We sat down in the living room together after Jessica’s uncle and cousin had awakened from their “nap”. Before we start talking I put on my scrambler. “What is that for?”, asked Jessica. “It stops anyone from listening to our conversation, just in case the room has a listening device hidden somewhere,” I explained, “now we can safely talk.” “That’s a good little gadget,” said Jessica’s uncle, “oh, and by the way, my name’s Benjamin Carberry, and that’s my son Benjamin, but we always call him Ben so there’s no confusion when we’re together.”

“Do you know the name of the man that was using you?”, I ask Jessica. “Yes, his name is Gregory Hackett,” she answered, “he’s very tall and slim, and an amazing fighter of martial arts.” “A good thing to know if we meet him, and we shall,” I said confidently, “the only way to be free of someone like that is to eliminate him, one way or another.” “That’s very true,” Kat added, “those kind of people need to be stopped, and we’re definitely going to help you with this.” Kat is catching on, that’s good. “Is this place the safest or is the castle better?”, I ask Benjamin.

“The castle is the best place, there are so many hidden tunnels and passages, hidden rooms that no one knows about,” he said. “Uncle Benjamin is right,” said Jessica, “he knows his way around there perfectly. He has been going through all those hidden tunnels since he was a kid.” “That’s good,” I said, “it gives you a good advantage.” “I like to take Jessica to the castle when new people show up at the Inn, you know, curious types,” he explained, “like the 2 young men that are staying there right now. I don’t trust them at all.” “Neither do we,” I said, “they have been watching us too, so I plan to check them out a bit.”

“How can you do that Steve?”, asked Jessica. “That’s a PI’s secret,” I said. Jessica laughed, so did uncle Benjamin. Ben didn’t and hasn’t been talking at all, perhaps his pride was hurt more than he was. Then I said to the cats, “go over closer to Jessica and sniff her so you can see that she’s real, and not a ghost.” So they did and Jessica picked them up and gave them each a hug. “You see Muffin and M.C.?,” said Jessica, “I’m not a ghost, I’m real!” Meow,meow=Yep, she not ghost, she smell like human, ghost not have smell. Meow.=Yep, that true, she real for sure, feel better now.

“I’m glad we have that settled now,” I said, “but how do you know that ghosts have no smell? Wait, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.” “I want to know,” said Kat, “so you can tell me.” Meow,meow=We see it on “mewtube”, it all for cats and what we need to know, that where I learn languages. Then Muffin smiles. “When did she learn to smile?”, asked Jessica. “I’m not quite sure, but they can both smile, and giggle, and numerous other things,” I said, “now we need to be getting back to the Inn. Is there another road to the castle?” “Yes,” said uncle Benjamin, “just stay on the main road and it’s the second road past this one.”

“Good,” I said, “better to not use the same road all the time.” I sent the cats out to sniff the car before we left, just in case someone had left us a “present” that we didn’t want. Soon we were heading back to the Inn while Kat was busy taking pictures. We needed to show we were just tourists. Jessica had said the lady at the Inn was helping her too so she was someone we could trust. We just went straight to our room and after setting up the scrambler I called Baldwin. He was busy so I talked with Calanthe and asked her to check on Gregory Hackett and Benjamin Carberry and his son Ben, plus Brent Carson and Patrick Marlin, the 2 men from the Inn.

Then I asked her to check on Jessica Collins and her twin sister Candy. “Um, isn’t Jessica an old girlfriend?,” asked Calanthe, “you said she was dead.” “That’s right, she died about 18 months ago,” I said, “but now she has turned up, alive. So she claims, but it could be Candy instead. They were identical twins, no way to tell them apart by looking at them.” “Okay, I’ll try to get this info to you quickly,” she said. Meow.=Human Jessica call me M.C., but she only know my name as Mr. Cat. M.C. new name, Kat start that. “Very good M.C.,” said Kat, “none of us used his name, so how did she know?” “The same way she knew about that big blank wall,” I said, “she has been doing some checking around too.”

To Be Continued.

Previous chapters of this story, and more stories, can be found on my home page under “The Investigators, Inc.” Stories from last year can be found under “20/20 Investigations, Inc.”

©2021 Steve McLeod.