Giuseppe is gone!  But how?  I know he was dead, so he couldn’t just get up and walk away.  That means someone else is out here Muffin.  And they left Giuseppe’s body here as a warning for us.  Meaning that they will kill us if we don’t leave.  They are trying to scare us again Muffin, but are we going to let them scare us?  Meow, meow!=Yes, it worked, I’m scared, let’s go back home!  Sigh.  First thing to do is get out of here Muffin. Meow.=finally some good sense.  I look around outside the window but don’t see anything so out we go!  We head back to the main door and go inside.  One more thing to do Muffin, here, can you reach?  Meow.=Yep.

After she’s done she jumps back down.  Uh, Muffin, I was holding my arms out for you. Meow.= Your head was closer.  She steps down onto my shoulder.  Okay, now we head back outside and look around a bit more.  Meow, meow?=Are you looking for sore feet? Muffin gives one huge sigh, then out we go.  We just walk around a bit looking at the different stone planters.  It’s a beautiful moonlit night, though not a full moon which was good.  That would have illuminated things a bit too much for whoever is watching us.  I bend down and shut off Muffin’s mini headlamp and whisper something to her and off she goes by herself.

I walk around a bit shining my flashlight in different directions.  Finally I stop and sit on the edge of a stone planter and turn my flashlight off.  It was quiet out there that night. I heard some kind of peeping off along the shore, but that was it.  Muffin returns a few minutes later.  Any problems Muffin?  Meow.=No problems.  Okay, let’s head back in and get some sleep, it’s going to be light in a couple of hours.  Meow, meow?=Someone is trying to kill us and you want to sleep?  We get to our room, everything seems to be in order so it’s off to bed.  Even Muffin settled down quickly, she was tired after our busy night.  The rest of the night passes quietly.

I actually get to wake up Muffin this morning.  Meow?=Morning already?  Yep, time for some breakfast, the girls won’t be here for another 2 hours.  After breakfast we’ll walk around the island for a bit and enjoy the scenery and just relax after last night.  Meow, meow!=Outside? Good, let’s get going then!  It’s a fairly long island, a little over 1 km in length (.7miles), but very narrow and there is a nice path to follow making it easy walking.  Muffin and I are having a wonderful, relaxing time out here this morning, it’s a good way to clear our heads a bit so we can think about what’s going on out here and why.  We stop and look at some of the sites along the way, but there’s nothing really out there to help us in our case.

On the way back we spot Rossana and Olivia coming over by boat and they naturally beat us back to the palace, which is okay.  It’s so peaceful out here we are in no hurry to get back to work, though we know we must get started again.  But where?  I also want to come in after them to see if they act surprised to see us alive.  Let’s be quiet Muffin and listen to them talk a bit.  Meow.=Right.  We get up to the kitchen door and wait.  They aren’t in their bedroom, says Olivia calmly.  Well, I guess we’ll have to wait for them, replies Rossana.  She was also very calm.  Could we be wrong?  But Olivia says right away, Wait?  How can we wait, what if they don’t come back?  They might have been killed.  We should start looking for those jewels ourselves, Olivia continues.

We need to look for Steve and Muffin, says Rossana.  We don’t have time, said Olivia.  She sounded quite irritated now.  Meow, meow.=Something doesn’t sound right.  I agree Muffin, but what is it?  Suddenly Muffin is gone.  Great, I hope she doesn’t get caught, whatever she’s up to.  She actually comes back fairly quick, and…

To be continued.

Steve and Muffin.

© 2020 Steve McLeod.