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For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
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.
I had asked Kitty and Astrid to pick up Angel and told Kitty to send Misty and Tracy up to my room. They soon knocked on my door and Sky let them in. “You do things strangely Steve,” said Ivy, “when I have one of my men open the door to let someone in, they have their gun out and ready to use, just in case the person we are expecting isn’t that person, or maybe they want to kill me. But you have your guard answer the door, unarmed, that doesn’t seem very wise to me.”
“Well, Crystal, actually her real name is Sky, would be able to stop anyone that came to that door,” I said, “she is quite an amazing fighter and would be able to stop anyone who came to that door.” “Even if there are 4 men with guns?” she asked. “Yes, even 4 men with guns,” I said, “there are several women on our team that I call our Ghost Team because they can do things that most people wouldn’t believe until they see them in action.” “Uh huh, I still think you’re taking chances,” she said. “You sound like my wife,” I said. “She sounds like a sensible woman,” said Ivy smiling. I sighed.
“Now, Misty,” I said, “you were in charge of waiting for Mr. B to show up and you neglected to tell me about Ivy. Did you even see her?” “Yep, we saw her, but you told us to wait for Mr. B and tell you when he arrived,” she said, “you didn’t say anything about Ivy.” “All 4 of you girls will be getting 5 demerits,” I said, “you should have told me. She might have been coming here to kill me.” “Well, I guess, sorta, maybe,” she said, “but you did have Sky with you for protection and no one can get past her.” I just looked at her.
“Well, it’s not fair to give the other girls demerits,” she said, “I was in charge, I should get demerits.” “That’s a good point,” I said, “so I will give you 5 demerits and give 5 demerits to each of the other girls.” “That’s better,” she said, “no, wait, that’s the same thing, you’re trying to outsneak me, that’s not nice.” I laughed, loud and long. “Are you finished?” she asked finally. “Yep, that was a good one,” I said. Then Celestine came over and sat on my lap.
“Now, my King,” she said, “don’t you think an apology is a good idea?” “Maybe you’re right, my Queen,” I said, “Misty, you need to apologize.” “Hey, not Misty, I meant you!” exclaimed Celestine. “Oh, right,” I said, “I apologize for, uh (Celestine whispered), oh yeah, for laughing at you.” “Accepted,” said Misty smiling. “You have a good time with your team members I see,” said Ivy, “would that include me too if I’m allowed to join?” “Yep, you all have to put up with me,” I said. “And that’s not so hard,” said Sky as she sat on my lap now. We talked more, then had dinner in the restaurant and Ivy stayed with us at the hotel that night.
Meanwhile, “Obviously Ivy sold out to that small time PI,” said Kenwood, “I want her killed the first chance you boys get, and make sure everyone understands that Mitch.” “Sure thing Boss,” he said and off he went. “She knows a lot about our operations,” said Andrew Li, “that could be bad if she told that to the police.” “Yes, that’s why we need to kill her quickly,” said Kenwood. “Or just pick her up and give her to me,” said Li, “she won’t talk to the police after that.”
“I would rather just kill her and get it done,” said Kenwood, “and I would like to get those Investigators out of here quickly too, but they won’t leave until they find out who killed Jacie.” “Hmm, that is a tough one,” said Li, “neither of us did it, Ivy didn’t do it, that leaves Mr. B and Big Daddy.” “Who’s Big Daddy?” asked Kenwood. “I do not know,” said Li, “but Jacie told me she was scared of him and he lives here in Calgary.” “Well, that doesn’t help much,” said Kenwood.
Meanwhile, back to us. Good thing that we ate earlier this evening or we would have bumped into Kenwood and Li and I didn’t want to do that with Ivy being in our group this time. I guess we could have used room service, but it’s nice to get out. The next morning I called Peter to see if we could come over again and he said it would be okay. I didn’t want them to know that we already knew of Jacie’s diary, so I just casually asked them if she kept a diary and they said she did.
I then asked if we could read it, she may have important information in there that could help us find her murderer. “No,” said Laurie, “that is her private thoughts, no one is allowed to read that!” “But if it helps to find out who killed our little girl,” said Peter, “then I think we should let them read it.” “I said NO!” exclaimed Laurie, “You are just trying to find some way to blame Jacie for killing herself! Besides, we all know it was Dan who killed her!” “No, Dan did not kill her,” I said, “we uncovered positive proof that he did not kill her. Unfortunately someone killed Dan now.”
Laurie had a shocked look on her face now when I mentioned we had positive proof that Dan was innocent. “Well, I still think he killed her,” said Laurie adamantly, “he just has ways to make himself look innocent! And I won’t let you look at Jacie’s diary. I am going to burn it today!” “Please don’t do that,” said Kitty, “we are just trying to find the killer of Jacie and get him in prison where he belongs. We are asking you to help us do that.” “Please Laurie,” said Peter, “let them read it, we need to find the killer so we can get some closure in this terrible thing that has happened to us.”
She then stomped off and came back with the last of the diaries, though she said it was the only one. This is the one that would most likely help us anyway. We thanked them both and left again before we disturbed Laurie any more. Jacie did mention being scared of Andrew Li in there and Big Daddy. However, she wrote about Big Daddy in the feminine form, which I thought was interesting.
Celestine said she was scared of a woman that was close to her but wasn’t able to write that, so she chose the opposite, a male figure. Probably due to a growing hatred of men in general because of the sex work she was in. That fit with my original thought of who killed her, but I just didn’t have anything to go on except an idea, and I needed more than that.
To Be Continued. ©2025 Steve McLeod.
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