The Investigators, Inc. The Kidnapping Mystery. Chapter 5. Puzzle Pieces.

Annelie came up with much information about Alphonse and Coralie Boucher, but nothing really too interesting until… She had contacted someone she knows in Ontario about that couple and discovered that they are involved in sex trafficking and drugs. They are quite well off but pretend to be fairly poor and they have no criminal record whatever. Which just means they haven’t been caught yet. Apparently they take in foster kids to use for sex trafficking purposes until they are adopted or moved to another foster family.

The kids are severely warned never to talk about anything or they would be killed. That part we found out from Charlette. Although Brielle Fortier, the woman who “kidnapped” Charlette, did not sound familiar at first, something clicked after thinking about it for a while. “Annelie, do we have a photo of this Brielle woman?” I asked. “Yes Steve, I found one from her driver’s license,” she replied, “not the best, but it’s all I have right now.”

“Okay, send it to me,” I said, “now, look up a woman named Brenda Wallace, you can start with my high school year book, then try to find a more recent photo of her please.” “On it Steve,” she said. “Do you think it’s the same woman Steve?” asked Jennifer. “Well, right now it’s just a hunch,” I said, “but hopefully it might turn out to be a direct hit.” “You certainly have a lot of girlfriends from your school days,” she said, giggling.

“Very funny,” I said, “only one was a girlfriend, the others I just happened to know because they were in one or two of my classes.” “Oh, right,” she said, giggling some more. I sighed, and she then laughed out loud. I then called our bad girls into our home office. Jennifer and I share an office which is part of our bedroom now that we have a much larger chateau. The girls came running in amazingly fast, and all smiles. “No, we haven’t settled on a name yet,” I told them.

“Awwwwww,” they all said at once. Jennifer sighed this time. I asked them if they knew a woman named Brielle Fortier. “She is a horrible woman,” said Amerie, “she is very wealthy and very dangerous. She financed Sebastien and Liana, plus other people. She was married to a Louis Fortier for 10 years until he died falling from their second floor balcony and landing on a rock beneath. He was a many times millionaire, had a great fortune from businesses and investments.

Her name before marriage was Wallace and she has one sister who is also extremely wealthy person and equally dangerous. I do not remember her name, but first name is Carmen.” “Her last name is Wilberson after marriage,” added Suzette, “her husband also had much money from investments.” I looked at our bad girls. “You girls are a wealth of information,” I said, “it would be nice if you told me all this information before I ask for it though.”

“It is hard to know what information you want,” replied Chloe, “before we know what it is you want from us.” They all smiled. “They do have a point,” said Jennifer. Brielle was indeed Brenda Wallace, a high school friend, somewhat at least. She had told me she would be extremely wealthy one day because she was going to marry a wealthy man and then kill him so she could get his wealth. Apparently she succeeded in carrying out her plans.

Brenda always hated her name, but loved the name Brielle and she had plans to change her name one day. She obviously succeeded in that too. Carmen was a woman we all remember very well, she was the woman in the disappearing jet case and even though we tried very hard, she still managed to escape us. She is a very patient woman and it showed in the case mentioned which she had spent several years in planning.

Brenda was also very patient and is likely the one who infiltrated Mandar’s security in order to kidnap him one day. But for what purpose did they kidnap Mandar? Between those two women, they would have enough money to do most anything they wanted. And why have they not contacted the twins or us? Not knowing how to contact them, or how to locate them, we then have to wait for them to make the next move.

I never like it when the enemy has the advantage over us, they can literally make us do anything and right now they want to make us wait. As I had told Kristen, I sent Kristina and her team over to check for clues at Mandar’s house, and in his car which is still at the house too. So far they haven’t found anything interesting so I told them to take the car apart, piece by piece, to see if they can find anything that may have fallen in behind something in the car.

They began working on that immediately, a task that was not easy. “Now, Jennifer, it is time for us to get busy too,” I said. “Um, what do you mean by ‘us’?” she asked. “I mean you and I, plus the bad girls,” I said, “we will visit that pub to look for clues.” Jennifer just looked at me like I was crazy, and perhaps I am, but it needed to be done. “Why can’t Matt and the Knight Riders do that?” she asked, “No one knows they are associated with us, so it might be easier for them to check around.”

I looked at her, and sighed. Matt and his team have returned Richard to the office so he is now safely guarded by their own security teams. Fortunately by the time Matt and his team reached the hospital, Richard was ready to be released, so they did not have to hang around or even make themselves known to anyone. They just followed the armored van that took Richard to the office, then they continued on. That way no one should have suspected what they were doing, since the hospital was undoubtedly being watched.

Now they should be able to go and check out that pub, just quietly at first, without anyone being suspicious of them. Meanwhile, I asked Annelie if anyone had hacked into our system yet, and she said no, not our real one and not our fake one. That is good news, so I told her to remove some of the girls from our list of investigators.

The bad girls are not listed yet since they are not members yet, though they have passed most of the tests already, all but one actually. I deliberately held them back from that one for now, so they can get some on the job training. Now, we just need to hear from our kidnappers, or find out where they are hiding…

To Be Continued.

©2024 Steve McLeod.