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For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Well, Aari and his team had just rescued Clarisse from this unknown gang, at least, they were unknown to us at the present time. I was with 4 of the girls watching Eloise’s place when Jennifer communicated with me that she had sensed danger with Eloise. I then called Sky and she came right away. We hadn’t seen anyone go into the building, which was odd, but there is a back door that is normally locked at all times, though people can go out that way.
However, there is no way to get back inside through that door, unless you meet someone going out. I went with Delphine, Dawn and Sky to check on Eloise, Sherry and Jackie stayed in the car. I still don’t see how anyone could have gotten inside without us knowing about it though, unless the danger is from someone else living in the building. I knocked on the door and Eloise said to come in, so we did.
There were 4 men inside, one with a knife at the throat of Eloise, the other three had guns aimed at us. Those guns were not a problem, but that knife certainly is a big problem. We were told to drop our guns, which Dawn and Delphine did. Sky and I told them we had no weapons. One man went to check Sky anyway, even though it was obvious she could hide no weapons.
“Touch me and you will die,” she said calmly, “I don’t like being touched by men.” One of the other men told him to forget the girl and check me. I had already communicated with Sky not to do anything even if the man hit me. He checked me and then reported that I had nothing. Then he quickly turned and punched me in the stomach. I bent over and moaned like I should.
“What are you doing here?” the man (who was obviously in charge of this group) said to me. “Eloise hired us to find her daughter Clarisse,” I said, “and her boyfriend Marcel. But you knew this of course. And we are here to report our findings for today, which is nothing, since we found nothing today. But I am quite certain you kidnapped the young couple.” He laughed.
“Marcel was one of us,” he said, “you would-be cops know nothing.” The other men laughed now too. “We are not cops,” I said, “we are private investigators, which shows you know nothing.” The girls and I laughed this time. That same guy then punched me again. “Ever heard of the Black Wolves?” asked the leader. “Yes, they are a large motorcycle gang in Canada. I heard some of them are here in France right now. Why they are here, though, I have no idea and I’m not really interested.”
“You will be interested,” he told me, “because they took Clarisse from us today and we want her back. And you will get her for us.” “This might sound like a stupid question,” I said, “but why all the attention for Clarisse? Just because she was engaged to Marcel? That doesn’t make sense.” “Marcel is dead and she knows things that only Marcel knew,” he said, “so we need her back.”
“Interesting story,” I said, “but it doesn’t fit the facts. You sent your men out to kill Clarisse this afternoon. Why do that if she is so important to you?” He had quite a surprised look on his face now. “I told you, we are private investigators,” I said, “it is our job to find out things.” That same man punched me a third time. “You are getting a bit annoying,” I said, “so I would suggest you be more careful.”
“Don’t forget Cormier here with his knife,” said the leader, “he knows how to use it like a surgeon.” “If he kills her, then you will all die,” I said, “that won’t help you with anything. So, maybe you should talk with your boss first before doing any killing.” He obviously didn’t like me saying that, but he didn’t say anything. Anyway, he still insisted they wanted Clarisse back again, which was quite curious and really made no sense. Unless killing her was this guy’s idea and his boss said no to that.
“I would think you could get Clarisse from the Black Wolves just as easily as we could,” I said. “We want you to do it,” he insisted, “let them kill your people instead.” “I kind of thought that might be the reason,” I said, “but if we go after Clarisse, it will be for us, not for you. Eloise hired us, you didn’t, so we work for her. And remember, kill her and you die, which doesn’t get you Clarisse.”
“Tell your girlfriends to sit down with Eloise,” said the leader, “and you come with us.” “No,” said Sky, “he goes nowhere without me.” “This time he does lady,” said the leader. I told the girls it would be okay, but if they decide to hold onto me, then they are to crush these people. Sherry and Jackie saw me come out and get in the car with these men and immediately got in touch with Jennifer.
She told them to do nothing, just let them go. “But Jennifer, they have Steve,” said Sherry, “we can’t let them get away from us.” “We will go after them another time,” said Jennifer, “but for now let them go. Right?” “Yes Jennifer,” said Sherry, sighing, ”’but it wouldn’t be hard to follow…” “No, Sherry,” said Jennifer more firmly, “if you follow them then it’s 2 months of inactive duty for both of you!” “Only two months,” said Jackie, “could be worse.” They smiled at each other.
“What do you say Fluffy?” asked Sherry. “Me Fluffy, me say go get ’em!” Off they went following the tracker on their car, that way they can stay back out of sight. Dawn and Delphine persuaded Eloise to let them stay with her that night while Sky went home to talk with the others. Sky pretended to go out to the car and she smiled when she noticed it was gone. She then disappeared and reappeared at home.
Sky told Jennifer and Kat that Dawn and Delphine would be staying with Eloise tonight and asked if she could take a couple more over there just in case. Jennifer thought that would be good, so Sky took Amerie and Suzette over as well, then returned. “Sky, why didn’t Sherry and Jackie stay there instead?” asked Jennifer.
“Um, well, if they were inside, then they couldn’t be outside,” said Sky, and she quickly went to the kitchen. “Oh, that’s a good thought, I think,” said Jennifer and she looked around, “where did she go so quickly?” Then Muffin came and jumped onto Jennifer’s lap and stared at her. All the other cats followed her into the library which got the attention of all the girls that were in there at the time.
Meow, meow?= Why my human ghost get kidnap without fight? What we are now, bunch of chicken bones? Not want to be part of chicken bones organs with nations. Then she jumped down and left. The other cats watched her go, then they all started meowing the same as Muffin and followed her back to their play room. “This is why I didn’t want to be Leader 1 anymore,” said Jennifer. “Yep,” agreed Kat.
Then they went to talk with the cats. Meanwhile, Sky had communicated with Carine not to bring Clarisse back home just yet, and why. So they took her to a hotel instead and explained to her about a change in plans for the safety of her mother. She understood that, but she didn’t understand why that gang wanted her, she knew nothing about Marcel’s involvement in that gang or any information that they might want.
It is possible she knows something without knowing that she does. Perhaps a hidden code in a plain sentence of some kind. Or maybe they think she knows about that book we found. Perhaps I will find out…
To Be Continued. ©2025 Steve McLeod.
After the encounter with Aari and his Black Wolves, the four men in Marcel’s flat went quickly back to their gang headquarters. Carine and Kitty were with Aari and the others, but invisible. Carine went inside with the guys, while Kitty went over to their car and put a tracker on it while staying invisible. She noticed that there was still one man in the car, likely to protect the car.
That doesn’t protect against a ghost though! Carine put trackers and listening devices on the men inside, after they were sitting moaning and groaning while being searched. We have new trackers for people now that are much harder to find, they almost look like a label, or sticker, which can be quickly put on the inside of a belt, wallet or purse.
With these trackers we can also hear conversations over quite a long distance. Kat, Carolyn and Melanie are doing great with their inventions. Sienna has even started producing some of them for government and military use. Anyway, it was very beneficial this time, and it is our first time using them, so now we know for certain how they work.
I mean, we did test them already ourselves, but that’s still not the same as real use testing. “Why are you back so soon?” the man asked, “And without the laptops and book. What happened?” “Some guys showed up,” said one of the men, “called the Black Wolves, a tough looking bunch and a couple of those guys were huge, and strong.
They claimed to be friends of Marcel and told us if we had anything to do with Marcel’s disappearance then we better run far away.” “Did they mention any names?” the first man asked. “Nope,” said another man, “but the head guy took pics of our ID, like driver’s license, cut up our cards and took our money and guns.” “Anyone go near the car?” he asked again. “No, I stayed in it the whole time,” said Francois, “no one else got out of their van.”
“Good, you did that right,” said Hubert, “now, get that girl in here, maybe she knows something.” In a few minutes they were talking with Clarisse. “Who are these Black Wolves that are friends with Marcel?” growled Hubert. “I, I, never heard of them,” she replied, “Marcel never mentioned them, just like he never mentioned you either. Please let me go home, my mother is not well and she needs me to look after her. Please!”
He then hit her a couple of times causing her to scream. Then he told one of the men to take her back to her room. “You should have killed her when you killed Marcel,” said Hubert, “she is certainly no good to us.” “I thought we could maybe sell her, or use her ourselves and make some money,” said Claud. “The problem is you didn’t think,” said Hubert, “hmm, where did you take Marcel’s body?”
“We stuck it under some fallen trees where guys go fishing all the time,” said Francois, “we figured someone would find it sooner or later and call the police.” “Good, take the girl to that spot and put her there too,” said Hubert, “but don’t kill her ahead of time, drown her. Hopefully the cops will think Marcel drowned her, then was so filled with remorse, he stabbed himself. A typical murder/suicide case.”
Meanwhile, back to us. “Cristy, find that popular fishing spot, in a hurry!” I told her, “Um, Jennifer wants you to do it.” “On it Jennifer,” said Cristy, just as Jennifer entered the library. “What did I tell her to do this time?” Jennifer asked me, so I filled her in. “Good for me,” she said smiling, “talk about thinking ahead of myself.” “You are getting good at that,” I said, giving her a hug.
Then Kat entered the library too and came over to Jennifer and I. “I have had it being Leader 1,” she said firmly, “I don’t get any time for doing things, like inventing, or relaxing, or anything else. Someone is always around asking about this or that or singing those whatever they are and I don’t have any time for myself anymore.” “I agree, it is rather time consuming,” said Jennifer.
“We hereby make you, Steve, Leader 1 from this moment of time,” they said together, and smiled. I smiled back. “That doesn’t work,” I told them. They stood there blinking at me. “And why not?” they said together. “You need to have a leaders meeting,” I said, “plus have all the ghosts and cats present, plus Cristy as recorder, and Galyna and Sienna. And it must be a 100% vote in favor.”
They stood there blinking some more, then arranged it, except Aari couldn’t be there, so he was excluded from the vote. “All those in favor of reinstating Steve as Leader 1, raise your hand, or tail,” they said together, but no one voted. “Since you didn’t vote, then pool time gets cut in half,” they said together, “anyone wish to change?” No one voted.
“I will double your pool time and add play structures 43 to 45 to the cats play room if you vote me back as Leader 1,” I said. Every hand and tail was raised with lots of cheering and meowing. Kat and Jennifer looked at me, then shrugged. “It worked,” they said, “but how do you plan on giving them all double pool time and still get all the work done around here?”
“Easy,” I said, “you just cut the pool time in half, then I doubled it, which brings it back to normal.” They stood there looking at me and blinking. “Someone will be in trouble tomorrow at pool time,” they said together, “don’t expect help from us either.” “You two were part of the trick,” I said, “I could not have done it without you.” They looked at each other and sighed. “Okay, but we get actual double pool time,” they said. “Deal,” I said.
Meanwhile, the gang was taking Clarisse to that pond where they had hidden Marcel’s body before. “There’s a couple guys fishing down there,” said one, “now what?” “Simple, we use our garde champetre ID to scare them off,” said Francois. So, two of them went down to the fishermen to have a talk. The other two stayed by the car, one outside and one inside with Clarisse, but the one inside was in the front, while she was in the back.
Suddenly the man outside the car was grabbed from behind and slammed against the car by Rock. “You again!” he growled, “You don’t listen good.” He then hit the man in the stomach, then hit his head against the car and he was out cold. This caused the man inside the car to turn and look, but then a gun was put against his head and he was told to get out of the car. He was about to yell, but he had his head smashed against the car too, knocking him out also.
As the other two got close to the pond, the fishermen put down their poles and quickly picked up guns. There was a brief gun battle and the gang members were dead. Clarisse was scared by all of this, but Carine was there too, and speaking French to Clarisse, let her know she was now safe and would be taken back to her mother now. But, back home. “I sense danger Steve,” said Jennifer, “it’s with Eloise!”
To Be Continued. ©2025 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 