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She suspected Robert would do an autopsy to learn how Gus had died.

“Aye,” Iverson said to Grant. “Maisie recognized him.”

“He’s from Glasgow, but I’d never met him before he stayed at the inn,” she said.

Iverson relayed the information to Grant.

She was glad she’d returned to the boat so they could let the pack leaders know what was going on. She wished she’d had the stomach to help Robert and Lachlan, but Edeen had been right: she would forever remember the look of horror on Gus’s face. Having actually met him before made it worse.

Chapter 11

Robert took his dive knife to cut the rope tied to the man’s leg that was secured to a stone. Then he and Lachlan carefully pulled the body bag over the man. They had planned to leave him there for the police to recover him until he realized it was Gus. And that meant Robert would be doing an autopsy on the body to determine what had killed him. They already knew it was murder, unless Gus had tied a stone to his own leg and jumped into the water, but he suspected it wasn’t a suicide. Robert had wanted to go up with Maisie to the boat to make sure she was okay, but he had to help Lachlan retrieve the body. He hoped Iverson was taking good care of her in the meantime.

Once they secured the man’s body in the bag, Robert gave the signal to Lachlan to take the body to the boat. Robert headed back down for the rest of the rope and the stone it was secured to. That’s when his dive light reflected off glass down below and he went to the bottom and found his cell phone. He was shocked to find it so close to where Gus’s body was. Robert put the phone in his pouch, then grabbed the stone and pulled it up with him. It was heavy,but not so heavy that he couldn’t lift it in the buoyant seawater.

As soon as he reached the boat, he realized Grant had sent another boat, and Lachlan and Enrick had put the body in that boat.Good.Robert didn’t want Maisie to have to be near the body any further. He took the rope and stone to the other boat, and Lachlan and Enrick heaved it in. Then Lachlan rode back with Enrick and two other men—both Colleen’s cousins, Edward and William Playfair.

Robert climbed into the boat with Iverson and Maisie. They followed the other boat back to the beach.

“Anne and I thought Gus had checked out the next morning, like people often do without saying anything. They just leave the key in the room and their charges on their credit card stand.”

“You said he was looking at the clock at Heather’s pie shop the whole time when he went out to dinner with you,” Robert said.

“Aye, like he had a meeting with someone. He was really anxious. I think the stone you collected is the one missing from the garden. I saw that it was gone when I went to the garden to weed and found a man’s boot prints, a driver’s license, the cell phone, and Lady’s collar. With finding everything else, I forgot about the stone going missing.”

“What about the rope? It sounds like the murderer was an opportunist, just grabbing things that were handy, and hadn’t planned this out,” Robert said.

“I…I don’t know. We have some rope in a shed, but Inever looked to see if any of it was missing. What…what happened to him?”

“I’ll have to do an autopsy to know for sure. I’m glad the clinic isn’t open yet. I have a walk-in refrigerator unit, so we can keep him until I conduct the autopsy. We need to notify next of kin so they can bury him properly.” Robert put his arm around her and kissed her cheek. “Are you alright?”

“No, but I’m glad I was able to help you find him.”

“Aye. Finding Gus means that the man we saw at Heather’s pie shop wasn’t him.”

“What if the dead man isn’t Gus, but his brother, Ike, and the man we saw at Heather’s shop was Gus?” she asked.

“Except that he didn’t act like he recognized you, you thought. To me that sounds more like it could have been his twin who didn’t know you.”

“True.”

“Do you have video security around your place?” Robert asked.

“We do.”

“We’ll need to see what it captured that night,” Robert said.

“I’ll tell Anne when we get in. I still want to do the pet photos for Edeen and Colleen, and I guess I can do the photos of the dead man.”

Robert shook his head. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” He really didn’t want her to have to look at the body again. She’d seen enough of him already.

When they reached the shore, Enrick and Lachlan werecarrying the body up the steps. Other men had come down to help with their scuba gear. He was glad they were unencumbered so he could hold Maisie’s hand. Iverson was carrying the stone with the rope on it. He was wearing gloves, though Robert didn’t think they would get any forensics off them, considering how long they had been in the seawater.

“Oh,” Maisie said, “it hasn’t rained since I found Lady’s collar and the missing garden stone.”