Chapter 12
Maisie had hoped her sister might have liked one of the bachelor males she’d seen up at the castle and wanted him to come, though all that really mattered was that the wolves who stayed with her protected her.
“Okay, I’ll be home later tonight. I’ll probably still have dinner with Robert after the photo shoots and go running. I suspect Iverson might stay here until another wolf shows up to watch over you.”
“That sounds good to me. About the sleeping arrangements, the guys can share the guest room on this side of the inn, I guess,” Anne said. “Or one of the guys can use the foldout sofa bed in the living room. We do have the trundle bed that can be pulled out from underneath the guest room bed also.”
“Sure.” But Maisie was already thinking she wouldn’t mind sharing her bed with Robert. She would see how things went though.
Then she walked outside and joined Robert and Iverson. “We’re going to let Colleen decide who will come to stay with us. Are you going to be here until someone else shows up?”
“Yeah,” Iverson said. “And I’m the one who has Jude’s phone. I’ve been trying to hack into it. Hopefully I can do that soon.”
“I hope so.” Robert turned to Maisie. “If you have all you need, let’s go see Edeen. We did check the marks on the stone that had been tied to Gus and your missing garden stone. It is the same one. We looked in your storage cabinet for rope and found some that matches the one used to tie the stone to Gus’s leg. I’ll be performing the autopsy on him while you see Edeen and take your pictures. Then I’ll drive you to the castle.”
“Or Edeen can if you’re too busy.” Maisie didn’t want Robert to think that he had to take care of her all day.
“Okay,” Robert said.
They loaded her camera equipment in his car, and he drove to the manor house. She had to get her mind on photographing animals and off seeing a dead man in the ocean.
As Robert helped her with her camera equipment, Edeen came out with her two fox terriers, Jinx and Rogue. “I thought we could take the pictures in the garden since the flowers are all blooming right now,” Edeen said.
“Unless you need me for anything else, I’m off to the clinic,” Robert said.
“Go. We’ve got this.” Maisie really wanted to know what Gus had died from. But she was soon having a ball with the terriers, Edeen holding up a treat for them so they would look up and focus. They were doing so well sitting and behaving for photos. Some dogs wouldn’t look at the camera. Some wouldn’t sit still or would lie down and go to sleep. Edeen’s dogs were being really good.
“Okay, I’m getting Ruby now, and we can take some of the three of them together,” Edeen said.
Before long, a large male Irish wolfhound came running down the hill from the castle, and Edeen laughed. “You know who that is, don’t you?”
“Conan and Ruby’s daddy.”
“Yeah, Hercules has made a home with us here too. He loves the other dogs.”
Maisie had Hercules sit next to Ruby, the two fox terriers serving as bookends. Perfect. Once she was done taking pictures of them, she took a photo of Edeen’s Scottish fold cat sitting on the windowsill, then her two Highland calves out in their corral. “Do you want pictures of anyone else?”
Edeen shook her head, rubbing her belly. “Just the babies when they come.”
“I should do a maternity shoot with you and Lachlan too,” Maisie said.
“Yes, that would be grand. I’ll talk to Lachlan about it so we can make some time for it.” Edeen ushered all the pets back into the house, even Hercules.
“I’m off to take some photos of Colleen’s animals. Then I’ll take pictures of Mittens afterward.”
“I’ll drive you up there. We have a great walk path and gate through the ancient stonewall dike, but since you have all that camera equipment, it’s better if we drive.” Edeen got her car out of the garage, and they loaded Maisie’s equipment into it, taking Hercules with them, and then drove up to the castle.
When they parked, they let Hercules out, and Lachlan met up with the ladies. “Here, let me help you with your equipment. What were you doing at our house, Hercules?” The dog wagged his tail vigorously. Lachlan gave Edeen a kiss and hug first, then rubbed her back.
“Hmm, that feels good. We’re going to do a maternity shoot in a couple of months, so we’ll have to schedule you some time off from work,” Edeen said to Lachlan.
He smiled. “Sure thing.”
Maisie thought they were such a cute couple.
Lachlan led both of them into the kennels so Maisie could take pictures of all the Irish wolfhounds. She even took some photos of Conan while she was there and loved how well behaved he was for it. “I still want to do the transitional training with Conan, but it will have to wait until after the open house because of doing all these photo shoots. They’re a priority.”
“Certainly. Transitional training isn’t usually started until the fourth week, and we’re nearly at the end of week three, so there’s no problem at all with waiting. He’s doing so well that you can do it whenever you’re ready. Also, who do you want to stay with you and Anne?” Lachlan asked. “Colleen told me you were going to get back with her on it, but she’s taking a much-needed nap.”
“Oh, just tell her that we’ll let her decide.” Maisie snapped some shots of their two Scottish fold cats with folded ears—Rapscallion, a blue, and Tinker, a white—as they roamed into the kennel.
Lachlan laughed. “We’ll have to have a lottery then.”
Edeen chuckled. “That’s for sure.”
“What about a maternity shoot for Colleen and Grant?” Maisie asked.
“I’m sure she would love it. She’s so close to giving birth that it does need to be done quickly though,” Lachlan said.
They went to the horse stables, and Lachlan brought out a couple of horses for her to photograph. After that, they walked into the field to capture some shots of their Highland cows and Scottish blackface sheep. Maisie was so glad she was getting this done as she’d planned. Setting goals and deadlines for herself was important, especially reaching them in time.
Once they were done, Lachlan texted someone and said to Maisie, “We’ll be sending someone in half an hour to the inn. I take it Iverson is still there with Anne.”
“He is. And Robert’s doing the autopsy at the clinic,” Maisie said.
“Good. Colleen said she would love to do a maternity shoot in the gardens right now since you’ve got the camera equipment here and you’re done with the animals, if you have time. After her nap, she felt rejuvenated.”
“Absolutely.”
Lachlan carried Maisie’s camera equipment to the gardens, and they met Grant and Colleen there. She looked lovely. The garden was bathed in light as the sun began setting. Maisie chose the red rose garden, Colleen’s red hair and green eyes complemented by a soft green, medieval-style dress, the ancient stone walls behind them fitting with the style. She also had a MacQuarrie tartan throw draped over her shoulders. She was beautiful. Grant was wearing a kilt and shirt, his sword hanging at his waist as if he were protecting his ladylove. It was just perfect. Maisie hoped that Heather and Enrick had a similar setup.
“Now that’s what I want too when we do ours,” Edeen said to Lachlan. “Just like that.”
“Heather wants to come here to have her photo shoot with Enrick tomorrow. She said you made her a beautiful gown,” Maisie said.
“Yes,” Colleen said, before Edeen could respond. “Edeen made mine also.”
“It’s just lovely,” Maisie said. The whole experience was beautiful. They were truly wolves in love. When Maisie finished up with them, she smiled to see Lachlan’s arms around Edeen, both of them smiling.
“Thanks for doing the photo shoot for me on such short notice,” Colleen said. “I can’t wait to see the photos. And we’ll want baby pictures too.”
“Of course.”
Lachlan helped carry Maisie’s camera equipment back to the car, and Edeen hugged Lachlan again. “See you tonight, honey.”
“I’ll see you later, and be sure to rest,” Lachlan said to his mate.
“I will.” Edeen drove Maisie to Robert’s house so she could take pictures of Mittens. “I’m so sorry you had to go through what you had to on the dive today. If you need me for anything, just call me.”
“Thanks. It truly was a shock, but it helped to take photographs of everyone’s animals, and the maternity shoot was so beautiful, which totally got my mind off it.”
“I know. I want one just like that when it’s time for me. I’ll see you later.”
“See you.”
Maisie took her camera equipment out of Edeen’s car and walked to the front door of Robert’s home as Edeen drove off. Before Maisie could knock, Robert threw it open. He was standing there with a towel around his waist, his hair wet and water droplets clinging all over his gorgeous body—chest, arms, legs. She laughed. He was so hot. And definitely sexy. She’d never envisioned this, but truly, he was a welcome sight.
He smiled, taking her camera bag from her. “I heard Edeen’s car as I was getting out of the shower. I didn’t want you to have to carry all that camera equipment in by yourself.”
“I’m used to it. Not that I mind you coming to my rescue like this at all.” She ran her finger over some of the water drops on his chest, and he smiled, took her hand, and kissed it. “Where’s Mittens?” she asked.
“She’s around here somewhere.” The cat came out as if summoned using her name and wound around his legs and then Maisie’s.
“You are adorable.” She crouched down to pet Mittens. “Did you know that it’s rumored that the first cat to reach Mount Everest was a tuxedo cat?”
“I’m surprised the cat could make it up to that altitude. Mittens is really playful. I’m going to dress, and I’ll help you set her up for pictures.” He settled his hands on Maisie’s shoulders, leaned down, and kissed her lips briefly. “I’ll be right back.” Then he hurried off to his bedroom to get dressed.
They’d avoided talking about Gus’s body, but after photographing Mittens, if Robert didn’t mention it, Maisie would ask him how he thought Gus had died.
She found the right place to set up her camera, the perfect natural light coming through the windows, and added some additional artificial light. Now she just needed to get kitty to sit still.
When Robert came out of his bedroom, fully dressed, Mittens ran straight for him.
“She’s so cute. Just like a little puppy dog.” Maisie had never had a cat, so she was surprised that Mittens was so affectionate and not aloof, like she thought she would be.
“She is.” He scooped her up and cuddled her. Maisie felt warm all over seeing him loving on his cat.
“Okay, Mittens, you have a job to do.” He set her on a black-and-white polka-dot pillow, and she looked up at him. “What do you want me to do to help her show her best side, Maisie?”
“Do you have a cat toy? You could dangle it over her head, and I’ll take pictures of her looking up at it or trying to catch it.”
“That would be cute.” He retrieved a stuffed pink mouse on a string, Mittens observing him, her tail twitching.
Then he dangled the mouse above Mitten’s head and her big green eyes were focusing on it first, and then she began trying to grab it with her claws while Maisie was taking pictures of her. “These are so cute.” She’d even taken pictures of Mittens watching Robert before he reached her with the toy mouse.
After she took several photos, Maisie said, “Those should be good. When we’re making dinner, I can take a couple of photos of her when she’s just sleeping or resting.” Mittens hopped off the pillow and onto a windowsill, where she sat to watch the birds outside. Maisie snapped some more pictures of her.
“How does pizza sound for dinner?” Robert asked, peering into the freezer.
“Ooh, that would be good.”
“What kind of toppings do you want? These are mini cheese pizzas, but I add extras. Mushrooms, black olives, green olives, onions, pepperoni, ham, bell peppers, extra cheese?” Robert brought out the pizzas.
“Um, everything but green olives, onions, and ham.”
“You got it.”
“What can I do to help?”
“Do you want to cut up the mushrooms?” he asked, bringing out all the ingredients and then turning on the oven.
“Yeah. Do you want them too?”
“I sure do. All the same ingredients as you.”
“You’re okay about staying with us for a little bit, right?” She really wanted to make sure he was alright with it when he might need to be home doing other stuff. She cut up the mushrooms.
“Hell yeah. I’m just so lucky that I won the lottery without having to put my name into the pot.” Robert brought out a pizza pan and covered it in aluminum foil.
She laughed.
“Believe me, every bachelor male will want to put in for the job.”
She realized that was a real perk to being in a wolf pack—lots more bachelor males to choose from. She began to cut up the bell peppers while he added extra shredded cheese to the pizzas.
Then he sighed. “Do you want to learn about the autopsy?”
“I do.”
“Okay. Gus was manually strangled. The U-shaped bone of the neck, called the hyoid, was fractured. The murderer had to have been a male, his hands large enough and strong enough to do the job. Gus had to have been murdered before he was dropped into the ocean. There was no water in his lungs.”
“Och, no. Strangled where? At the inn?” God, how awful. Every time she went into the garden, she would be reminded of the horrible deed that had been done.
“It’s hard to say. We would need to go over the room he stayed in and look for any evidence. Since the garden stone was taken from your place, I would say it’s a distinct possibility that he was murdered on your property. Unless he was murdered elsewhere and the murderer returned to grab his bags from the room and took the garden stone and the rope at that time.”
“So Gus was in the murderer’s vehicle at the time.”
“Or his own vehicle. We’ll have to see if there was a vehicle there other than Gus’s. Or your other guests’ vehicles. Because he was in the water, I couldn’t find any carpet fibers on his clothes or body.”
“They were the same clothes that he had on when he went out with me that night. So it had to have happened after our date, before he went to bed.” Chills raced down her skin, and she involuntarily shivered.
“Do you know if he was with a wolf pack or had family other than Ike?”
“No. We really were just talking about places we’d eaten at when we both lived in Glasgow. I didn’t even realize he had a twin brother until later. Likewise, I didn’t mention my twin sister.”
“We’ll need to look up his guest registration and see if we can locate any other family or friends who knew him and might know what he was doing in this area. We might be able to learn who might have wanted him dead. Stuart and Bruce didn’t seem to know what he was doing here.” Robert helped cut up the rest of the vegetables. He added the rest of the toppings on the pizzas and slid the pizza pan into the oven.
Maisie saw Mittens sleeping on her pillow, and she took some pictures of her. She looked so angelic. “I’ll call Anne and see if she can get us the registration details for Gus’s vehicle so we can look into this further. Do you have anyone in the pack who does investigative work?”
“Yes. Three wolves have worked in law enforcement—Colleen’s cousins, William and Edward Playfair, who are from Texas and moved here when Colleen mated Grant and joined the pack. Iverson was a homicide detective and has a degree in criminology and forensics. But they all just work for the pack now, so they’re free to do whatever needs to be done. Iverson has contacts at his old jobs too.”
“Oh, good. We’ll do everything we can to help them with the investigation since our inn was part of the crime scene,” Maisie said, feeling awful that anything like that could have happened there. “Oh, another thing. We need to learn where Gus’s vehicle went to.”
“Once we have the registration information that he filled out at the inn, we should be able to do a search for his vehicle.” A few minutes later, the oven beeped and Robert pulled out the pizzas.
“Hmm, those look and smell great.” Her stomach growled, and Robert smiled at her. “So tonight, when you stay with us, you can sleep with the other wolf in the guest room or on the foldout couch, or you can join me in my bedroom.” She hoped she wasn’t being way too forward and putting him off.
Robert smiled even bigger as he poured glasses of zinfandel. “I would be lying if I said I wanted to stay with some other wolf in the guest room. As long as you’re fine with it, I’ll join you in your bed.”
Her body flushed with warmth and intrigue as she thought about being with him tonight.
They sat down to eat at the dining room table. She took a bite of her first slice of pizza and moaned. “This is delightful. I never thought of adding fresh ingredients on top of a frozen pizza. This makes it so much better.”
“Edeen was the one who showed me how to do this. I never learned how to cook until Edeen taught me. She would come over to my apartment to have a meal on occasion, instead of me eating at her place, and scoff at what I had in my fridge. So one time, she just took me to the grocery store and showed me the staples I needed and taught me how to make some meals. Then later we began competing with each other.”
“That sounds like fun. You seem to be very close to your sister.”
“We are best friends. Like you and Anne seem to be.”
“Oh, absolutely.”
“You don’t think Anne will be…uncomfortable with me staying with you in your bedroom, do you?”
“No. I’m sure she would tell you to stay in her bedroom with her if I rejected you.”
Robert chuckled.
“Well, this is delicious,” Maisie said. “My compliments to the chef.”
“Thanks. I’m glad we could do this together.” They finished eating and cleaned up the dishes. Then he said, “Are you ready to run as a wolf?”
“I sure am.” Before he could tell her where she could undress and shift more discretely, she started pulling off her clothes. She was going to sleep with him tonight at the inn. She wasn’t going to be shy with him now.
He began to remove his clothes, signaling he was comfortable with her like this too. They were used to shifting in front of others, but sometimes in new wolf relationships, it could be awkward. She had already seen him naked when he took the fishhook out of her arm, and she felt safe and secure with him.
He wasn’t watching her, just working on removing his own clothes, but when he glanced at her just before she shifted, he smiled. She smiled too, loving the way he looked at her, and then they both shifted. He was a beautiful gray wolf with a distinctive black face mask that made him look distinguished. Her face was lighter. His belly was lighter than hers, and he had a black saddle. Her back was more of a dark tan.
To her surprise, he licked her face, and she loved it. She nuzzled him and licked his back—a true sign of wolf affection. He smiled at her, appearing to love her wolf response too.
Then he barged through his wolf door, and she went after him. They ran like the wind, letting the breeze blow through their fur, feeling rejuvenated, one with the land. This was so much fun. She hadn’t run as a wolf since she and Anne had moved here, but now she figured they could run with Robert and the other wolves safely on his property on a regular basis. She loved being a wolf.
After he took her around the property for a while, showing her the loch, woods, and a stream, he led her up to the dike and they went through the wolf door there. Then they explored the MacQuarries’ castle properties, the woods, and another loch. It was really beautiful out here. Both properties were. They loved their inn, but that was one problem they had: a creek ran by their place, so they didn’t have a lot of land. They overlooked the ocean, which everyone who stayed there loved, and some woods for privacy, but there wasn’t enough land to run freely and safely as wolves.
This was refreshing, and for the moment, she wasn’t thinking about finding the body in the water, just about having a blast running through the woods with a beautiful bachelor wolf. And later on when they settled down for the night? That was to be continued.