She sliced the bread and put it on a plate. It was warm and smelled like heaven. “A body. Alberto told me about designing the garden and planting it. Apparently he’s a gardener, a very good one. He invited me to look around. He waited for me by the pond.”

“Get to the body, Isabeau,” Elijah said.

“And the marking another man,” Conner encouraged.

She took a dish of butter from Elijah and applied it to two slices, pushing the plates across to them before pouring coffee. “Does anyone take cream?”

Conner put the coffee cup down and went around the table to wrap an arm around her waist. “Stop what you’re doing and sit down. You need to tell us what happened.”

Isabeau let him pull out a chair and put her in it. The two men sat down with her. She shook her head. “I don’t know if Alberto knew the body was there and wanted me to find it. Maybe he wanted me to call the police on Sobre.”

“Are you certain it was a body?” Conner asked.

“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.”