The Investigators, Inc. Mystery of Avina. Chapter 14. Bombs.

Well, it has been 2 weeks now and we are all feeling much better. Kat is back home now and we are all going through a complete physical at the clinic to make sure we are all in good health and so far everyone has passed easily. Four of the girls are spending the night at the clinic to begin their physical early in the morning. That is a real blessing in disguise as they will find out.

It is Carine, Jennifer, Kristina and Sigurbjorn that are there right now. Baldwin, Benson and Bellamy had gone home for the night. Rock and Annelie were still away with Krissy and getting along very well Galyna told us. That is certainly good news and a big relief. I think everyone was asleep, except me, I was worried again. I did not know exactly why, but I was.

Muffin and I went to the kitchen to make some tea. It was just ready to drink when Galyna came into the kitchen and helped herself to some tea as well. “You know Steve,” she said as she sat down, “one of my jobs is to help the team members when they have problems.” “Yes, I know that,” I said a little puzzled, “is someone having problems?”

“Yes,” she said, “the team leader. And he is not coming to me for help.” She looked right at me. “Yeah, I guess I am a bit slow that way,” I admitted, “I tend to stay to myself and try to work things out, sometimes talking to Kat about things, but I do not like to worry her either.” “That is wrong,” said Galyna, “she is your wife, you need to share problems with her. And if something is really upsetting you, then you should be talking with me.”

Meow,meow.=Me just tell him that while making tea. He always bad about talking problems. “That is true,” I said, “I have always been like this, even before starting our PI business. Although I used to talk things over with Muffin a lot at the beginning.” “Well, what is eating at you right now?”, asked Galyna. Meow,meow.=Me not feel right, me feel like trouble coming fast. We both look at Muffin. “What kind of trouble Muffin,” I asked. It was quite fortunate that we were on the main floor at the time.

Meow,meow!=Me hear plane, must hide! And she went under the table. “Under the table Galyna!”, I yelled and we both went under quickly. Suddenly there was a huge explosion… I knew Muffin was right when I heard the plane as they never fly by our place at night and that low. I was expecting maybe some small explosives being dropped but was not prepared for what happened. There was nothing left of our chateau!

Muffin, Galyna and I were okay, that big heavy table protected us nicely. But the others were on the second floor. The top two floors did not exist any longer and the bottom floor was just rubble. Everything collapsed downward and outward. The outside guards called Baldwin right away and he had a crew over here digging through the rubble looking for any survivors. One by one they were pulling us out of the wreckage and taking everyone to the clinic.

Fortunately it had been recently expanded to hold all of us at once if necessary. It was almost necessary. We were the last to get out, although Muffin made her way out quite quickly and told Baldwin where we were and that we were okay. The four girls at the clinic came back to the chateau, or what was left, as soon as they heard the news. Rock wanted to come back right away too but Baldwin convinced him to stay with Annelie and Krissy.

Amazingly everyone was alive, for the moment, although 3 were hurt very seriously. That was Kat, Angel and Cassie. I knew that Avina was behind this bombing and now I know that is her project. Bombs. This was just a test bomb, to make sure it all worked. We should have gone after her sooner. What else is she planning to bomb? Most likely it will be some high profile places.

She tested her bomb on us, not just to see if it worked, but to also get us out of the way. She just did not know we were not all in the chateau that night. We can still track her down, and we will. I called Jake to let him know what happened and that Tracy was okay. She had been thrown out her window but landed in such a way that she was not hurt much from the fall, she did have numerous cuts and bruises though, but nothing serious.

Jake was relieved to know that. He was also surprised he had heard nothing about what Avina was doing. She kept a tight lid on things for sure. John had heard nothing as well. The other 2 cats were okay as well, they had heard us downstairs and had just come down to see what we were doing when the bomb hit. Now Avina, it is our turn.

To Be Continued.

©2022 Steve McLeod.

Coffee For Thursday. #13

Good morning to everyone! It is a mild and humid morning today and it is also cloudy. We are supposed to get a bit more rain today, just showers really. But sometimes those showers can produce a lot of rain for us. We do not exactly need more rain at the moment, we received 1 3/4 inches on Tuesday. That will last a while. But if we get more, then we get more. Oh well. It does hurt the picture taking part of things however.

Speaking of pictures. Yesterday I was out taking pics of the flower flies and wasps that are quite abundant right now. There are a couple of flower flies that I need some better pics in order to identify them correctly. I still need those pics. Those flower flies just do not cooperate sometimes. Anyway, there is also a hornet that comes around looking for lunch.

A lovely male purple finch.

They are hunters, not gatherers of nectar, they want different food. Such as the flower flies. The hornet was flying around casually, I was hoping it would sit down for a picture, but suddenly it zipped after a flower fly and got it. The fly was not much smaller than the hornet and down to the ground they fell in a big fight. The hornet won. I will spare you the gory details. Then the hornet flew off with its prize lunch.

I wonder what would happen if it attacked one of those big wasps? They are bigger than that hornet, and the hornet is huge. I did get pics of the hornet and fly, after the hornet won. Speaking of wasps, I felt something crawling on my arm yesterday so I naturally looked. It was one of those spider wasps. They have a very painful sting. But they do seem to be quite friendly.

Here we have what looks like a two headed white pelican, but really the one is just behind the other.

Unfortunately it was on my right arm so I was unable to get a picture of it. Sigh. Like those flower flies. One of the flies I need a good pic of came and landed right on top of my camera, and looked at me. A couple other flower flies landed on me too, one on my hand and one of my arm. Then one of those huge wasps landed on me again.

That is the second time now. I nearly had a heart attack. But all I could do was ignore it. But ignoring a wasp that is 1 1/4 inches (3.2cm) long is not easy. Not for me anyway. It just sat there. I stood still not knowing what to do. But I decided to keep taking pictures. And it went back to the flowers. I then went back inside where I could collapse without hurting myself.

Here is a pic of that large wasp.

Speaking of bears. There was one on the deck last night. I do not mind if they come at night, except they can be noisy. And it wakes me up. And it wakes up Muffin. And Muffin wants me to stay up. I want to sleep. So I fed her and went back to bed. There is a bit of wind now. Time to get my garbage out to the street. Have a great day everyone and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

©2022 Steve McLeod.