"Stay here," I said to NB but then paused before getting out of the car. It was cold outside, and I didn't want him to lose a doggy toenail from frostbite. If that could happen. I'd have to Google it later. "Okay, come on."

I patted my leg, and he jumped over and barked. Hopefully, my backup made himself useful rather than a mess of things. I'd forgotten to grab his leash and hadn't had time to put a backup one in my glove box, so I carried NB on the sidewalk toward the chief's home.

Since there were all McMansions in his neighborhood, the five houses away became a full city block walk. Lights were on in every room of the chief's house, and I trudged toward it, trying not to think of the wind as it cut through my sweater and nibbled on my arms, freezing them.

"Almost there," I whispered to NB as he snuggled into my neck. I cut through the neighbor's yard and up next to the chief's huge three-car garage.

The lights were on inside, and I stood on my tiptoes to spy the contents he'd tried to hide away from everyone.

Trish's boxy pea green Kia Soul sat parked at the end, blocking my sight of anything else in the garage.

"Busted."

I didn't need the car since Trish had practically confessed to the entire crime-in my opinion-but I pulled out my phone and snapped a picture to be safe. The garage had a side door a few feet away, and we slid that way, keeping my back to the chief's garage wall.

Locked.

What were the odds the chief didn't lock his front door? As the chief of police and a murderer, he was either way into safety and had alarms everywhere or thought that him being the chief kept him protected enough, and no one would dare attempt to break into his house.

Knowing the chief, he was a classic case of number two.

Big egos always worked out well for me.

I tucked NB under my arm like a football since he was getting heavy and headed toward the front door. The street remained empty as I passed the front window and jumped across it quickly to not let anyone inside see me.

Rather than knock, I tried the handle and the front door creaked open.

Called it.

The chief had a real main character problem, which was probably why he went around shooting people.

My clues in this case formed from a random hunch, but the pieces were falling together. A victim shot too perfectly, an on-the-spot chief, and finally the gun from Trish. I hadn't put it all together until the end, but once I walked through his front door, I had to finish the ordeal. And fast.

I stepped into the chief's home and ducked into a squat. When nothing fired at us nor a launch of arrows imbedded themselves in the wall next to me, I stood again. NB wiggled, and I let him down.

His nails clinked on the tile floor, but the talking from upstairs drowned out the sound. I couldn't hear the words, but a conversation was getting heated one floor above.

NB ran into the chief's living room and stopped to sniff the bottom of a tall metal cage sitting in the middle of his living room. "What the hell?"

Did the chief like birds? There weren't any perches in the cage, but fluffy sacks hung from various heights. Like he had a hamster that knew how to fly.

"Whatever it is, NB, don't eat it."

I slipped my phone from my back pocket and set it to record before slipping it back into my jeans. This time I didn't have the help of the county's technical guy to hook me up with a listening device, so I had to make do on my own.

Not a single step groaned as I walked up them. These newly built houses hadn't had time to sag and age like the ones in Pelican Bay. I kept my hand off the twisting banister of the staircase and stuck to the wall.

"You can't do this," a woman's voice-Trish's voice-yelled.

Unlike the first floor, these steps had carpet, and it covered up my steps as I approached the top.

A sob came from in front of me-a long-drawn-out sound that reminded me of a dying seagull. Regardless of whatever had gone on here, Trish seemed to actually love the chief. Whatever they were fighting about tonight-probably his murderous tendencies, if I had to guess-she was really heartbroken over it.

I followed the voices-the high-pitched crying one and a lower gruff sound attached to the chief-to a bedroom at the end of the second-floor hall.

The door was open, and a flood of light came from inside, illuminating the dim hallway. I attached myself to the wall and inched closer. The smell of lavender filled the space. The chief didn't seem like a lavender guy, and I found the culprit when my leg knocked into a smelly device plugged into the hallway wall.

Crap, now my pants would smell like lavender.

I leaned into the open doorway to get a view of the room. The chief had a chest of drawers open and was tossing clothes into a suitcase without looking at what he packed. Definitely on-the-run behavior.

"Hank, how can you leave me here?" Trish had her hands wrapped around a post of the bed and leaned toward the chief. "I got rid of the gun."

He stopped mid throw. "You better have hidden it somewhere good, Trish. Your fingerprints are on that gun."

"I didn't shoot anyone!" she sobbed.

He returned to tossing socks into his open suitcase. From the size of the hard case, he planned to be gone a while.

Forever.

"You touched the gun, Trish. You were at the bed-and-breakfast that night. Who are they going to believe?"

Wow, the man had an icy heart. Poor Trish.

I didn't have time to console her. I had to put her lover in jail, and if I didn't get a confession from the chief before Ridge barged into the house, he'd rob me of my case and reputation as a solver of murders. With time trickling through my fingers, I only had one option.s

"Going somewhere, Chief?" I asked as I stepped into the room.

Hopefully, he confessed loudly enough to be caught on my phone's recording. His eyes narrowed, and he tossed a pair of socks at me. I ducked. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

I had to ask one question before we moved to the murder stuff. "What about Jerry from the diner?" I asked Trish.

Her eyes grew wide, and she wiped at one of her cheeks, clearing it from tears.

"You lied to me," I said. It was important to get that confession out there, too. I wasted valuable time and some weird mental pictures thinking of her and Jerryg together.

Trish resembled a fish as she opened and closed her mouth. "I love them both."

She definitely didn't say it loudly enough to be heard by my phone, so I repeated it for her. "You love them both?"

Trish really was sleeping with Jerry?

She stepped away from the bed, putting distance between all of us. "I just wanted to spice things up with Hank, but I fell in love with Jerry. He's a good man!"

The chief flinched at her words. "Shut up, Trish! You think she won't turn you in to the police? That's why she's here. They're probably on their way and I'm not going down for this."

"Going down for what? Using your girlfriend as a way into the bed-and-breakfast to shoot Ace Ross and frame the guy they arrested, Todd Hunt? Did you think you'd get away with it?"

"Yes," the chief said and laughed. "Because I'm going to. Right after I take care of you."

"He's kidding," Trish said, her tears coming back again. She sucked in a breath, which turned into a hiccup, and then a stammer.

"I'm only missing one thing," I said, keeping to my side of the room. "Why? He was just some street thug. Why risk your career on a petty criminal?"

The chief smirked. He'd given up on tossing socks to focus on me. "Which is why your theory is shit. I didn't kill anyone. I'm the fucking chief of police. I wouldn't shoot anyone. No one will believe it because nobody can prove it."

It hit me like a ton of bricks. All the rumors. The accusations. Ideas about the chief being corrupt, but he never did anything. The investigation of the police force. I'd been trying to catch Anderson or Bradley doing something illegal, but I should have focused on the chief. He was the mastermind.

The chief wasn't just a bed-and-breakfast murderer but a legit mastermind. He was the tie to all the crime in the city. The reason things never got better no matter how many men Ridge put in jail.

"Unless..." I tapped my chin. "Unless it's because all the criminals in town are paying you to look the other way."

The chief leered at me like I was a bug he wanted to squish, but his shoe wasn't big enough. He wrung his hands together and gave me a slow clap. "You think I'm the head guy?"

I stepped back and ran into the wall. "Well, I did until you said it all creepy like that."

"You have no idea how deep this goes, little girl," he said and threw in another pair of socks before slamming the dresser drawer and opening the one above it. "You think this ends at me? I'm just a cog piece. You can take me down, but snowbird will have the last laugh."

"Who?" I asked. He'd said snowbird. The person who sent me threats and warned me away from being a PI. How were they connected to the chief?

In my distraction, he reached his hand into the dresser drawer and revealed a gun. How many weapons did he keep in his home? Who hid one in a dresser?