“What is going on here,” demanded the hotel manager. Rock put the desk clerk down and turned to see who was talking. The hotel manager is rather short, while Rock is rather tall. Rock looked down while the manager looked nervously upward. “I am looking for my friend who is staying at your hotel,” Rock began, “but this fellow said he was not staying here.” “He has not come in here sir,” said the desk clerk rather shakily. “Well then, why are you upset Mr…”, the manager said.

“I am upset because my friend is here,” said Rock, “he called me to say where he is staying and to meet him here if I was in the area. Well, I am here, so what happened to my friend?” “Perhaps your friend has not arrived yet,” said the manager. “That could be it Rock,” said Tracy, “we can get a couple of rooms and wait for them to arrive.” “Well, I am sorry, but we are full right now, no rooms available,” said the manager with a weird smile. Rock just looked down on him and said, “then throw someone out so we can stay.

Or we can stay in my friends rooms until they get here, they must have made reservations.” “Oh, yes, here are the reservations,” said the desk clerk, “we do everything the old fashioned way here, you know, pen and paper, no computers.” “Oh yes,” said the manager, “it is in keeping with our old Klondike decorating.” So Rock and the others settled into the two rooms and waited to hopefully hear something from us. They also talked over what they might do in looking for us around this town.

Meanwhile, back to the missing team one members. I awoke in a small room resembling a type of jail cell. Lesson 1 learned, we should have checked our rooms after getting back from getting rid of Brenda. We did check them when we arrived, but we were gone long enough that someone obviously hooked up some gas to put us to sleep. Very bad thinking on our part. “He is awake,” said Brenda, “go get him.” I heard someone at the door and was ready for a fight, except, there were 3 of them, so I decided that fighting would not be such a good idea after all. Oh well.

I guess we are on our way to meet with Brenda now. I know what she wants. “Did you have a nice sleep?”, she asked. “Why yes, thank you,” I said cheerfully. She looked at the man standing next to me who then hit me in the stomach. “I guess he did not sleep well,” I said, holding my stomach. “Please sit down Steve,” said Brenda, “we need to have a talk.” “That is fine with me,” I said, “but you know, I just cannot remember ever meeting you before, but I have a feeling we must have met.”

“Well, I met you, but you did not meet me,” she said with a smile, “at the end of our last meeting though, I had to admit that you won that round, but I would win next time. This is now “next time”. I still could not understand what she was talking about. “Do you remember Sigubjorn’s sister?”, she asked. That was it, The Mountain Cabin mystery with old Pete. “Okay, now I remember, but you stayed out of sight in that one,” I said. “Yes, well, it was really a sibling fight, so I stayed in the background,” she explained, “but this time it is me, and I do not plan on losing this time. Now, just give me what I want and you may leave unharmed, and with your friends too.”

“I guess you mean that piece of paper with the coded treasure hunt,” I said, “but I do not have it with me. You should have been able to find it easily though. I just hid it under the mattress.” She looked at the one of the men. “Did you not look under the mattress?”, she asked angrily. “Who hides something under a mattress?”, he asked, “that is a stupid place to hide something.” “That is why I put it there,” I said, “it is a stupid place to hide anything, so people are less likely to look there.”

“Go back to the hotel and get that envelope,” she said firmly, “NOW!” The men left quickly. Brenda and I were left alone. “Do not get any ideas,” she said, “all I need to do is press this button and your friends will not be treated very nicely.” “Hmm, I kind of figured there would be a catch,” I said, “would it be okay to have some coffee?” “It is right beside you, help yourself,” she said. The coffee was actually quite good. Soon Brenda got a phone call. “We can’t search the room,” said the man, “it was rented out to some friends of that PI.”

Brenda pounded the desk she was sitting on. “Well, wait around,” she said, “they will likely go out at some point, then you can search. It seems you have some friends in town and they are staying in your room.” “That is probably because I was unable to check in with them so they got worried and came looking for us,” I said, “that is the way our team works.” At that point I activated my alarm. “Steve’s signal is coming through now,” said Rossana.

To Be Continued.

©2022 Steve McLeod.