We were eating our dinner when Ivy had told me the young men staying at the lodge, who were sitting at 2 tables across the room from us, had guns. Ivy certainly has an eye for things that others normally miss. I wasn’t even looking at them, guess I should pay more attention to them now. “I notice they are in the same age bracket as the others,” I said, “so it’s quite possible they are with that group too.” Meanwhile, at the local police station.

The store owner from the village came to town and immediately went to the police complaining about us and saying we knocked out their phone lines. “I will check on things,” said William, one of the officers. Then the Sheriff came out of his office and asked William where he was going. “To check on Pete’s complaint about those PI’s,” he replied. “You will stay away from those PI’s,” he said, “they were hired to find those missing women that you were unable to find.

And, we have been told by our superiors to stay away from those PI’s. Even the Governor called and told me to leave them alone. So, you will stay away from them and let them look for those missing women. I mean that, stay away from them.” “Okay, you’re the boss,” said William, “sorry Pete, my hands are tied. I would suggest just ignoring those people, they will leave when they don’t find anything.” “Bunch of cowards,” said Pete, “well, we still don’t like strangers comin’ round into our village, so we don’t have ta help ’em.” Off he went, grumbling all the way.

“He better stay away from those PI’s too,” said Sheriff Pitt, “I’m sure those village people must have seen those women come in there.” He then went back into his office. Meanwhile, back to us. While eating dinner I thought about those young men carrying guns. Then I thought about something else Cristy said. There were 3 moose hunters last year, with high powered rifles, that were killed by a lone black bear. I suppose it’s possible depending on when the black bear attacked them. But, Cristy said they were attacked while eating lunch together.

I would think that at least one of them would be able to reach his rifle and shoot the bear. However, the bear could have surprised them and maybe their guns were too far away. But no autopsy was done, at the request of the families of the men. That seemed a bit odd too. Maybe it was people that killed the men, not a bear. Maybe I’m thinking too much. After dinner and back in our room, I told Sky to have her team ready to go along tomorrow, plus Misty’s team. We would stay overnight this time, I want to have a good look at that old lodge, day and night.

I asked Kat if she would mind being the only ghost left behind this time and she said that would be okay, she could look after Sienna and Celestine. But Celestine wanted to come along this time, so I said it would be okay. We had an early breakfast again and then off we went. Along the way I suddenly told Emerald to stop the van, which she did, suddenly. “Look at that,” I said. The girls looked but didn’t see anything odd. “That’s the problem,” I said, “those 3 telephone poles I had snapped off yesterday are back in place now, and the phone cable is up again too.”

“They must have worked all night to fix that,” said Misty. As we drove along, all the snapped off poles were replaced with new poles and the phone cable restored. However, as we drove along, I snapped off several more poles and broke the cable in many places as well. Plus, I snapped off the hydro poles for about a mile and broke the hydro lines as well. “That will keep them without electricity for a while too,” I said. “Unless they have generators,” said Celestine. “Thanks for that,” I said. “You’re welcome,” she said in return. Sigh.

We stopped in front of the store and some of us went inside. The screen door was identical to the previous one and inside everything was restored to the way it looked before the girls made their mess. We didn’t say anything about that however. I went over to the owner and asked if he had seen the four girls drive through here a few days ago. Pete just stood there with arms folded for a moment, then he answered. “Nope, no strangers been here this year, except you,” he said.

“You’re a liar,” I said, “you saw them come through here heading up to Old Lake Lodge. And I will repeat myself, we are going to stay here until we find those women. And we better find them alive!” “Hey Steve,” said Sky, “looks like a trap door to a cellar.” “Hey, you stay out of there, that’s private,” he said, “you need a search warrant to look around.” “Leave it Sky,” I said, “that’s where this guy keeps all his alcohol and drugs.” “I’m a law abiding citizen,” he retorted. I laughed at that as we all left the store. Next we went straight for Old Lake Lodge and everything was exactly how it was yesterday.

We then proceeded to look all around that old lodge once again. The four cats spread out looking for clues too. I especially told them to look for hidden passages and doors. It wasn’t long and Crystal was calling for me from the back yard area. I went out the back door and there was a man, hanging from a large tree branch. It was Stan, one of the checker players from yesterday. “Guess they were worried he would talk,” I said, “he was rather nervous yesterday. It is also likely a warning for us to stay away from here.” “Do you think it means the girls are dead too?” asked Sky.

“No, I don’t think so,” I responded. Inside, however, I was thinking she was right. “What should we do with the body?” she asked. “For now I guess we will put it in that shed over there. It was an empty shed yesterday, but today it was full of old tools, shovels, boxes, sacks of potatoes, chains, ropes, some jugs of kerosene (which we took into the lodge with us) and some old clothes and books. “Now, why did someone go to all that trouble?” I asked. “Possibly to hide something,” said Celestine.

“That would make sense,” I said, “but we checked that shed yesterday, there was nothing to find.” “Well, then they could just be messing with us,” she said. “That is more likely,” I said, “but we will still put the body in here for now.” We stopped at noon for lunch and talked about what we had found, or rather, the lack of finding anything. The only thing different was that body and the stuff in the shed. Things are not really making any sense, yet. Except the death of that man.

There must be a reason those villagers don’t want anyone out here and we need to find that reason, and quickly. But more importantly, we need to find those four women quickly. We might already be too late. Then it hit me. We have no service for our phones out here or in the village, yet when I called Coral, she answered her phone right away. That means she had to be in town at the time. I told this to the others. “When we were in that third story room,” said Misty, “we were able to get a signal for our phones.” Another idea shot down, but that’s a good thing this time.

To Be Continued. ©2025 Steve McLeod.