The Investigators, Inc. The Friendly Buyer Case. Chapter 6. Ghostly Fun and Finances.

Finders was not in a good mood after talking with this mystery woman, he actually hated to take orders from a woman. However, she had the money, apart from what he was able to bring in for her through sex trafficking and drugs. And he wouldn’t have his company up and running without her, so for now, he had no choice but to take orders.

He did have to agree, killing that grandfather was a stupid thing to do, those security people will really be watchful now and will likely be watching every move he makes from now on. But just how long will they be staying? Maybe he shouldn’t have put so much pressure on the local security agencies, it would be easier to deal with them, than with this more professional group.

He still doesn’t even know how many there are, except they seem to be mostly women, something that he found strange. Although, according to their website, they list both male and female security guards. Maybe the men are on another job somewhere. That night while Sky and 4 other girls were guarding one of the warehouses, one of the cats came running over to Sky and told her there were people outside the back wall.

So, she went to investigate and found four guys putting paper and wood into the wooden garbage box that was next to that back wall. Although this warehouse was quite new, the two end walls were made of wood, while the rest of the building was metal. They had just received a new shipment of goods today and that warehouse was absolutely full to the roof.

It would seem they were wanting to have a bonfire, so Sky decided to join in on the fun. “Hey guys, watcha doing?” she asked nicely. “None of your business little girl,” said one man, “now go away.” “Plannin’ on having a bonfire?” she asked again. “Look gal, beat it before you get yourself burned,” the man said again. “You’re not nice,” said Sky, pouting a bit.

That was all he could take and he went over to Sky. She then punched him in the stomach and he went flying backward about ten feet, landing on his back groaning. “Nasty man,” said Sky, “anyone else want to try beat up a little girl?” One of the others pulled out a gun which he immediately dropped yelling it was red hot!

The other two told him to shut up. “I think you little boys should leave before you get hurt,” said Sky. The first man was now on his feet again. “I’m gonna kill you little girl!” he exclaimed and came stomping toward her. “Like that is supposed to scare me?” asked Sky, “I’m already dead, so you can’t kill me.” She then disappeared and reappeared behind that first man.

“I’m behind you little boy,” said Sky sarcastically. He turned around and Sky jumped onto the roof of the warehouse. “How did she do that?” asked one of the men. She jumped back down, kind of in slow motion. “I’m a ghost, I can do lots of things,” she said, smiling. One of the men was now behind her and he tried to grab her, but his arms went right through her.

She turned, put her hand on his heart, he screamed and fell dead. She then pointed to the big man and electricity came from her finger, killing him. She then told the remaining two to pick up their friends, put them in their truck and leave, or she would kill them too. They moved very fast and were soon driving quickly away!

Sky giggled and went back inside. “Sure took you a long time,” said the other girls. “I wanted to give them something to talk about when they get back to Finders,” she said, “it would be interesting to see what happens.” They all laughed, then went back to their places. The next day I was in Ezra’s office talking with him.

He was a bit frustrated with me for taking him away from his work. He reminded me we had been hired to be his security, not to question his business practices. I told him the two go together since I was trying to find out why Finders was so interested in his company, after all, they were not that large yet. I then put a copy of last year’s financial records on his desk.

“What’s this?” he asked. So I explained it to him a little. “I don’t know anything about finances,” he said, “that’s why Tammy looks after it, she’s a natural with anything financial. You will have to talk to her about that.” “I plan to do that,” I told him, “but so far we have found numerous irregularities in your records, things that just don’t add up correctly.

Simply put, you don’t have enough stock coming in to justify your sales. In other words, you are making more money than you should be. On one hand, making more money is not illegal, but, where is it coming from and where is it going? You are in debt, substantially. Your records say you make 2 or 3 times more than you should be, but your taxes show that you make half of what you should be.

If you were audited right now, you would likely find yourself in jail. Now, what is going on?” He kind of looked at the papers I gave him and just shook his head. He told me that it just made no sense, he never at any time looked at the books, he always left it in Tammy’s hands.

He said that maybe she just doesn’t know how to do these things after all and didn’t want to tell him, maybe she just hoped it would all work out and chances of being audited are small. I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt and agreed that could be the problem. However, there was another problem and I wanted both of them together when we talked about this one.

Misty and I had gone to talk with the grandmother and she told us of some strange things the oldest boy has talked about from time to time. At first she thought he was just pretending about things like most kids do. But then he got to talking about very explicit things that horrified her and her late husband.

They were not sure what to do about it but they had decided to talk with Tammy and Ezra about it. The next day was when those men showed up and warned them not to say anything to anyone or things would go very bad for Tammy, Ezra and the kids.

Tammy showed up at the office just then, so I figured this would be a good time to talk things over with the two of them. Meanwhile, “I’m sorry sir, but Mr. Finders is busy and can’t see you now,” said Lois. “He will see me,” said the man casually…

To Be Continued.

©2025 Steve McLeod.