After Kat made her phone call I told the others to come over to us. Muffin then turned on the scrambler, which had been deliberately turned off so our “friends” could listen in. Now it’s time for some privacy. “The doll has been found,” I said, “and it was just like Jennifer said a while back, it wasn’t actually a “doll”, in the traditional sense, that we were looking for. It turned out to be a picture of a beautiful young woman, the picture hanging above the mantel over there. There was instructions located behind the picture’s back, telling where the drugs were located.”

I was getting weak, couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. “You finish telling them Jennifer,” I said. “It’s a huge haul of drugs,” she said, “likely meant to be shipped across the U.S.” Then she nodded to Muffin who turned the scrambler off again. “While Steve was in their lab and drugged, he saw John and tried to tell us that John was still alive,” she continued, “and John had tried to make a deal with Steve to share the drugs if he told only John when we found the “doll”. He didn’t want to share with Bert, who is the PI we saw on the plane when we flew over here at the first. Being a PI is a cover he uses for his drug dealings. And John hates Bert because, as usual, John wants to be the boss of any operation, he doesn’t like sharing that with anyone.”

Meanwhile, down in their secret lab underground…”Good thing Bert is not around to hear this,” said John laughing. “But Bert is around and finding all of this to be quite interesting,” said Bert. John turned around, startled. “So, you tried to make a deal with that PI?”, asked Bert. “You don’t believe that do you?”, asked John, “it’s total nonsense, I would never go against you Bert.” “Then why did I find Danny down the hall, locked in a room, and dead?”, asked Bert, “I said to take care of him, not kill him. He wasn’t very good, but he was my brother and he was useful for certain things.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” growled John, “maybe it was one of your men!” “And what about my saying to leave your petty quarrels until later,” said Bert, “and you go try to kill Kat and instead kill Jennifer. And don’t deny it, I found the man that escaped and he told us everything, including the guard that let them through your line that was supposed to keep everything safe here. And I found $10,000 on that guard which he admitted you gave him to let those men in and out again. I decided to keep that money since your guard won’t be needing it any longer.”

“Now wait a minute,” said John, “it’s that PI, he is trying to frame me!” “Yes, I’m sure,” said Bert, “do you really think I’m that stupid? And what about all those cops out there right now, swarming all over the place?” “He’s right boss, there is dozens of them,” said John’s man. Then John threw something on the floor which created a heavy cloud of smoke. There was shooting and yelling, but somehow John got away again, and so did Bert, before the police managed to break their way into the secret lab. A few men were found, but otherwise nothing important.

“Are you okay Steve?”, asked Baldwin. He had been waiting for that call from Jennifer to move in with the police. “Not doing so good,” I said weakly, “I’m slowly drifting back to nowhere again.” “Don’t worry Steve,” said Baldwin, “we will take care of that right away. Oh, Kat is doing much better, it was a great idea to get her out of here after her heart had stopped like that.” “That was Jennifer’s idea,” I said, “I was out of it at the time.” That’s when Jennifer had taken Kat’s place again. The one man that had gotten in and shot at Kat only hit the bed, just as a warning for us. But Muffin got him anyway.

That’s when Jennifer got the idea to get Kat out and take her place. It worked good. But, John and Bert are still out there somewhere so undoubtedly we will meet them again. How does John always manage to get away like that? The police found that shipment of drugs and it was huge. That will put a brief hole in the drug market. I’m once more in the hospital after surgery on my back. Looks like it will be a while before going on another case. Surprisingly though I was at home much quicker than I thought, but resting, which meant that no one was allowed to show me the mail and Kat even took my phone and hid it. Which means I had no choice but to rest. Sigh. Hmm, I wonder what will be next for the Investigators?

The End.

©2021 Steve McLeod.