Page 84 of The Wolf of My Eye

“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 youhave 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 printcompany 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 hiswallet 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.”

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