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For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
After filling the guys in on what has happened today, Melody called with information that I had requested about Blake Swann. Apparently he is a small time developer that basically buys cheap land and then hires contractors to build whatever he is looking to build at the time. Sometimes that is apartment buildings, or stores, small strip malls, houses large and small, restaurants and other things. Except for one little problem, most of the time he buys this cheap land it is never any good for larger projects so he hires contractors to build houses which he then sells for less than it cost him to build.
All this adds up to him having gone bankrupt 3 times and then starting over after moving to another part of the country. He is presently $500,000 in debt, which is not so bad, but that doesn’t include the money he has spent already on the land here, which is $200,000, plus the large house he has built for himself which cost him $800,000. When he moved here he had $1,500 in his bank account. How did he get all this money when he came here? Was he able to talk a bank into loaning him that kind of money?
However, he does own a cottage on the lake. That’s what Melody said at first anyway. Now, there are cottages on this lake and there are what people call cottages, and there is a big difference between the two. One is a typical cottage where a family comes to spend the summer. The other is a massive mansion where people come to spend one weekend a year. Swann owns one of those massive places, debt free. He also owns one of the largest boats on the lake, a yacht really, plus two smaller yachts which are still big.
Interestingly he hasn’t used any of this to secure loans and Melody couldn’t find any loans for him anywhere. He doesn’t have money, but he still spends large sums, so he must get it from somewhere. That means he is getting it from illegal means somewhere, but so far they haven’t discovered where he gets it. Perhaps he is not the main person in all of this, someone else might be, someone who likes to remain unknown.
Swann does have “friends”, so they are going to check on them next and Akila is going to try and hack into his phone or computer, or both. I wonder if those 4 men are here to watch Swann for that unknown man. And what is Swann’s connection to this gang? Melody had some information about the gang too, including the current leader. They are connected with a gang in the city and the top people of that gang are often in a particular nightclub owned by a man named Herbert Williams.
Swann is also a frequent visitor to that nightclub whenever he is in the city. The next morning after breakfast, Cristy called to tell us more. Akila was able to hack into the computer at the nightclub. She found a lot of information about the dealings between Swann and Williams. Although the nightclub is quite successful, the money it brings in is nothing compared to what is actually made by Williams. Plus he and Swann are partners with a 50/50 deal between them.
So, they both make $3 million, plus the money from the club. I sent photos of those four men to Melody last night and Cristy said they have no news on them yet, but she will let me know right away when they do. I rather think those men were sent to watch Swann which means that someone doesn’t trust him. Perhaps his partner? But why would he want to keep an eye on Swann? We went back over to Elenore’s next to see how things were going.
A ghost showed up again which was kind of odd, we found all the cameras in the house. “Obviously we missed some,” said Jazzy. “I second that thought,” said Misty. “You were in charge of that,” I reminded Misty. She stood there blinking at me. “There’s no way we missed any cameras,” she said confidently, “it must have been a real ghost.” “Misty, there are no ghosts,” I reminded her again. “Then what are they, chipmunks?!” she exclaimed. That got me and I started to laugh, and laugh.
Sky came over to Misty and put her finger on Misty’s arm while she watched. “AAAA!” said Misty as she jumped off the floor. “That wasn’t nice, Steve is the one laughing,” said Misty frowning. “You made the joke,” said Sky. Now I was laughing even more. Elenore saw the ghost in her bedroom and the girls, plus cats, have been searching her room since breakfast but have found nothing. “I’ll go look,” said Misty and she took Storm with her.
“Tiia, Tracker, Sir Night, go and help them please,” I said and off they ran. Kitty noticed someone running away from the house, so she looked out the window just as the guy jumped in a waiting car and it drove off. She told me about it and then went to the door and there was a package on the steps. “Take it away from the house, quickly!” I said. She grabbed it and Sky went with her out to the street. I asked Elenore if she was expecting anything, but she said no, so I called to the girls to destroy the package.
However, Sky had taken one of our scanners with her and checked the package and Azura sniffed it meowing there was no bomb inside. So, they opened it and there was an envelope inside with my name on it, however, they opened it anyway just in case there was something poisonous inside. It was a drawing of a man with a raven on his head and my name on the picture. They brought it in to me but I didn’t know what it meant, neither did anyone else.
So, for now I won’t worry about it, however, I will try to be more careful. Misty and the cats came back after finding more cameras. Kitty said they all went out for dinner last night and were gone for nearly 2 hours. Hmm, that would have given someone lots of time to put more cameras in here, so the girls and cats then began another thorough search of the house, but they didn’t find anything else. “That smoke detector is different,” said Friskie.
Sky jumped up and brought it down for us to look at. Sure enough there was a camera hidden in it, so then she checked the others and all had been changed with ones that had cameras. I called Cristy and asked about these cameras, so she asked me about them and it wasn’t long before she had an answer for me. The cameras were being controlled by a computer at Swann’s house. Well, well, it’s time we started to play this game too, and we will begin tonight, or sooner. “Let’s go pay a visit to Mr. Swann,” I said to Sky…
To Be Continued. ©2026 Steve McLeod.
Once inside Elenore said to me she was glad that no bullets hit me, but I told her two did, however, I was wearing my bullet proof vest which protects me front and back. She was relieved to hear that. Now that we know this case is going to be so dangerous, all of the team will be wearing their vests while outside. I asked Elenore if some of the girls could stay with her tonight for protection. She was very happy with that idea and she has lots of room since it is a 4 bedroom house even though 2 of the bedrooms are quite small. I told her that didn’t matter, the girls won’t mind a small room to sleep in.
I am going to leave 6 of the girls here and they will take turns staying awake during the night to guard Elenore and the house. While we were talking Friskie went over to Misty who was studying that baseball. “That biker was from a criminal gang Steve,” said Jazzy, “why would he stop to toss a baseball?” “It is a criminal gang for sure,” I said, “how did you know?” She just looked at me. “I was involved in the criminal world for 20 years Steve,” she said, “I know another criminal when I see one, especially when they have that kind of name on their jacket.”
“I must admit, the baseball is hard to understand,” I said, “yet it seems to be just a normal baseball.” Misty then came over and handed me the baseball. Hmm, seems it isn’t quite normal after all, it had a message written on it. I didn’t think anyone sent invisible messages anymore, but there it was, “Meet me at the fish, 4pm”. He writes a nice message, short and to the point. “You’re not planning to go, are you?” asked Jazzy. “Well, it’s the only way to find out what he wants,” I said, “I won’t go alone though.”
I then communicated with Jennifer and Kat about the message. They agreed that I should go, but only if I took Sky and Angel with me and one of them had to hold my hand at all times. I agreed with that. At 3:50pm we stopped in the parking lot. “I don’t see any fish vendor,” said Misty. “There isn’t one,” I told her, “turn your head that way and you will see a fish.” She turned and looked. “That thing is a fish?” she asked. “Yep, they swim around in the lake,” I said. “Nope, I will not swim in this lake,” she said.
“It’s too cold for swimming anyway,” I said. “Good thing, ’cause I would never swim in that lake with a fish that big,” she said, “nope, not me, never, not a chance.” “Okay, you girls stay here, only Sky and Angel can come with me,” I said, and off we went. We arrived at the fish at precisely 4pm and the man was sitting on a bench, so we went over to him. But before we got to the bench Angel stopped me. “Wait, there is something wrong,” she said, “I will check him out, but you stay here with Sky.”
I wasn’t going to argue though I didn’t sense any trouble and Jennifer hasn’t contacted me about sensing danger. Angel said something to the man, but he didn’t speak, so she gave him a light push and he fell off the bench onto the sidewalk. He had been stabbed! So, we quickly returned to our car and went back to the hotel. Oddly enough the police were waiting for us and tried to arrest us for the murder of the biker. I asked how they knew about the murder of the biker and apparently they received an anonymous tip so they checked and found him dead.
They were told I, or one of my team members, killed him. I asked why they left his body on the bench. They wanted to see if I would return to the scene of the crime. I told them they have been watching too many movies. There is no logical reason for me to go back to check on a dead body, that would be foolish. He then mentioned we had also killed that man over at Elenore’s. I said there was no “also” involved, we did not kill the biker and they have no proof we did. The man over at Swann’s place shot at us and then he fell out of the tree, how could we kill him from where we were standing without shooting him?
They had to admit there were no marks on his body, one of the nice points for those lightning balls. Sky can make them hot or cold and either way they pack a lethal punch of electricity, though I didn’t mention that. Right then our lawyer arrived, Misty had called him to come down to the lobby and help us with the police. He managed to get rid of the police quite quickly too. They could hardly arrest us for anything, they didn’t even catch us at the body of that dead biker.
I do wonder who killed him though, perhaps his own gang? Or was he killed on Swann’s orders? This is quite interesting though, we have just begun our investigation and already two people have been killed. Fortunately none on our side though. We went to the restaurant and had dinner and while there I sensed trouble in the room. I finally narrowed it down to one table where four men were sitting. “Those men are carrying guns,” said Friskie as she looked out across the lake.
“How can you tell when you’re looking the wrong direction?” I asked. “I saw them when the waitress brought our food,” she said casually, “and I noticed you were checking people in the room.” “Yes, they are trouble,” I said. That’s when the other girls turned and looked too. “Try not to be so obvious, please,” I told them and they went back to eating right away. “Men with guns are always trouble,” said Jazzy. Just then our 5 guys came into the restaurant and joined us. I had reserved a table large enough to add them since I knew they would be arriving shortly.
I even ordered for them and the waitress brought their food out quickly. “The 4 men at that table have guns,” said Mac. “Yes, we were just discussing that,” I replied, “I also sense trouble from them.” “Men and guns usually spell trouble,” he said. Jazzy had just taken a drink of water and she spit it out all over Sky when Mac make his comment. Seems she was trying hard not to laugh. “I’m all wet,” said Sky. For some reason that got Misty laughing.
Sky reached her leg across and touched Misty’s knee giving her a gentle touch of electricity. That caused Misty to say “AA”, though not too loud, and she jumped also. Sky just giggled and kept on eating with Misty frowning at her. We finished and went back to our rooms, but those 4 men were still at their table talking as we left. The guys came to our room so I could bring them up to date on our day of events. Then Melody called to give us the information they have found on Swann…
To Be Continued. ©2026 Steve McLeod.
