“Positive. I got close to it. Something—an animal—had been digging. There were insects and the smell of decomposition. I saw a finger. It was a body. I backed off and removed all evidence of my presence. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t trust Alberto or his guard. He didn’t give any indication that he was anything but a nice old man, but my cat didn’t like him touching me and I just had this feeling . . .” She pressed her hand to her stomach and looked helplessly at Conner.

He reached for her hand and brought the tips of her fingers to his mouth. “I’m sorry, honey, I should never have allowed you to get mixed up in this. If I’d been thinking, I would have stashed you somewhere safe until it was over.”

“I wouldn’t have gone. I started this, Conner, and I’m going to see it through. Someone has to stop them.”

Elijah took a sip of the coffee and made an appreciative sound. “She’s done great, Conner. She walked right up in the middle of a leopard fight and shot the son of a bitch. She found a dead body in a garden and didn’t scream her head off. She kept her cool and removed all evidence of being there.”

Elijah’s assessment of the situation steadied her. She flashed him a quick smile. “I was leaving and Ottila showed up. He cut off my escape. We were in deep brush and I was pretty sure Jeremiah didn’t have a good shot at him. What I didn’t know until later is that the two rogues had assumed you’d put a shooter in the canopy, and Ottila was the bait to draw Jeremiah out while Suma did the hunting.”

Conner covered her hand again to still her fingers as they tapped nervously on the tabletop. “No one could have known, Isabeau.”

“Maybe, but you probably would have caught on to what he was doing. He talked instead of acted. He knew Harry and Alberto might walk up at any moment but he kept talking to me. I should have put it together. I didn’t know until he taunted me with where Suma was. I tried drawing him into the open by talking and taking little steps backward. He followed, but then he grabbed me, and when I gave the signal, Jeremiah didn’t take the shot.”

She bit down hard on her lip, the memory of that moment terrifying her. At the time, she couldn’t give in to fright, but now, safe with Elijah and Conner, and far away from Ottila, she found herself trembling. She lowered her eyes, ashamed, but determined to tell Conner everything. “And then she got all amorous on me.”

Conner straightened in his chair. Elijah took another sip of coffee. “Keep going,” Conner encouraged.