The Investigators, Inc. The Haunted House Case. Chapter 4. Phoenix.

We decided to stop for lunch now and do some thinking. I asked for ideas from the team on what we should do since we were not finding anything in this old house. We had to keep looking, naturally, but how to look, that is what we need to figure out. “We need Jennifer here,” said Kat, “she could go through that stone wall and see what was on the other side. Or, if we had Carine she could look through that wall for us.” Then I mentioned that I had already tried looking through the wall, but without success. Kat reminded me that although I can see through normal walls, this one might be too thick for me to penetrate.

That did make sense, I guess. I felt uneasy about bringing Jennifer along on this case though, not sure why, but I just felt uneasy. I told this to Kat and the others so they agreed right away to keep Jennifer at home. I then had another idea. While some of the team would stay here and continue looking around, I will take 4 others with me and look around the house where Shawna and her friends lived. I then called George to see if we could get permission to look around the girls house and he said that would not be a problem.

He would meet us at their house and give me a key so that I could go in anytime. George arrived about 2 minutes behind us and gave me the key, then said he had to get back to work since it was a busy day and 4 employees were off sick. I had Rock, Mac, John and Kitty with me to look over the house, plus we had Muffin, Tiger, Azura and Tracker with us. I am wondering if the girls even made it to that haunted house, or were they kidnapped at home before they had a chance to check out that other place?

We may not find out by looking around, but, maybe we can find something. After checking the three bedrooms we discovered that each of the girls living here had something in common. They each kept a diary. So, I had Kitty read some of the final entries in each diary while us guys kept looking around. Rock and John went down to the basement while Mac and I checked the main floor. We had already checked the bedrooms which are all upstairs. The cats could smell the scent of our girls and what was likely the other 3 girls, plus one man, which they said matched the scent of George.

That would not be unusual since he already told me he would visit Shawna and her friends once every two weeks. But, the cats also said there was the scent of another man and woman which was fresh like the scent of our girls. That means they were here at about the same time, though possibly just before our girls arrived. The woman could even be that other friend who had found the house empty. It was still messy in here too, but George has been too busy at work to clean up the house.

That’s good, it’s better for us that he left it alone, just in case he destroyed some evidence that might help us. The police had been through the house too but had not found anything to help their investigation. They haven’t closed the investigation yet either, but they didn’t mind us getting involved in trying to solve this which they are classifying as a missing persons case. The photo of Virginia proves it is not just a missing persons case, but for now we will keep this to ourselves. Melody, Hannah, Trixie and Wisty are all working on this from home to see if they can find out anything about the other girls.

Although Cristy is still in the clinic, she too is working on this case and trying to track down the location of this website where they found Virginia. If anyone can do it, she can. Kitty was in the living room reading the diaries when Kat communicated with her and asked what was going on at the house. Jennifer had called to tell Kat she sensed danger and it had to do with me. Kitty immediately called for me and Mac. When she called a second time both Rock and John came running up from the basement and found Kitty had gone to a room that used to be a spare bedroom but was now just a storage room.

Mac was on the floor and I was nowhere in sight. Kitty slapped Mac a couple of times so that he regained consciousness. He said his head felt like he had been hit with something, but there was not a mark on him. Kitty communicated this to Kat and said that I was missing. Kat and some of the girls, plus Yves, came over to the house right away. Kat had also told Jennifer that I was missing and she wanted to come right away, but Kat said no and told her what I had said about feeling uneasy bringing her here, so she agreed to stay home.

She told Kat the Black Wolves are now in the nearby city if she wants to call on them to help. She also mentioned something else interesting, the house the girls were renting and the haunted house are both owned by the same person, a woman. Her name is Phoenix Blackwood, she is 25, which is the same as Shawna. Apparently she came to town with her boyfriend a year ago and she immediately bought those two houses, plus the one that she and her boyfriend live in.

Her boyfriend is Zackary Mackay who, interestingly, bought a half ownership of George’s lumber business right after moving here. George was close to bankruptcy at the time, but now the business is doing great. Hmm, is all this somehow connected? Meanwhile, somewhere out there is me. I feel like I’m floating. I hear people talking but their voices make no sense to me. My eyes are open, but the people I see are more like shadows or sometimes glowing objects. It feels like I’m lying down, but it’s hard to tell for sure, at times it’s more like I’m sitting.

I see someone talking to me, but the face is blurred, the voice is like a very low, slow, hollow sounding, growl. I then closed my eyes and went to sleep. Back at the house where I was just moments before. John was sniffing around the room, so the cats joined in. They didn’t know exactly what John was sniffing, but that’s okay, this is something they were good at. Meow, meow.= “Me smell something kind of strange like, not poison, but not good.”

“Exactly right Muffin,” said John, “what you smell is some kind of drug mixture. That is what hit Mac and knocked him out, and likely did the same with Steve, but whoever did it only wanted Steve.” “Yes, and how did they get out of the house?” asked Kat, “There is too much coincidence here. Phoenix and Zackary must be mixed up in this, and possibly George too, but how do we prove it?” Just then a young boy came to the front door and knocked. Kitty answered and the boy handed her an envelope, then he ran off down the street…

To Be Continued. ©2026 Steve McLeod.