We were at the hotel and I have finished reading Jacie’s latest diary, though apparently there were six of them according to the cats. However, this one seems to have all the information we need. I am letting Celestine read it now and she is nearly finished, then I want Kat and Sky to read it as well. Sky went out of the room, supposedly going to one of the other rooms to get Kat, but she disappeared, picked up Kat and brought her back. She knocked at the door and Misty let them in.

“I see that Misty is not a member of your ghost team,” Ivy said to me, “she took her gun out before answering the door.” “What?” exclaimed Misty, “How come you didn’t tell me about this new ghost team? Why can’t I join it?” “Come here Misty,” I said. She did so very quickly. I whispered to her. She then stood there blinking at me for a few moments. “Just forget what I said,” she finally told me, and she turned and sat on the bed.

All I said was that she would have to die first and hopefully come back as a ghost in order to join the ghost team. Guess she didn’t like that idea. It didn’t take long for Kat and Sky to read through it. There is only 3 months contained in this diary and there isn’t much written on some days. She does mention having arguments with Big Daddy with lots of loud yelling at times.

Big Daddy threatens to tie her up unless she gives up this sex work, but she doesn’t want to give it up. Big Daddy tells her she must stop or he would do something drastic in order to stop her. Big Daddy reminds Jacie that she needs to think of her family too and she’s being a disgrace to them. Therefore it would be right and fair for Big Daddy to do whatever she needs to do in order to stop Jacie from continuing to do those bad things.

Jacie says she now hates Big Daddy for interfering in her life and told her that she and Dan already got married down in Reno. Big Daddy exploded in anger when she heard that and said that Dan would pay dearly for taking Jacie away from her like that. Jacie then told Big Daddy she was moving in with Dan in the morning and would never be back. That was the last entry as Jacie was murdered that evening at the river. Interestingly, Samantha found blood from two different, but related, people on that rock at the river.

It won’t be hard to prove that the other blood is from her mother. Hearing that Jacie and Dan were already married was just too much for Laurie after finding out about the sex work Jacie was doing. She was convinced that Dan forced Jacie into that sex work, but in reality he had tried to keep her out of it. And, although the police chief wasn’t too receptive to Rossana’s call to him, he did start checking some things and he quickly arrested three of the officers.

The sergeant and the other officer decided to run but were picked up by the RCMP before they got out of the province. The police chief had then called me before we went over to talk with Peter and Laurie today. Now, after talking things over with everyone here, I called the police chief and told him I believed that Laurie murdered Jacie and Dan. He then informed me that Peter had just called him minutes before my call and said he had taken his wife to the hospital again, she had a complete breakdown and went violent, yelling to Peter that she had to kill them because of the shame Jacie had brought on the family and especially her.

Not quite the ending I was hoping for in this case, but not every case has a good ending we have discovered. It was especially hard for Crystal since Jacie had been her best friend for so long. I tried to remind her that she now has dozens of best friends here that want to help her through this hard time, including her older brother. “And boyfriend too, right?” she asked. “Yep, and boyfriend too,” I said smiling at her.

She was sitting on my lap at that point and she gave me a big hug and kiss. “Oops, sorry,” said Jennifer, “I keep coming in when you’re busy kissing one of the girls.” We were already back home by this time and Crystal was getting some counseling from Galyna. Ivy was getting counsel from Samantha and Celestine and Emily was getting counsel from Victoria and Galyna. Good thing we have 4 counselors now, although Celestine is more just for Jennifer and I, but she will help in special cases at times.

Both Ivy and Emily want to stay with us, so they will both need a new identity since Kenwood just might want to chase after them. Well, this case was a bit different than others we have had recently. None of our old enemies showed up this time, though we may have a couple new enemies added to our list, with Kenwood and Li.

However, they are smaller time operators that mainly stay in their respective cities of Calgary and Vancouver. Hopefully they won’t think it necessary to chase Ivy and Emily all the way over here to Europe. Well, another case is finally over and we are relaxing once again, but it likely won’t be long before another case comes our way, however, that’s why we’re in this business.

The End. But a new story will begin soon. ©2025 Steve McLeod.