try to pull the pin out.

With the handcuffs dangling from my wrist, I took advantage of the moment and ran, grabbing Joel’s arm as I went, shouting, “Come on!”

The throng of people on the footbridge, without really knowing what was going on, parted like the Red Sea. I wondered whether Sister Mary Eucharista wasn’t doing some sort of hocus-pocus from her seat in Heaven.

Joel lumbered more slowly than I liked, and he stopped suddenly, right in front of me, causing me to take a misstep and slip. My feet flew out in front of me and I landed on my butt, sliding down the stairs like a toddler and landing with a bump at the bottom.

It knocked the wind out of me for a second.

Joel didn’t even notice I’d fallen. He just kept going. I put my hand down to push myself up, but then I felt someone’s hand under my armpit, pulling me up.

“Kavanaugh, you certainly know how to make a statement.”

I whirled around to see Jeff Coleman, a small smile at the corner of his lips. I opened my mouth to say something, but I was distracted by what was going on behind him.

Tim was handcuffing Frank DeBurra.

I looked back at Jeff.

“What’s going on?”

“The detective here stole my car.”

“Huh?”

“You have such a way with words.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “What about him stealing your car?” I held my hands up as I spoke, and the handcuff swung around and almost hit me in the face.