Lena comes in and sits down beside me on the bed. “There’s something strange going on,” she said, “Lara is not acting like herself. She doesn’t scare easily, she teaches several martial arts classes, she knows how to protect herself. And she’s carrying a gun too, she has a holster on her back, that’s why she’s wearing that big loose sweater.” “Hmm, I thought she seemed scared and nervous, but not about this curse she’s talking about,” I said. “That’s another thing, she lied,” said Lena, “her brother died only 2 years ago, not 5, and it had nothing to do with a breakin. He committed suicide. That’s when she got the cat. She never told me about the curse before, so I don’t know if that legend is real or not.” “It’s beginning to look like she just wanted to get us out here for some reason other than what she is telling us,” I said, “so we need to be very careful from now on. I think someone else is involved with this also.”

Meow?=You think maybe that human Gisela doing this? “I don’t know Mr. Cat,” I said, “but it would certainly be something that she would do.” “Lara is such a nice woman Steve,” said Lena, “I just can’t imagine she would turn bad like this.” “Things can happen to people sometimes that changes them,” I said, “a large debt, or there’s a lot of money involved for her, or there’s something in her past she doesn’t want revealed, it could be one of many things.” “Something in her past,” said Lena, “now that makes sense. One time she was going to tell me something she had never told anyone before, something that bothered her from her past, but some friends showed up right then and we never got back to that again.” “Hmm, another piece of the puzzle to think about,” I said, “but tonight we just make sure we are watchful. I want the cats to stay with you tonight Lena.” Meow,meow?=But then who look after you? I go with Lena and Mr. Cat stay with you.

“No Muffin,” I said, “I don’t want you cats split up, you stay together.” “There’s a big sofa in here, I could sleep on that,” said Lena. “Hmm, maybe that’s a good idea, better to stay together, only I’ll sleep on the sofa,” I said. At 2 am the alarm went off on the cats collars, gas in the room! I woke up everyone, grabbed my gun and we rushed out of the room. Once in the hall there was a shot! I felt the pain and dropped to the floor. I came to a few minutes later on my bed with Lena and Lara patching up my wound. It was only a graze on my head and wasn’t serious.

It seems that 3 men came in, one shot me, one grabbed Muffin and all 3 ran! Mr. Cat got one of them however, plus he hit the gunman in the back, but he still got away. Meow!!=They took my Muffin!! They took my Muffin!! Poor Mr. Cat, he’s blaming himself because of not protecting Muffin. I managed to calm him down, telling him he did the best he could and did very well for getting one of them. It was actually my fault, we should have been taking turns watching through the night. I won’t make that mistake again. All these safety gadgets I have are nice, but sometimes you can’t beat the old fashioned way of doing things. Lena spent the rest of the night with Lara while Mr. Cat and I stayed awake to watch…and think.

This is not good, Muffin is in trouble and we have no idea where she is or what is going on. In the morning, after breakfast, I told Lena and Lara to come in the living room so we can talk. I went over to Lara before she sat down and pointed my gun at her and took her gun, tossing it over to Lena. “What’s going on?,” asked Lara, sounding quite nervous. “We are going to have a talk,” I said, “you have not been truthful with us and now Muffin is missing. That means I have zero patience right now with playing games, except my own game.” I point my gun at Lara. “If you answer truthfully, there will be no problems, if not, I pull the trigger,” I said. Her eyes got real big. “Now, who is behind this?”, I asked. “I, I, don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, nervously. “Wrong answer,” I said and pulled the trigger.

To Be Continued.

Picture of Mr. Cat kindly supplied my his human Nina.

Previous chapters of this story can be found on my home page under, “The Investigators, Inc.”

©2021 Steve McLeod.