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“Murdered?” I echoed. My knees felt weak, and I realized I was gripping Laurent’s arm with claw-like fingers. “How?”

“Someone turned off his oxygen,” he whispered. “That’s why it was so hard to locate him. No bubbles. His tank was still half full.”

My head spun. “How did you find out?”

“I was the one who found him,” Laurent said. “He was in a cave off the Snares.”

Laurent steadied me as I lowered myself onto the end of the bed, then sat beside me, his body angled toward mine. “Don’t let anyone know I told you this,” he continued, his eyes deadly serious. “They told us not to tell anyone.”

“You don’t think he could have gotten disoriented in the murk? He could have had nitrogen narcosis or something and turned off his oxygen himself—”

He shook his head, and I thought of how hard it was to reach your own oxygen valve when you were wearing your tank.

“Maybe he hit it…” I suggested, but my voice trailed off as Laurent again shook his head. The oxygen valve was a big knob that had to be spun. We both knew you couldn’t accidentally turn it off.

But turning off someone else’s oxygen wouldn’t be easy either. If you did it from in front of them, they could fight you off, grab your emergency oxygen and breathe off that.

“You can mount the tank from behind,” Laurent said. “Dive masters learn to do that to contain people who freak out.”

“So you think someone lured him into the cave using the cloudy water as cover, then mounted his tank and turned off his oxygen?”

“Yes.” His eyes were haunted.

I thought of the clang I’d heard somewhere in the murk. “Was his tank-banger still attached?”

He shook his head. “We found it on some coral nearby.”

A chill went up my spine as the grim realization settled over me. “One of us….”

“It might not have been one of us,” he said quickly.

“You’re thinking of the developers.”

He nodded. “The police will check to see if there were other divers in the area as well.”

I bit my lip, thinking. “I mean, muddying the water to fuck up our dive is one thing, but murder? What good would it do them? The site will go forward anyway.”

“It does seem unlikely.”

“Do you know them?”

“Not so much. They are not locals.” He paused, studying his hands as if considering saying something. But he must have thought better of it, because he shook his head.

“Whatever you’re thinking, you can tell me,” I prompted.

A muscle in his jaw feathered. “It’s not important.”

“Anything could be important.”

But again, he shook his head, tight-lipped.

I knew I’d have a better chance of getting whatever it was out of him later if I didn’t push now. “Did you tell Tyson about seeing Allison with the guys from the city council at Le Ti?” I asked instead.

“No—you told me not to.”

I evaluated him. “And you were more loyal to me, who you’d known less than twenty-four hours, than to Tyson?”

“What can I say?” The corner of his mouth twitched up as his gaze found mine. “I like you better.”

“It’s a low bar.” I swallowed, looking away. “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through today.”

“When we stopped for the safety check, we all had to hold him down so that he wouldn’t float away,” he said quietly. “His eyes were open, and it felt like he was looking at me.” He shuddered, trying to dislodge the image.

“I’m so sorry, Laurent,” I said, just as a knock came at the door. “Who is it?” I called out.

“Gisèle. Can I come in?” she asked, pushing the door open.

“By all means,” I returned wryly, gesturing for her to enter.

She shut the door behind her and took us in, her dark eyes troubled. “I need to talk to you,” she said, crossing her arms over her Guns N’ Roses T-shirt. “Both of you.”

I gestured for her to go on.

“You were in the alley last night when Samira and I came out of the club after she fought with Tyson.”

Laurent and I exchanged a glance.

“We don’t care,” she said, waving a hand at us, “about that. But the police are asking questions. We are hoping you will not tell them about her fight with Tyson.”

“I already spoke to them,” I said. “I didn’t say anything.”

“I didn’t either,” Laurent said.

“Oh, good.” Her body sagged with relief as she leaned against the doorframe of the bathroom. “You know how these things can be. We don’t want them to get the wrong idea.”

“Of course,” I said. Though I couldn’t promise I’d continue to cover for Samira. As much as I sympathized with her for what Tyson had put her through, she did have reason to kill him. “How’s Samira doing?”

“Not great.” Gisèle pulled at a thread on her cutoff jean shorts. “Their relationship was complicated, you know. But she did love him. She feels terrible that they were fighting last night. But it wasn’t her fault. He wasn’t…easy.”

“I know,” I said, wondering if the same could have been said for her first husband. “Did you talk to the police yet?”

She nodded. “They asked us all to come to the salon.”

“I should change,” Laurent said, rising and going to the door. “I’ll see you upstairs.”

Gisèle followed him out, but I stayed put for a moment, thinking.

Laurent clearly knew something he wasn’t letting on. I wished he trusted me enough to tell me whatever it was, because if he couldn’t trust me, that meant I couldn’t trust him, either.

Whatever I’d told myself about there being no danger in developing actual feelings for him, I had to admit I liked him more than I’d intended.

But no matter my feelings or how genuine he seemed, he’d had opportunity to kill Tyson, and depending on whether whatever secret Tyson held over him was worth murder, possibly motive as well.

My heart sank.

I so badly wanted to trust him. And I could use his help, if I was going to try to find out who’d done this. Which I realized wasn’t my place, of course. But it was in my best interest, and my brain was already working to put the pieces of the puzzle together, whether or not I wanted it to.

The same way my heart was finding ways to defend Laurent, whether or not I wanted it to.

Which was exactly why now, more than ever, I needed to maintain control, to repair the walls I’d so sloppily left unguarded. But if I was going to try to solve this—which, okay, obviously I was—I did need someone’s help, and Laurent was likely the most willing candidate.

I couldn’t trust him, though, couldn’t confide in him or get lost in those absurdly blue eyes.

No matter my ill-advised affection for him, he was a suspect now.

We were all suspects.