The Investigators, Inc. The Jigsaw Puzzle Mystery. Chapter 1. Children.

Posted on July 6, 2026 by

388 Comments

Detective reviewing documents with a translucent ghostly woman sitting beside him in a dimly lit office

We have had a few nice, quiet days since our last case and it has been very nice, but we could definitely use more such quiet days. Today Jennifer, Kat, Friskie, Carine, Mandy, Erika and Steffie are in the city shopping. I wanted to go along with them, but for some reason they all said no to that idea. Jennifer said that having 3 children to look after was enough while shopping. Not sure what she meant by that, though maybe it’s because I don’t like shopping. While at one large store they were walking along one aisle and suddenly Steffie screamed, “TOYS!” She then took off running in that direction with Erika right behind her, followed by Mandy.

The ghost team were not really that far behind, so I was told, but when they got to the toys none of the girls were in sight. They ran around quickly and frantically, checking every aisle and asking people if they had seen the 3 girls. Oddly, no one had seen them which made no sense. Before they even had a chance to inform me that the girls were gone I received a video call from an old “friend”. It was Helene. “I have your children Steve,” she said, “and I know you would like to have proof, so here it is.” She then showed me the girls, who were not looking too happy.

“Sorry Daddy,” said Mandy, “she got us, but we’re okay though.” “There you go Steve,” said Helene, “but don’t worry, I don’t plan to keep them, I’m not really a big fan of children. I will gladly give them back to you, for a price.” “Yes, I thought we would get around to money sooner or later,” I told her, “so, how much are you wanting?” “Oh, you have me all wrong Steve,” she said, “I am not looking to sell them back to you, not at all. I want you, dear Steve. Just give yourself to me and your girls are free to go.”

“And how do you propose that we make the switch?” I asked, “Especially since we don’t trust each other.” “Yes, that is always such a problem,” she admitted, “so we will meet at a popular beach in the city. You can have one person with you, of my choosing, who will take custody of your daughters. And my men will take you. If you do things correctly and follow orders, then your daughters will be returned safely. If you try to trick me, then they will have to die. Please keep your snipers away from the area. I am very good at spotting such people and that will not bring favorable results.”

“And who would you like me to bring along to pick up the girls?” I asked. “Misty,” she said, “not for any particular reason except that she is one of your team leaders, so she would be a good one to kill if anything should go wrong. However, I’m certain you will make sure that everything goes smoothly.” We then agreed on a time to make the exchange, which will happen tomorrow at 9am.

Meanwhile, back with the others in the city. “I can’t seem to communicate with Steve,” said Jennifer. So Kat tried next, but again I didn’t answer. Then Kat tried Sky who answered while I was just finishing up with Helene. “Helene has the girls,” said Kat, “and she is going to trade them for Steve tomorrow morning.” “He can’t do that,” exclaimed Jennifer, “it goes against our rules, well, sort of anyway. Okay, I guess it doesn’t really since this is a personal matter, not a team matter.” “Right,” said Kat, “so we will need to handle this very carefully, or we could lose those children.”

That made Friskie sit on the floor and begin to cry. “Hey, don’t worry,” said Kat, “we’ll get the children back safely. Let’s all go back to the van for now.” They began walking out to the van when Carine noticed that Jennifer wasn’t with them. Kat looked around. “She’s with us,” said Kat, “just invisible. She’s crying too.” Once back at the van Kat called me so we could all talk together. I told them what Helene wants and I will trade myself for the girls at 9am.

I told them to stay in the city, but to stay away from the exchange area until after the exchange has been made and I have been taken away. Then they can come and pick up Misty and the girls. “I will make sure there is a good escort for you coming home,” I said, “though I realize you don’t really need it, but I want it to look good in case you’re being watched.” “One of us could come along with you Steve,” said Jennifer, “we can’t just let her take you away somewhere. I mean, she obviously wants to kill you.”

“Yes, I figure she wants to kill me too,” I said, “but I want those girls home safely, that’s the most important thing.” “Yes, I agree, we want them safe,” said Jennifer, “but, we can do both.” “No, not this time,” I said, “we will play by her rules since she has the upper hand for now.” I didn’t get much sleep that night, yet the time went by quickly and soon I found myself sitting on a bench with Misty overlooking the beach waiting for Helene’s men to show up.

At 9:02am a van showed up and a man got out with the girls and came over to us. Before they got to us Misty whispered to me that she could easily deal with that man. I told her no, Helene likely has other men around the area, waiting for an opportunity to kill us all. She sighed, rather loudly. The man told Misty to take the girls and leave, which she did. Then he told me to get into the van. I was sure they would take me somewhere and kill me since they had blindfolded me.

However, we drove a long distance instead. A very long distance. Ten hours later we finally stopped for the last time and we all got out. We then got in a helicopter and flew for some time, then landed. We drove again until at midnight we arrived at an airport where we boarded a small jet and flew, somewhere. We then drove to a country estate where Helene was waiting for us. She allowed me to shower and she had clean clothes ready for me. I was then escorted down to the dining room for breakfast…

To Be Continued. ©2026 Steve McLeod.

Category: Adventure, Danger, Fiction, Mystery, Story, Strange Happenings, Suspense, UncategorizedTags: , , , , , , , , ,

388 Comments on “The Investigators, Inc. The Jigsaw Puzzle Mystery. Chapter 1. Children.”

    • Usually I can’t remember my dreams, but sometimes I can, like last night, and one last week too. The one last week scared me terribly, the one last night was just, well, odd but bothersome.

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    • Yes, I do figure out why it disturbs me, but it still disturbs me because of the content even though it’s not really bad, as such. Kinda complicated at times.
      And, speaking of dreams, it’s time to sleep again unfortunately. Have a good night Dusty, sleep well and dream pleasantly!😃🥱😴🌧️

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    • Good morning Dusty! Did you work on your plane again today or take the day off? Turned out to be a nice sunny day, but still very cool. However, I braved the cold and went out for some pics this morning. Didn’t turn out too well, but I did get some pics anyway.

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  8. Nice!😁 Im glad to hear you were out and about! You need to take advantage of the nice weather while youve still got it.
    Yes, I did work on my plane again, all day as a matter of fact. The rudder is just about complete now, just a few more spots to glue then time for sanding g and primer, but I spent most of my time cutting and fitting the elevator pieces today. Now I need to start fitting and gluing tem together. The next set of pictures ill send will be of all the little pieces that go together to make the elevator assembly.

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    • Well, the sun was shining this morning, but the temp was still only 38 degrees, so I tiny bit chilly for pictures. But I remained brave and sometimes stayed outside the car for up to 3 minutes at a time! By then my fingers were so cold they would barely move! Wow, it’s going to have an elevator too? Cool!😃🛩️

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    • Hmm, that’s strange, thought I mentioned that, it was 38 degrees when I was out, but it did warm up to 45 by late this afternoon. Good idea not having 13 floors, I don’t think the plane is big enough to accommodate that many.🤔🛩️

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  10. I don’t know…. 🙄 it’s pretty big!🤭
    You may have mentioned the temp and well… my attention and retention time span are both short especially when I’m tired.
    What did you get for pictures?

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    • I know the feeling. They were all scenery pics. Unfortunately half the trees have lost their leaves already so the colors were not quite as good as they should have been. Plus, 3 places that I was hoping to check were closed due to repair work. There are more deciduous trees in those locations, so colors might have been good. Oh well. No birds or other wildlife were around either. There are lots of bucks in town but it seems whenever I have my camera they stay hidden somewhere! Oh well, still time for getting pics of them before winter.😊📷

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    • Deer like potatoes, apples and bananas best. They will eat peanuts too though. Stores don’t have any for sale right now except salted peanuts animals won’t eat those.

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    • True, but hugging them makes it a little more difficult to take the pic with one hand. Oh well, that won’t happen again, can’t just go up to any deer and do that, it must be one that knows me. It was fun though.
      Well, time for bed again, have a good night Dusty, talk tomorrow! 😃🥱😴🌛

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    • Good morning Dusty! How’s the plane manufacturing going today? It was sunny here today! Still not very warm, but it was sunny. There was a strong wind too which made it feel colder too. Sigh. Tomorrow will be nice though with a high of 60 degrees.

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  14. That’s nice weather if the sun was shining. We had a high of only 73 or 74 here today, and it was very windy. No, I didn’t do any work on the plane today. After yesterday I decided to take a few days off from it. I’ll work on it on Monday again.

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    • That’s actually a good idea to take some time off now and then, helps to keep from making mistakes due to the “overload” problem. It was 52 today but felt like 42 with the wind. We had a big fire in town last night, our A&W restaurant burned down. No one was seriously injured though, just some minor smoke inhalation problems. I think every fire truck was at the fire, plus several ambulances and police vehicles.

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    • I don’t float too good anymore, I usually sink instead, so I just stay out of the water. Yep, they have the best root beer anywhere. It will likely be a long time before they open again. There needs to be an investigation, then waiting for the insurance people to pay up, then rebuilding. It could take a year or longer before they even get started!🙄😮😕

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    • Yep, it was around 6:30pm and a lot of people were there at the time. It was a very popular place. It was built in the 1950s and the restaurant was doubled in size in the 1980s.

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    • I still figure they won’t start rebuilding before next summer. Yep, Church it is, as long as I’m feeling okay. Strangely my back is bad today and I don’t know why.

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    • Did you just call me a nut? 🤨🙄
      Well, time for bed again, morning comes early. Oh, remind me to tell you something tomorrow, forgot today, sigh. Anyway, have a good night Dusty with high flying dreams! 🥱😴🌛😃

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  23. Good morning! 😂😁
    How are things in the frozen wasteland of Canada this wintry season?😂 Did ya get my email? Those are all of the individual pieces that go together to make the elevators which then get attached to the horizontal stabilizer at the back of the fuselage.

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    • Frozen wasteland huh, I got news for you, it was sunny and 61 degrees today! Not bad for this late in October. What a day I had today this morning and afternoon!
      Yep, it arrived, that’s a lot of pieces that don’t look very big.

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  24. The triangle piece get split in two and then sanded to fit onto the small square wooden piece. So yeah! But, hopefully that will be the end of making that stuff.

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    • Try not to glue them together upside down. I can see where building a plane wouldn’t work too well for me. However, one of my ideas would involve small pieces of wood and other items. Hey, when do you change your clocks back?

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    • There were only 9 of us this morning. Some people were sick, others were on vacation down in Austin. Apparently they have family there.
      That means we will be an hour different for the winter. We voted here to keep daylight savings time year round so no more changing our clocks.😃🕰️

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  26. How lucky are you?😄
    I wish they would do that here. But wishing doesn’t make it so.
    Only 9 in church? That flu must really be bad and hitting hard. Austin MN? Or TX. One isn’t so far, the other is a long way from there.

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    • Didn’t know there was one in MN, yes, it’s TX. Yeah, the flu season has really hit this area early and hard. Yep, people here voted 93% in favor of keeping our time the way it is. That’s only for this part of NW Ontario, the rest of ON will still change their time. We are in the central time zone while the rest of ON is in the eastern time zone.

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    • Right now they are an hour ahead of us, so it will make them the same time as us for the winter. Not that it matters, we don’t have much to do with the rest of ON anyway, mostly it’s with Manitoba to the west of us, and they are also staying the same time now. All of western Canada has decided to keep daylight saving time all year now, eastern Canada thinks changing clocks is better. Kinda strange.

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    • Oh, that means you will be an hour behind me starting Nov 1.
      Actually, I dream nearly every night, but mostly I don’t really remember them, which is fine, they are just jumbled up dreams that don’t make sense anyway.🙄🤪 Nothing like I had the other night though. 🤔

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  29. I guess it does.🤔 Hmm… that means I’ll need to be online and hour sooner than I do now, now that means it will be the same for you… 🤔 right?? Oh… my head…🤕

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    • Good morning Dusty!🌞 How did the plane construction go today? 🛩️ How’s your foot these days? Still walking or did you pause that for a while? Still spending time at the pool or beach?🤔😃

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  32. No plane building today. My foot is a miserable companion these days. I do that do any walking like I used to do. Now Im lucky if I can walk a x quarter mile at one time. No pool time lately, it’s been on the cool side, low 80s mid 70’s.
    How was shopping this morning?

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    • Sorry to hear that your foot is giving grief, I know how you liked to walk. I shouldn’t have gone out this morning, my back was bad to begin with and I had to cut shopping time short and my back has been terrible all day. It’s not like I needed to go today, but habits are hard to break. We had a heavy frost last night and even by 10:30 it hadn’t melted away. The temp eventually made it to 55 degrees this afternoon.

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  33. Well, my foot is my own fault, I ruined it by walking so much everyday trying to punish myself for a series of not well thought through decisions I’d made. So it all good now.
    Like I said, winter season has arrived! ❄️

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    • I wish my notifications thing was working, I have tried everything but it still does not work. Sigh. Yep, it is getting to be close to that white season of the year. But because of this El Nino thing it is supposed to be one of our warmest and driest winters in years.

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  35. Sorry I’m late in my reply. I didn’t get to sleep until after 2:30 last night. I just couldnt fall asleep.
    Yeah, the dry part wouldn’t be good. But it doesn’t mean it will completely dry either. You coukd get a lot of rain in the spring!

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    • Yes, that’s very true and a rainy spring often follows a dry winter. Wow, that’s late, almost time to get up! I have had nights like that, usually because my brain doesn’t want to stop thinking.

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    • Well, sleeping better on a regular basis is a good thing to do. That’s what I need to do. I did get 7 hours last night but usually I get only about 6 hours and it’s just not enough anymore. When I was younger it wasn’t so bad, but now I need more sleep.

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  37. Yeah, I sleep well most of the time. But about every third week or so I get a night or two where I have trouble falling asleep. No big deal, but it messes up a few days worth of c things to do when it happens.

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    • Not sure about tomorrow, I’ll leave that one open for now and surprise myself with something I didn’t think of!
      Well, this old boy needs his bed again, hope you sleep better tonight and dream lightly! Talk tomorrow!😃🥱😴🌛

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