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“Did you know that Trevor fudged the paperwork so that Annisa could pass her open water certification?”
Sully’s eyes almost popped out of his head. “He did?” His face matched the red polo shirt that he was wearing. “That lying, cheating, scumbag!” His breath was coming in ragged, and I thought if he didn’t calm down, he would have a stroke.
“I take it that you didn’t know Trevor agreed to sign off on Annisa’s open water certification if she went out on a date with him.” I felt horrible. This was not something I wanted to tell the dive shop owner. But at the same time, Annisa was brought in for questioning, so it was important to clear her name.
Sully calmed down somewhat, but he spat out, “No, I didn’t know Trevor asked Annisa to go on a date. The fact he passed her when she wasn’t qualified is troubling. What did she have problems with? Do you know?”
“Annisa claimed she wasn’t able to do the emergency ascent” I said, giving more details that made the dive shop owner jerk back his head and throw his hands up in the air.
“Darn it, Trevor! If you weren’t already dead, I would kill you myself. Do you know how dangerous it is to certify someone who isn’t ready to dive by themselves?”
He looked at Julia and me, and we both nodded mutely. Although Julia didn’t scuba dive anymore, she was still certified and knew the steps to pass the tests.
“If Trevor passed Annisa, who knows how many others he signed off when they weren’t qualified.” Sully started to mutter something under his breath that I couldn’t hear.
Julia nudged me with her toe. When I looked at her, she mouthed, Ask him about the scuba equipment.
“Did you know that Trevor asked Annisa to hold on to some scuba diving equipment?” I asked.
“He did? What kind of equipment?” He stopped muttering under his breath and stared at me.
I rattled off the list of things that I saw stored in the guest closet. With each item that I mentioned, his breathing became more forceful.
“Do you know why Trevor asked Annisa to keep the equipment at her house?” My voice cracked when I asked the question.
He rubbed a hand over his chest and thought for a few seconds before he said slowly, “I don’t know, but I overheard Trevor talking to someone a few weeks ago about buying equipment. At first, I thought the equipment was for him, so I didn’t think much of it. My instructors are free to buy their equipment anywhere they want.”
Looking surreptitiously at the wetsuits, I didn’t blame Trevor. I thought that if I were him, I would do the same.
“But what you said doesn’t explain why he wanted to store stuff at Annisa’s apartment,” Julia said, fixing him with a puzzled look.
Sully shrugged. Then he scratched under his chin and said, “Maybe he was storing the stuff at your friend’s house because I have a key to his place.”
I blinked rapidly. “Why did Trevor give you his spare key. Were you close?” I asked, knowing that he wasn’t. He already admitted to Aiden and me that he didn’t know much about his scuba diving instructor.”
“Not particularly, but he lives close to the shop, and he’s got a cat. Whenever he leaves town, he asks me to look in on him,” Sully said.
Ah! That makes sense, I thought and relaxed my shoulders.
“Does he go away frequently?” Julia asked.
“He’s been gone a few times but no more than three or four days at a time,” Sully said, stroking his grey streaked beard. “I assumed that he went on a diving trip, and I didn’t ask where he went,” he added quickly, anticipating my next question.
The phone rang in the back room. “Sorry, I gotta to take this. Feel free to look around,” he said as he shuffled to the back of the store.
“There’s something going on with Trevor that doesn’t add up,” Julia said in a hushed tone. She kept her eyes trained on the back room just in case the dive shop owner came back.
“I wonder if we can convince Sully to give us the key to Trevor’s place,” I whispered. “We can tell him that Trevor might have some things that belonged to Annisa.”
“That’s possible, considering Trevor was storing his stuff at her house. Or maybe—” Julia broke off in the middle of her sentence.
“What?” I prodded.
“What if Trevor is running some kind of scheme, and Annisa is a helpless pawn in his game?” Julia tried to paint our friend as an unwitting participant, but I wasn’t so convinced.
“I would buy that logic if we hadn’t found a bunch of counterfeit luxury items in Annisa’s closet. What if Annisa and Trevor are working together, and things soured between the two of them, and she?—”
Julia held up one hand to cut me off from saying aloud the part that she didn’t want voiced. “I think I know what you are going to say, and for the time being, I want to believe that Annisa is a victim in this scenario.”
