“Okay Steve,” said Jennifer, “what is going on? You said we would be leaving early this morning to surprise Brenda, and we have not even had breakfast yet, it is 8am now.” “Hmm, true, it is,” I answered, “call everyone and tell them to order breakfast, whatever they want. Then order something for us. We have to eat in our rooms though.”

Meow,meow!=It about time, we nearly on empty! Meow.=Yes, want pancakes. Meow,meow.=And bacon. Meow.=Yes, bacon too. I laughed at them, and Jennifer ordered us all the same. “Now, about my question,” she said. “Well, Brenda attacked us and what did we do?”, I asked her. “Well, nothing,” she said, “but we had other things to do first.”

“True,” I agreed, “but Brenda was likely expecting a quicker response and when we did nothing, she killed Krissy.” “Oh, I see,” said Jenny, “she is laying another trap for us to finish us off for good.” “Exactly what I was thinking,” I told her, “that is why we are doing nothing, except going back home. But, first, we need to do something. I want to fight Brenda on our terms, not on hers.”

After breakfast we all got together for a team meeting, then had a nice relaxing day. That night Jennifer and I went to deliver a message to Brenda. Our team would be close by if anything went wrong. Brenda had a large estate with an electric fence all around it, with high voltage, enough to kill people for sure. But we were ready for that.

Franklin and Tuva had come along this far, and they dug under the fence so we could crawl through. Soon we were at the house and according to the floor plan that Mandar gave me, the bedroom Brenda uses is on the second floor, directly above us, and her window is open. Nice of her to do that for us. It is 3am so she should be sleeping now, apparently, she always goes to bed at 2am without fail.

I like when people have a regular pattern to their lives, makes things so much easier. I have a little gun to shoot my rope ladder, it is powerful enough, but also almost totally silent. And it has a hook on the end to catch onto whatever is available. In this case there is a flat roof with 3-foot-high railing around the edge. The hook grabbed tightly on the first try which was nice.

Up we went and in through the window. Sure enough, Brenda was sleeping soundly. I took out my knife. “Let me,” said Jenny, “it will be quick.” “Sorry, this is just a warning,” I said. “Rats,” said Jenny. I put the note on the bed beside Brenda and stabbed it in place with the knife. Then we left in a hurry, down the rope ladder which I just left in place. I wanted Brenda to see how easily we did this. Then we ran across the yard and into the trees to the fence.

Once at the fence I fell to the ground. “Are you okay Steve?” asked Jennifer. “Yeah, I think so,” I said. Jennifer called the others and said put in a code B1, which means I am having trouble. The cats came running to the fence, they had stayed close in case there was a problem, but they could not help me with this one. Jennifer helped me under the fence and further into the trees and out of sight.

Franklin and Kristina were there quickly to help and between them they nearly carried me back. Jennifer carried the cats, MC was on her shoulder looking backwards in case anyone followed us. We were soon at the vans and off we went. Jennifer called Chung right away. “He should not be doing anything like that so soon,” he said, “he needs more rest, it has been a very stressful time for him. You must convince him to rest.”

How do I convince him to rest, she thought to herself. Not long after we left there was a loud scream from Brenda. She had found the note. Her guards came running in to see what was wrong. “I thought we had an alarm system in this house, why did it not work??”, she asked. “You had your window open again,” said one guard, “that disconnects the alarm, you need to keep your window closed.” “I like fresh air!” she yelled, “we need to get that fixed! How did that PI find me anyway?

And he calls me a coward too! I will show him who is a coward! Get everyone ready, we have work to do.” Meanwhile she had a shower and came back into her bedroom to get dressed. When she opened her closet door, a man was standing there with a knife. It took a while, but her main guard finally came looking for her and found her on the floor. She was dead.

News came out quickly since she was well known. After getting home, Mandar called me and asked if I had heard the news. I did not know what he was talking about. “It seems that Brenda was found in her bedroom early this morning,” he said, “she had been killed, stabbed by an unknown assailant. You will not need to worry about her anymore. And please, no guesses as to who may have done this terrible thing.”

“Thank you for letting me know Mandar,” I said, “perhaps I can relax for a while now.” “Good,” he said, “and maybe work on that clue a bit, it has me completely baffled.” “I will do that Mandar,” I said chuckling…

To Be Continued.

©2022 Steve McLeod.