Lying down my leg was paining so badly it was hard to sleep so Stan gave me some pain relief medicine and because it was a needle, it worked very fast. The night went by quietly and quickly. The guys brought food with them and a propane powered cooler and camp type stove to use. Nice to have some coffee again. My leg was still bothering me a lot and I could tell Stan was a bit worried about that. But he cleaned it up good and put a new bandage on it. During breakfast we talked a bit about what to do next. “The caves are a logical start,” I said, “a voice came out of one after we had been in there, so my guess is a secret room.”

Meow,meow!=It ghosts! We stay away from caves, too dangerous, not like idea. Meow.=I agree with Muffin, something not feel right about caves, we in danger going there. Hmm, both cats are against the idea. Since we had no other lead, off we went to the caves. We checked both of them but there was no sign at all that there might be a secret room in either of them. I had the phone number of the store in that village so I called it. A man answered and I could hear other voices in the background. I asked what time they were open during the day. He said 8 to 8 every day. Hmm, we were there at 5 yesterday. I thanked him and hung up. I told the others. Either the place is actually open or the call is redirected somewhere else. But we had to check.

So off we went back to the village. No one was there and now all the buildings were empty, no furniture or anything, even the store was completely empty. What is going on here? I decide we should go look at the insect man’s house, so we followed the trail and…there was the house, just as it was the first time! There wasn’t even any sign of a fire around the place. It was totally engulfed with flames when we left, how is this possible? Meow,meow!?=See? I told you ghosts here! “Forget the ghosts Muffin, no ghosts built this house overnight. We left here at 6 yesterday, it’s now noon, so they had 18 hours to rebuild the house. With the right crew it could easily be done, especially if everything was ready to go. We looked around but no sign of the insect man or any insects.

We decide to head back to the hotel. Once back there was a recording device on one of the porch tables. I turn it on. “Hi Steve, you likely already know who this is, if not you should give up the PI business. I never thought you could get Lena off the island, but you did it. She’s the one I want because that will hurt you more than anything. I can’t get at her now, so you have won this round. Go ahead and call your boat, you are free to go. I already left last night so you won’t find anything more here. But I will be back sometime, you can’t stay hidden forever. Good luck, I’m watching.”

Hmm, that’s it. Meow=that Katharina, no doubt, she change voice a little, but it her. Meow,meow=Yep, we can tell vibration, every human different, like fingerprint, it definitely Katharina. “Well, I agree with you two on this one,” I said, “but how will we ever find her. I guess we may as well call the boat.” Stan did that and the boat came within view. A small boat was soon on the way to pick us up. “That’s not our boat,” said Mike, “take a look.” He was the only one with binoculars. The others looked and agree, it was a different boat. “Okay everyone,” I said, “get ready to welcome our guests.” We all started to run and hide.

Someone in the boat started to fire at us. Mike and Will were down. Then I was hit and fell. The cats ran up as close as they dared and shot their fire bombs. The boat was immediately in flames! One man jumped out and Stan shot him. The large boat disappeared. Then Stan came over to me, I wasn’t hurt bad and called Baldwin. He got in touch with his boat and it was soon here to pick us up. None of the guys were killed, only wounded. The bullet just grazed me and Stan had me patched up quickly. He didn’t like the idea of leaving me, but I insisted. Everyone, except the cats and I, went on the boat. And Katharina gets away. Or has she?

To Be Continued.

Pictures of Mr. Cat are kindly supplied by his human, Nina.

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

©2021 Steve McLeod.