For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
It has been a couple of weeks since our last case, which was fast, furious and dangerous, sending 8 or our girls to the clinic with various wounds, some very serious. Some of those girls are out of the clinic now and slowly exercising their way back to health. It will take longer for some others. I was in the clinic for a while too since after a certain explosion, something went wrong with my head. I thought Dawn was Jennifer, and that Jennifer was Dawn.
Jennifer thought it was quite funny at first, and still does actually. But she did see it was more serious than mistaken identity that would only be brief. Misty said it was time for everyone to pray for me since nothing else was working. So, they did. Then Misty came up to me and punched me hard on the side of the head, then flipped me over her shoulder. “Do you feel any better?” she asked. “I was feeling just fine before,” I replied, “but I’m not so sure now.”
“Hmm, maybe I should have hit the other side of your head,” she said, “can I try again?” “No!” I replied emphatically, “Once is quite sufficient.” “Hmm, don’t you want to help further medical science?” she asked. “Not if it means dying a second time,” I said, and I disappeared. “Aha, there you are,” said Jennifer as she entered our bedroom, “poor Misty was just trying to help you.” “Poor Misty?” I asked, “What about poor Steve?”
Jennifer began to giggle, then chuckle, then outright laugh. Sigh. She decided to lie down with me. “At least I have my beautiful wife Jennifer by my side,” I said and I put my arm around her. “Did you just guess my name, or did you actually recognize me?” she asked. I looked at her and smiled. “I just noticed,” I said, “I do recognize you now!” “There, you see?” said Jennifer, “Misty did help you.”
“I think maybe it was the praying, not the punching that did it,” I said smiling, “now it’s time to deal with all this pressure, before I collapse.” “And how will you deal with that?” she asked. I just lay there silent for a while. “Is your hearing gone now?” she asked. “No, I, well, I, am just not quite sure how to do this,” I said to her, “but something has to be done. Please don’t be too upset if something odd happens very soon.”
“And what do you mean by that?” she asked, “No secrets allowed!” “Well, there might need to be one secret this time,” I said, “but only for a short time.” “I don’t think I like that idea,” she said, looking at me. “But it’s necessary,” I said, “please trust me on this one, or you won’t have much of a husband left.” “Maybe a little hint,” I said smiling. “You are bad,” she said, “I should slap you for that.”
Early the next morning just as it was barely getting daylight, Jennifer had a dream, and I was in it. “I have to disappear for a short time,” I said, “but I will be back. Everything will be fine, please trust me, I need to do this or I will definitely collapse. I need time to think without anyone around. Look after the girls, I love you all.” “No, No, NO, NOOOOOOO!” yelled Jennifer and she woke up screaming.
That was heard by Cristy who monitors everything and she hit the Red Alert Leader 1 button and the alert was blared all around the chateau, though not at the men’s chateau. They only hear the Code Red alerts. Anyway, everyone came running to our bedroom, though Sky was there first. Others came in soon and Sky sent them out to look around the property for me and they were to go in groups of 8, except the ghosts.
After everyone was gone, except for Sky and Kat, Jennifer slowly calmed down and told them what I had said to her. So Sky called everyone back inside. Sky is in charge of security this month, which is why she was giving orders and not Kat. Once everyone was back inside, Sky announced to everyone what had happened. “Cristy,” said Sky, “why are the guys not here yet?” “Because it was a Red Alert, not a Code Red,” replied Cristy.
“Please send them a Code Red Leader 1.” “Good as done!” said Cristy. Sky sighed loudly. The guys were just sitting down to eat breakfast with Rock looking forward to his 20 pancakes, dozen eggs and huge pile of bacon, just as the Code Red came through. Everyone was outside and on their motorcycles amazingly fast. Rock had managed to grab several syrup covered pancakes on his way! They made it to our chateau in record time too.
Meanwhile, I was walking along a sidewalk looking for a restaurant that was open so that I could have breakfast. I took a fairly large amount of cash from our safe because I knew they would be watching for me to use my credit card or debit card, then they could find me. There’s a restaurant up ahead, I hope they are open this early. It was open and in I went and sat down. I was the only one in there except for two waitresses that were sitting drinking coffee.
One of them came to me with some nice hot coffee and a menu. I ordered the breakfast special and she disappeared into the kitchen. She then returned with another cup of coffee and sat down with me. “It is such a beautiful morning and you sit here so sad,” she said, “I would say you need a friend to help bring a smile back to your face.” I smiled when she said that. “There we go,” she said with a big smile, “that looks so much better. You sound like a Canadian.”
“That’s right,” I said, “and you also sound like a Canadian, and a long way from home too.” “I could say that about you too,” she said. “But I’m a tourist,” I said, “you are obviously living here.” She looked at me. “It is not nice to lie to your new friend,” she said, “you are not here as a tourist, otherwise you would be happy. Every trail and every trial is lighter when sharing it with a friend. So, let’s be friends, okay?”
“Deal,” I said, “my name is Steve, what’s yours?” “Celestine,” she said. “A beautiful name and a beautiful mineral,” I said, “given to you no doubt because of your beautiful blue eyes.” “Yes, that’s right,” she said, “are you a geologist maybe?” “No, not even close,” I said, “but I do collect minerals as a hobby.” “And you’re married too, I see,” she said, pointing to the ring on my finger, “does that mean you are running away from your wife?”
“No, I am certainly not doing that,” I said, “but I have been under a lot of pressure and stress lately and needed time away to think.” “So, your wife knows you are here?” she asked after the other waitress brought my breakfast. “Um, well, no,” I said, “she knows I was going away, but I told her I couldn’t tell her where I was going, I just needed to be totally alone from everyone for a while.”
“Is that a hint?” she asked, “Like I said, things are better shared with a friend, and since you don’t know me and I don’t know you, then I can be an impartial friend and give you some impartial advice. If you want it.” “That might be a good idea,” I said…
To Be Continued. ©2025 Steve McLeod.
It was a long flight home, but we made it. Even though we all slept on the plane, we were still tired when we arrived home. There were four ambulances and several vans equipped with everything we needed for our wounded girls. It was nice that none of us had to do any driving from the airport to our chateau. The guys will be arriving a bit later and will go straight to their chateau, except for dropping off Carine and Kitty with us.
I keep hoping that Aari will start to show some interest in Carine, because she sure likes him! Maybe we need to enlist the help of Aasta for this one. Well, we did have several of our girls wounded on this trip, but no one was killed at least and that part is good.
We rescued Visty plus 2 other women that had been held in solitary confinement for months. They had been beaten and starved, but on the way home I heard them talking and giggling with our girls. That was so nice to hear. They are friends, both are 22, single and live at home with their parents. Both are the youngest of the children in each family and we will be getting in touch with their families just as soon as we can. I hope their families will welcome them back.
So many of the women we have rescued have not been welcome to return home, which is so sad. As it turned out, their families were overjoyed that we rescued their daughters, so we will be sending them back home on one of our jets, and some of our girls will accompany them. Visty will be staying with us, it seems her parents were both shot and killed just 2 days ago.
Her two brothers don’t want her around their families because the same thing might happen to them or their children. They might be right, still, it seems kind of sad that they don’t want to help her. Misty and Cristy are happy she will be staying with us. The woman from the little shop in Mexico will be staying with us for now until she decides what to do. She has no parents now and she was an only child.
She is afraid to go back to L.A. where she is from originally. Her name is Shelley. We also have the two women from Koffman and they too are not sure what to do at the moment, so they will stay with us temporarily too. The one has no family, the other one does, but they don’t want her around. Sigh. We will need to make an addition onto our chateau if this keeps up.
Our wounded girls will all live and be back to full health eventually. Some sooner than others. Samantha wants me to stay in the clinic for “observation” she says. For some reason she thinks there is something wrong with me. I finally had to concede that there might be something wrong after that blast. I can’t tell who my wife is, and that is a big problem.
Apparently I think that Dawn is Jennifer and Jennifer is Dawn. But when I saw that Dawn had a twin, which I know she doesn’t, that’s when I knew there must indeed be a problem. So, here I am, in bed with nothing to do. Samantha won’t let me use computers, or my phone, right now. Time goes by though and the two we rescued with Visty are now back home with their families.
Shelley has decided to stay with us, so we will need to give her a new identity since Ramon just might want to hunt her down. Cristy is working on that right now. She is also working on new identities for the two girls from Koffman since they, too, have decided to stay with us. I think that Visty should also have a new identity, since Ramon just might want to get her back as well.
However, the three girls want their names to rhyme, just like they have since they were kids. Sigh. Sometimes it’s hard to get the message of safety across to people. Vlora might be coming back to us as well. I sure hope so anyway. If she does, then she will take over my team and I won’t have a team. I will just be in charge, in a general sense, over all the teams.
I will still go on cases though. We found out before that staying at home all the time just didn’t work out for me. We will be taking on fewer cases perhaps, although that can be hard to do as well. But we need more rest time for our teams and team leaders, or we will wear ourselves out. That could lead to more casualties on our teams in the future, which would not be a good thing.
Suddenly there is a head peeking in the door. “All clear,” she said. Then Misty, Cristy and Visty came running inside, after closing and locking the door. They all jumped on the bed, spread a checkered cloth on top of my legs and brought out donuts, 4 each!
“And, they are sneaked donuts,” said Visty, smiling. “Those are the best kind!” I exclaimed. They all said “yep” together. Well, another case is done and we are all recuperating right now. I wonder what is next for the Investigators?
The End. A new story will be coming out soon. ©2025 Steve McLeod.