I am presently talking with our mystery woman, Betty Wilcox, though her real name is Elizabeth Florence. Our computer girls have put together a complete history of her life for us now, though her mystery partly remains. We also now know that Hagen Schneider is actually Nikolas Bauer and I thought right away that Andressa Bauer was his wife. However, she is his sister and apparently neither of them are married, nor do they have a partner of any kind. We have discovered that Nikolas Bauer has kidnapped the three children of Elizabeth.

Most likely his sister is involved in that as well. The question now is, why? It was easy enough for us to verify Elizabeth’s story that she has no money, except for her savings of 10,000 pounds, which isn’t a great deal. Yet this man is asking for a ransom of 50 million euros! There is something wrong with this picture. I told Elizabeth we have to talk things over between us, something we do with every case, before I can let her know if we will take the case or not. “Well everyone, what do you think?” I asked, “If we take the case there is a good chance we will lose our 6 girls. If we don’t take the case, then this woman loses her 3 children who will be used for unthinkable things, then killed.”

Snow was first to speak up. Meowy!= “It no one with brains! We have to take case and save human children people. I not want to lose my human, or any of our humans, but rule book say we not can’t let no one push us around or tell us what to do or not to do. If we do then we not The Investigators, Inc. anymore. Human leader Steve and mommy Muffin start Investigators to help people, not for running away cause we fraidy cats! If we going to run away, then it time to stop being Investigators and get other job!

Mommy Muffin and Mr. Cat die helping others, but they not fraidy cats at least!” Kat reached down and picked up Snow, smiled and gave her a hug. “You said that perfectly Snow,” said Kat, “mommy Muffin and Mr. Cat were definitely not fraidy cats and the rest of us better not be either. I know our 6 kidnapped girls are sure not fraidy cats. So, who agrees with Snow and Steve?”

There were cheers throughout the chateau as everyone agreed to take the case. I called Elizabeth right back and told her we would take the case and asked her to provide any details that might help us. I also told her not to tell anyone that we would be helping her as that would make things more dangerous for us. I still did not want to tell her that 6 of our girls had been kidnapped. There is still 11 days before Elizabeth needs to pay the ransom, which gives us quite a lot of time to find our girls, and hopefully Elizabeth’s children too.

Most likely they are all kept in the same building, though that may not be the case. If the children are already being used in porn, then they might be kept elsewhere. Mandar said he would gladly pay the ransom if I thought it would secure the release of the children. Unfortunately Bauer would likely just kill them once he had the money. “Once we find out where this guy has our girls,” said Sky, “then we ghosts can get them out easily enough. I can take us all to their building invisibly.” “But you need to know exactly where you’re going,” I said to her.

“First we need to find the town, or city,” she pointed out, “then I take everyone there. Then we look for the building they use. We can drive around in taxis for that.” “He just might have some kind of business,” said Mandy, “try looking for that.” “We have been trying to look for any kind of business under his ownership,” said Wisty, “but there is nothing.” Mandy went over to Wisty and did some typing on her computer. After about 5 minutes Mandy pointed to something that she found, then she came over to me and sat on my lap, crying and wanting to be cuddled.

That’s something I can still do even though I have been demoted to staying at home. Akila, Melody and Trixie checked to see what Mandy had shown Wisty. Melody and Trixie gasped when they saw what it was, Akila already figured what Mandy was going to show them. Poor Mandy, it brought back memories of things she wanted to forget. I gently reminded her that she has been a wonderful help to Steffie because of what she experienced, and also a big help to Erika as well, though I wished she didn’t have to go through any of it.

Steffie then came carrying a big plate of donuts and Erika was with her carrying fresh coffee. “Yes, fresh donuts!” exclaimed Sky. She never should have said that because it caused a mini stampede with all the girls in the library running and squeezing their way through the library doorway, heading to the kitchen. As the girls returned from the kitchen they asked Sky why she was on the floor when there were fresh donuts in the kitchen. “I enjoy being on the floor,” said Sky sarcastically. Sky came shuffling back to the library, all the donuts were gone.

But Steffie met her, holding up two donuts. “Got him!” yelled Melody, “And they are located in an old stone building too, about 400 years old.” “Too bad he has already seen you ghosts,” I said, “otherwise we could haunt that old building.” “You seem to forget that we can change the way we look when we’re ghosts Steve,” Kat reminded me, “we just need an open door, or window, to get in since Jennifer is the only one that can walk through doors.” “He doesn’t know me daddy,” said Mandy. I looked at her.

“No, it is much too dangerous,” I told her. “Not with all of us ghosts around,” said Kat, “and we will leave one of us with her to guard her.” “No, it’s much too dangerous,” I told Kat. “What about our girls?” asked Kristina. “And 3 little kids!” exclaimed Steffie. “She will be perfectly safe,” said Jennifer, “and how else will we get inside that building? It’s doubtful they keep the door unlocked.” “No, it’s much too dangerous,” I repeated for the third time.

It is now the next day and Misty was on the phone at the same time, but she had no news for either me or Storm. However, it was obvious something was wrong. Even though she claimed everything was fine, her voice was mechanical, like she had a rehearsed speech, or perhaps she was reading it. Whatever the case, it wasn’t good and I didn’t like it. We had to get things moving more quickly. There was still something that didn’t fit about this case.

Why was Nikolas asking such a huge ransom when it was easy to find out that Elizabeth didn’t have that kind of money. He wanted to keep the children, but why? They certainly wouldn’t bring in that kind of money for him, not even close. But if he wanted to keep them, why not just kidnap them and forget about this phony ransom idea? Anyway, our team of ghosts is now in place and Mandy is dressed for her part which will hopefully get the attention of Nikolas or Andressa…

To Be Continued. ©2026 Steve McLeod.