After Mac pulled the huge safe door open, the three girls stood there and said, “Wow, look at that!” all at the same time. Then they turned and looked at Mac. That is when Mac did something that none of them had ever witnessed before. He pointed at them and began to laugh, and laugh, and laugh. It wasn’t long and he was actually lying on the basement floor laughing, loud and long! “I have never seen Mac laugh like that before,” said Misty. “Yep,” said Sky and Angel at the same time.

“Chuckling a bit,” continued Misty, “but never laughing so loud and long.” “Yep,” said Sky and Angel at the same time. Then poor Mac started gasping, he was laughing so much he couldn’t breathe properly. “Oh, oh,” said Sky, “give him artificial rescuation Misty.” “Me? Why me?” she asked, “He’s a man. I can’t do it.” “Why not?” asked Angel, “It’s just like kissing, kind of. You just put your lips on his lips and…” “I know how to do it,” said Misty, “I learned it in the nursing course I’m taking with Dr. Samantha.”

Sky and Angel look at her. “You’re taking a nursing course?” they asked together, “There isn’t enough hours in a day for you to do that along with everything else. No wonder Steve wants to spend a week with you to find out when you sleep.” “I sleep at night,” she replied, “except when ghosts come along and kidnap me and bring me to cold, damp basements.” Finally Mac was able to talk again. “You should have gotten dressed before coming,” he said, “wearing clothes keeps you warm.”

“I am wearing clothes,” she said, scowling a bit at him, “Sky didn’t give me a chance to change.” “I know!” exclaimed Sky and she disappeared. She was soon back with a robe that belonged to Soleil. “This is short,” said Misty, “and she’s taller than me.” “Quit complaining,” said Sky. “You knew about this safe, didn’t you?” Misty asked Mac. “Well, not completely,” he said, “these safes come in three styles. This one has two doors.” It did indeed have another door, which is what surprised the girls and why Mac laughed so much when he saw the look on their faces.

“How do I open this one?” asked Misty. “You don’t, I do,” he said, “you stand way over there.” “Why? I want to watch,” she said. “These safes sometimes have a bomb attached to the inner door,” he explained, “and when the door is opened, it goes boom.” “I’ll go stand over there,” said Misty. “Um, wait, that means you could go boom with the safe,” said Sky, “we can’t let you do that, you’re too important for the team and Steve would never forgive us. I will contact Steve and see what he wants to do.”

Sky did so and I asked her if she could shelter Mac from any explosion. She asked Mac if he would be nervous having her close while he worked. He said no, so she went over and leaned on him while he worked. Misty and Angel sat on a big wood box watching from a safe distance. Angel held Misty’s hand to keep her safe, just in case the explosion was huge, like the safe. Misty suggested they move the box slightly so they could see better. Angel agreed and they tried to push it, but they were unable to budge that box by even a centimeter. “I wonder what’s in it?” asked Angel.

“Who cares,” said Misty, “I just want to see what’s in the safe.” “True,” said Angel. So, they sat and watched, and waited, and watched. “It’s exciting to watch a master at work,” said Misty. Angel looked at her. “If you think this is exciting then you must be bored a lot,” said Angel. “Hush,” said Misty. Finally Mac had the door open, so Misty and Angel ran over and they all stared at the contents. “There’s no gold,” said Misty, “just a couple of old skinnies.” “I wonder who they are?” asked Sky.

“Possibly the first Mrs. Koffman,” he replied, “they never found her body. And maybe her boyfriend. There is the gems from that jewel heist too.” He took out a large box containing the beautiful gems. “Oh, those are amazing!” said Sky, “Too bad we can’t keep them.” Sky then communicated with me what they had found. She said there was also a note pinned to one of the Skinnies. It should be noted that Skinny was the name Muffin had given to skeletons on our third case, and the name just carried on. Anyway, the note read, “The joke is on you Koffman, the gold is gone and only I know where it is! Ha, ha, ha!” It was signed Ben Regrette. “You didn’t think I was serious.”

Meanwhile, back with us. We had heard, through our listening devices planted in Francois’ office, that Francois was planning to kill Koffman once he arrived. Francois was fed up being a “servant” to Koffman and wanted the whole operation for himself. Unfortunately we couldn’t hear the whole plan because they left the office just as they were getting to that part. “We need someone on the inside,” I said, “it needs to be someone fearless, looks very young, can take care of herself in a fight and is very sneaky.” We all started to think and just then Sky, Angel and Misty appeared.

The rest of us looked right at Misty and smiled. “Well, nice seeing everyone,” she said, “now I’m off to bed.” She got to the door and that was all. “Misty,” I said, “come here please.” She stopped, slouched a bit and kind of shuffled over to me. “Misty, how would you like a super sensitive job that requires you best skills and would earn you 3 weeks of vacation time right after this case?” She stood there without saying a word. “Um, you’re not saying anything,” I said to her. “I’m thinking,” she said, then she looked over at Kitty who was slightly behind me.

Kitty was motioning no to Misty and used her hand to make a gun and shoot someone. That’s when she pointed at Misty. “Well, I really do need some sleep,” said Misty, “so, off I go.” “Actually, Misty doesn’t look young enough,” said Jennifer. “Hmm, I think you’re right,” I said, “maybe we should give up that idea. But we do need to find out when they are planning to kill Koffman so we can warn him.” “Um, why do we want to warn Koffman?” asked Misty, “We wanted him dead, this save us the trouble.” “Yes, but Koffman was more predictable,” I said, “Francois is not.

So having Francois as our enemy would be more dangerous.” “Oh, yeah, I guess you’re right,” she said, “anyway, we brought back a huge box of gems!” “Why didn’t you say so?” I asked. “You didn’t ask,” she said. “Must I always ask?” I replied. “It helps,” she answered in return. I sighed. “oooo, that was a big one,” said Misty. “It helps,” I said. Then I got a call from Jazzy saying that Koffman would be coming to meet with Francois in 2 days.

I asked Yves what he knew about the planned meeting. He didn’t know much more than us. He knew that Francois was talking about killing Koffman at some point, however, and Francois was a power hungry man. He also knew when the meeting would take place, and that was certainly important. Now we need to have a talk with Koffman…

To Be Continued. ©2025 Steve McLeod.