Sky and Crystal, plus the cats would be staying with me in the room, while Kristina stayed in the waiting area outside my room. Kristina is quite amazing, she only needs 3 hours of sleep each night, something she has been doing since she was a little girl. The others were asleep and I was just lying in bed thinking. This case is mixed up, but why? Denise, well, I should say Sofie, hired us to find those jewels, yet she told the cats the note we found was fake and the jewels would never be found. Then why hire us?

Now, we know the puppy was not the right one, so we still need to find it and hopefully the proper clue to locate the jewels. We bought the chateau, but we bought it from Denise and since she is dead, is the purchase okay or is it voided. Well, Denise had no other family, so Sofie would have inherited the chateau anyway, but whose signature did she put on those papers?

I called Baldwin and told him about it, so he will be talking with his lawyer. He was not too happy about that. Neither am I, but somehow we messed up. We all saw the picture of Denise with the puppy but we did not notice the puppy was different. Worse yet, we did not notice that Sofie was not Denise. Crystal brought that picture along with her. It certainly looks like the woman we have been dealing with. Are they twins? I look over at Crystal.

Her and Sky look like twins and yet they are not related. Hmm, is this really Sofie then? Maybe it is someone different who just looks like Sofie. This is crazy. I fell asleep after a while, but woke up after about an hour, sweating and breathing heavily. The others were all sleeping. I looked at Crystal and got up quietly. She was sleeping in the big chair. I went around behind her. I quickly grabbed her throat and began choking her.

The noise woke up Muffin and she jumped on my back digging in all 18 claws! I yelled and loosened my grip. That allowed Crystal to break free and she stood swinging her leg around kicking me on the side of my head which knocked me against the wall. Sky was now awake, jumped out of bed and kicked me in the stomach. That knocked me to the floor and Muffin jumped off. MC was in position, ready to hit me with a rubber ball if necessary. But it was not.

Kristina had come in too with her dart gun ready. I was awake now and back to normal. Kristina had hit the alarm so Chung and Saranna came running in. Chung gave me a shot of something to calm me down and I went back to bed. Everyone else did the same, but the cats decided to sleep with me now. Saranna had put bandages on my back where Muffin had scratched me. I looked at Crystal and was not quite sure what to say.

“I, I am very sorry Crystal,” I said and began to cry. She looked at Sky. “Go ahead,” said Sky. Crystal came over and gave me a little kiss. “It is not your fault Steve” she said smiling, “but I am glad Muffin stopped you.” “Yes, me too,” I said. Sky kissed me and said good night, again, and told me to relax. Then she looked at Crystal, “Go ahead.” She did. Meow,meow.=That better one.

“I sure hope J…Walter, can find out where Lavina is hiding,” said Sky. “Yes, we need to stop her,” said Kristina, then she turned to go. “You forgot something,” said Sky. “Me?” she asked. “Yes, you,” replied Sky. Nothing else happened that night and in the morning we all went back to the chateau. We had breakfast first and then continued looking around while the others helped Denise, I mean Sofie, pack and move.

We decided to keep doing that so she would not know what we had found out about her. Just before we started to look around a man came to the door. “Is aunt Denise here?” he asked. He was a big, tough looking man and had 3 others with him. Obviously it was the son of Sofie and other gang members. Sofie came in and invited them into the living room for coffee.

Walter and Crandall came driving up while they were here and Walter recognized the insignia on the motorcycles. He phoned me and told me about them. Walter did not want to come in while they were here as they would recognize him. This is getting more interesting all the time. I told him to wait until the left. I also told Benson to wait around until those men left.

Rock soon showed up and came inside. He had talked to Walter first, so he knew about the men. He and Benson went into the kitchen. Benson had put a listening device in the living room so they could hear every word. It was an interesting conversation…

To Be Continued.

©2022 Steve McLeod.