Chapter 22
After the last of the guests had eaten their breakfast and left the dining room, Maisie and Anne finished cleaning the kitchen. Then Robert and the brothers sat down with Maisie to go over the plan. “Have you decided where you’re going to do the photo shoot?”
“In the garden. It’s close to the unit where Gus stayed. Since Chelsea saw Gus there, it should bring back more memories when I question her. She did appreciate that he put her name in to win the photo shoot but said she hadn’t heard from him since she’d seen him last. I didn’t pry because I didn’t want her to go silent on us.”
“I agree. Besides, seeing her face-to-face is much better because we can see emotions and smell them too,” Robert said.
“I’ve got a couple of rooms to clean,” Anne said. “But during the ‘special event,’ I’ll be manning the desk.”
“I’ll help you with the rooms,” Maisie said.
“I’ll be glad when this is resolved and we don’t have to have all this additional security,” Anne said.
William and Edward clutched their hearts as if she’d wounded them with her comment.
Everyone laughed.
Once they had done their chores, the birdbath, birdhouse, and bird feeders came in for the inn, and the guys all helped Anne and Maisie set them up in the garden. Robert and the brothers returned to the inn after that. Once Anne and Maisie filled the feeders with birdseed and the birdbath with water, they returned to the inn to find the guys had grilled hamburgers flavored with steak sauce, onion, and green chiles, with french fries on the side—totally the Texans’ menu—for them for lunch. Maisie and Anne loved it.
Robert was smiling. “It was fun cooking with these guys and learning something new to fix.”
Maisie took a bite of her burger. “Wow, this is really good. We’ll definitely have to make this back home.”
“Yeah, this is delightful,” Anne said.
“Now I know their secret,” Robert said.
Anne and Maisie thanked the guys for a delicious meal.
“So what happened concerning Ike and his brother’s body?” Anne asked.
“He had it moved to Glasgow for a memorial service,” Robert said.
“I’m so glad he was able get some closure,” William said. “When he looked at the video, he believed right away that the man in the splint was Jack because of his clothes.”
After they ate, Maisie made sure she had a fresh battery in the camera and figured out her lighting in the garden. She’d taken lots of pictures here, and they turned out beautifully, so she knew that this would be a good spot for it.
The men had cleaned up after cooking while Anne was taking care of the check-in desk.
A pretty woman with chestnut-brown hair and bright-blue eyes arrived, and Maisie said, “Hi, are you Chelsea Bowers?”
“Yeah. Are you Maisie?”
“I sure am. Congratulations on winning the photo shoot contest.” Maisie almost felt guilty about the lie, but if they could find out what they needed to—and she was actually giving Chelsea a free set of professionally taken photos—they had to do it.
The guys were in the house, and she saw Robert watching her from the window. Maisie nodded to him, letting him know that this was Chelsea.
He came outside. “Hi, I’m Robert, Maisie’s mate and assistant.”
“Hi,” Chelsea said. “I’m so excited to do this. So we’re doing it in the gardens? They’re beautiful.”
“Thanks, they are, and perfect for photography. I’m going to take some shots, check my lighting, and then we’ll go from there.” Maisie was trying to make sure Chelsea was really enjoying the photo shoot before the questioning began. She captured several shots of Chelsea then. “Great. Nice smile. Perfect. Aye, I like that.”
Robert was waiting for Maisie to direct him to do something, but she was so focused on photographing Chelsea and she normally never had anyone to help her, so she’d nearly forgotten he was there. Chelsea didn’t seem to notice, thankfully, but Maisie finally motioned to the spot she wanted the light to shine. “Robert, can you move that one light over this way just a wee bit?”
He obliged, and she said, “Perfect, thanks.”
He smiled.
“I’m so thrilled to meet up with other wolves. Gus never said that the owners here were wolves,” Chelsea said.
“Oh, aye. We love it when wolves stay here.” Maisie was trying to figure out a way to approach Chelsea about the murder. “So you said you and Gus met up here, right?”
“Yeah. We’ve been dating on and off. I’ve also been dating another wolf, and he has been seeing other she-wolves, but he doesn’t like the idea that I’m seeing anyone else. That was the deal we’d made when we first met, that we were not dating exclusively, but if you ever see Jack Wolfson, please don’t say anything about my meeting up with Gus here.”
Maisie nodded, unable to say the poor guy was dead. “Do you want to crouch behind the roses and smile?”
Chelsea did what Maisie asked.
“Good. Looks nice. Now if you can sit on that bench, that would be perfect. I have a vase of flowers, if you can get them, Robert, on the check-in counter. Chelsea can hold a bouquet.”
“Coming right up.” Robert went inside the inn.
While Robert got the vase of flowers, Maisie said to Chelsea, “I know what you mean. I’ve dated a couple of wolves like that. Two of the guys tried to keep me from seeing my family and friends even. The one guy kept accusing me of seeing other wolves behind his back.”
Robert returned with the vase of wildflowers and handed them to Chelsea.
“Oh, yeah, that’s like with Jack. I have a twin sister and an aunt and uncle that I’m close to who he didn’t want me to be around any longer.”
Maisie nodded and took some more shots of Chelsea holding the bouquet of wildflowers. “Well, I told both of my former boyfriends who were controlling that I wasn’t about to neglect my family and friends. With Jude Springer—”
“Wait, Jude Springer?” Chelsea asked.
“Uh, yeah. I met him at a club in Glasgow, where I used to live.” Did Chelsea know Jude and Jack were the same person? She couldn’t believe it. This couldn’t be a more perfect way to lead into the circumstances surrounding Gus’s death.
“Glasgow,” Chelsea said.
“Aye,” Maisie said.
“I saw his—Jack’s—expired driver’s license one time, and his name had been Jude Springer from Glasgow. He said he changed his name because he’d used that name for so long that people were getting suspicious about why he was aging so slowly,” Chelsea said.
Maisie stared at her. “Have you seen Jack recently?” Maisie was trying to tread lightly. She noticed Edward and William were watching them out of the window, the window open so they could hear what was being said.
“No. It’s so odd. I had the date with Gus here, and it was so nice. He is always such a sweetheart. I still can’t believe he was so thoughtful to enter me in this contest. But I haven’t heard from him since the date. I would have stayed with him that night, but I had a job to do the next day early. Gus had dropped me off at a petrol station where I’d left my car. Before I returned home, I had to get some petrol, and I saw Jack. I don’t know if he saw me or not, but he left, never saying a word to me, so I suspected he didn’t see me. I sure didn’t want to talk to him because he would have smelled Gus on me because we had kissed and hugged before I left him. I did worry that he might have witnessed Gus dropping me off there. But Jack didn’t confront him, so maybe he didn’t. I haven’t seen Jack since then either.”
“How far is the petrol station from here?” Maisie asked.
“About ten kilometers.”
Maisie wondered if that was where Iverson had found Gus’s car. “Do you think Jack knew you came to see Gus?”
Then it would have just been a weird coincidence that Maisie and her sister owned the inn and it had nothing to do with him stalking Maisie, which was a relief in part.
“I…I sure hope not. I don’t want to see Jack any longer, but before I saw him at the petrol station that night, he kept dropping by my place. I swore he had followed me before when I went to meet up with my family or friends—not for dates or anything even. Anytime I tried to see Gus, Jack would always show up, and the two would get into a fight. I wasn’t even sure about dating Gus any further because I didn’t like the way he’d act around Jack either.”
“Is that why you met Gus here? To try and ensure Jack wouldn’t show up and get in his face?” Maisie took some more photos.
Chelsea nodded. “Aye. We kept trying to get together, but Jack always seemed to catch us wherever we went and start a fight, so we decided to meet here. We knew if we were well outside Glasgow, he wouldn’t happen to run into us. I mean, we can’t keep leaving the city to meet up. It’s not sustainable. But when I’m just with Gus and we don’t have to deal with Jack, Gus is a really nice guy. I keep hoping Jack will find someone else to date on a steady basis and give up on me.” She bit her lip. “So what happened between you and him?”
“I caught him having dinner with another woman when Jude and I were supposed to be dating exclusively. I don’t think he was all that into me and liked the other woman better since he continued to date her. I was glad for that. When I dumped him, he didn’t pursue me any further, thankfully. That was back in Glasgow. I didn’t realize he had changed his name. I did date someone else, but Jude never learned of it or didn’t care if he knew about it.” Maisie sat down on the bench next to Chelsea and showed Chelsea the photos she had taken. “I’ll do some touch-up work on them also at no extra charge.”
“I love these. They’re beautiful.”
Maisie didn’t have the heart to tell Chelsea that Gus was dead and that Jack might have been the one who killed him. It sure sounded to her like Chelsea was the motivation for the murder. Not that it was her fault in the least, and Maisie didn’t want her to feel that it was.
Robert was taking down Maisie’s lighting equipment, being a good assistant cameraman. She was sure he was waiting for her to say something about Gus’s death.
“You can have my deluxe photo package for free. Do you have time to go inside with me and I can show the photos to you on my laptop? You can see them better that way and pick which ones you want in print in which sizes,” Maisie said.
“Yeah, sure, that would be great.”
“Perfect.” Maisie wanted her inside so that, once she told her Gus was dead, Chelsea would be in private if she got emotional.
They went inside, and Edward and William smiled at Chelsea, and both said, “Howdy.”
“Oh, boy, you’re not from around here, eh?” Chelsea said, smiling.
“No, we’re from Dallas, Texas,” William said.
“Wow, that’s cool. What brings you here?”
“Our cousin, Colleen, inherited Farraige Castle and mated the wolf who was managing it. She wanted us to join her, and we love it here, so we just stayed,” Edward said.
“That’s so wonderful,” Chelsea said.
Maisie and Chelsea sat down on the couch in the living room. William joined Anne at the check-in desk, mainly to stay out of Chelsea and Maisie’s way.
Edward was in the kitchen putzing around but listening to Maisie and Chelsea’s conversation.
Robert was packing Maisie’s photographic equipment up in the car, trying to act like an assistant. Maisie was sure he was past ready for her to talk about the murder. She was still trying to come up with a way to speak with Chelsea about it.
But once Chelsea had picked her photos out, Maisie didn’t have any time left. She ordered them from the print company and said, “I can mail these to you when they come in.”
“They are just beautiful. Thanks so much.” Then Chelsea said, “I have a question for you though. Why did you ask me how far the petrol station was from your inn?”
Maisie sat back against the couch. “I…I have some bad news to tell you.”
“What? Just tell me. It’s Gus, isn’t it? Something’s happened to him.” Tears filled Chelsea’s eyes. “I just knew it. I kept thinking he would get in touch with me. I kept trying to contact him to no avail.”
In Maisie’s peripheral vision, she saw Robert enter the house, but he tried to fade into the background.
“Yeah. When I was gardening, I found his driver’s license. My sister and I tried to locate him to tell him we’d found it. Finally, I met his brother, who was looking for him too.”
“Ike.”
Maisie got her a box of tissues. “Yeah. Then later, Gus was discovered. He’d been murdered.”
Chelsea sobbed. She was totally distraught. She wasn’t faking it. “Where was he killed?”
“We don’t know where he was actually killed.” Maisie didn’t feel the need to go into details about how they’d found him dead in the ocean unless Chelsea asked for them. “But after Gus drove off with you, I don’t think he came back. Someone else did. My mother swore the man on the security video was Jude Springer because of the tear in his back pocket of a pair of black pants.”
“But Jude Springer is Jack Wolfson, and aye, he lost his wallet and his phone out of that torn pocket once. I told him he needed to get new pants or sew it up before he lost something important for good.” Chelsea wiped away tears. “It was because of me, wasn’t it? Jack knew I had been with Gus, and he killed him for it.”
“If Jack killed Gus, it was because of Jack, no one else.”
“Ike must feel really bad. He told Gus not to see me any longer because he thought Jack was capable of going berserk over it,” Chelsea said. “Because of Jack, Gus and I weren’t really together exclusively.”
“Ike was torn up over it for sure,” Maisie said, “but I don’t think he blamed you. No matter what, you weren’t at fault.”
“That really scares me though. If Jack killed Gus, then I might be next. He must have known I was with Gus,” Chelsea repeated.
“I know. Ever since we learned Gus was murdered, we’ve had a couple of men staying here to make sure Anne and I are protected from Jack, in the event he returns,” Maisie said.
“Do you think he would?” Chelsea asked. “I mean, if there’s a way to get him to come here—even using me as the bait—I’m all for it. It would be better than me worrying about returning home and him coming after me there when I’m alone. Or even him going after another wolf if I dated someone else. Then they can get him to confess and the pack leaders would deal with him—terminally.”
“What if you posted something on Facebook, like a picture of you and me together?” William said to Chelsea, joining the conversation.
“But then you would be at risk,” Chelsea said.
Edward walked into the living room. “We’re both former homicide detectives from Dallas, Texas. We can protect you.”
“I’ll get ahold of Iverson and have him return,” Robert said. “He’s from here and a former homicide detective also.”
“Do you really think this will work?” Chelsea asked.
“We can certainly try it. Let’s take some pictures of you and your new boyfriend, Chelsea,” Maisie said. “I believe it’s worth a try if we can catch a killer.”