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For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
While waiting for the other girls to arrive, I started thinking about some things. When I mentioned that it was the other two guys we had scared off from finding the money, the brothers believed me right away. And they were scared of someone chasing them. Obviously there is someone else around here besides the gang they are part of.
But who is that? And what are they after? Are they the ones that came in behind the brothers and kidnapped the girls? Why didn’t the girls yell, or shoot, or something? It is possible they were overcome by some gas that knocked them out. But then they would have had to be carried out of the house.
That would mean a lot of men came in, so why didn’t they come after us then? Questions. I do not like so many questions. I want answers. But so far we are not doing well in the answers category, and that is not good. How could Aileen be so cold that she would shoot her own daughter and her friend. Perhaps Aoife’s friend came to warn her of danger.
That would explain coming so early in the morning. I guess Aoife will be able to fill us in on that part. I also need to talk with Kat and Jennifer…then I began thinking about when I had been captured by Christopher way back. I woke up with Jennifer beside me and I could not believe it, she was dead.
Yet she assured me it was her and she would help me escape, but she couldn’t come with me because Christopher owned her. But I finally persuaded her to come back with me or I wouldn’t go either. She called me stubborn, like I was from the first time we met.
She was right, I was stubborn and I guess perhaps I’m still stubborn. But she came back. I didn’t believe she was a ghost with super powers, yet she could do some strange things, things which just didn’t make sense. Like this case. Strange things that don’t make sense. But why am I even thinking about that right now?
I’m wasting time thinking about something from the past, I need to be thinking about what is happening right now. We’re up against a gang we don’t know. Now it seems like there is someone else mixed up in this too. And I’m wasting time thinking about something that doesn’t matter. Or does it?
Back then Christopher kidnapped me from our chateau, from my own bedroom, with the others in the chateau and me with 2 bodyguards and a locked door. That was strange. Now we have our girls kidnapped while we are searching the house and we don’t know it. That is also strange. Is this somehow related?
But Christopher is dead, or at least that is what we were told. Perhaps he was never killed and he has now come back. Is he the one that the brothers are afraid of? But then there is Major. I had originally thought maybe it was Majori, but I know she was killed on our case in Norway. But there is another Major, a woman named Livia and she is someone that Kat knows well. She also hates me.
Like Kat, who originally hated me, she hates me for putting her parents in jail. Livia is Kat’s half sister, and she was in the military. Maybe she still is. This case is getting more strange all the time. My thoughts were suddenly broken by Amerie’s voice. “Steve, all the windows in that building are covered,” she said, “how do you know our car is in there?”
“Because I could see it,” I told her, smiling. She just looked at me. “Maybe Misty has been slamming you onto the floor too often,” she said. “I saw the car through the wall,” I said, “sometimes when I…” Right then the other girls arrived and parked where we were. “Okay, there are 4 of us ghosts,” I said, “we each take two girls with us so we can enter the building invisible. The rest of you stay here until we call for you.”
Then off we went. The regular entrance door was locked but Sky opened it for us. Guess I can actually do that too. “Hey Patrick,” said Kian, “that door just opened by itself.” “Likely the wind blew it open,” he replied. “But I had it locked,” insisted Kian. “In these old buildings, doors and windows never fit properly,” said Patrick, “just go close it again if it bothers you.”
That is what he did and he made sure it fit nice and tight this time and he locked it securely. “I made sure it fit tight this time,” said Kian. “Good idea,” I said, “you never know who might come in.” Dawn and Amerie went into action, subduing the two men quickly. The girls were not in the car, or on the main floor, so we ghosts went upstairs, that way we wouldn’t make noise on the stairs.
There were two more men upstairs, but Sky and Carine had them subdued without a fight. I opened a door to one of the rooms and that’s where our girls were located, tied up and sitting on the floor. “What happened?” I asked.
“No idea Steve,” said Sherry, “we were searching one of the bedrooms and then we woke up here.” “Well, let’s get out of here before anyone else shows up,” I said. We were soon back at the hotel. We did bring that big bag of money with us earlier, but we had to leave the gold behind.
However, a certain “someone” called me and said the gold was now safe with him. Jennifer then called me and said they had received another message, like the last one, but this one was shorter…
To Be Continued.
©2025 Steve McLeod.
Before I had a chance to contact Kat, Cristy called me and asked if everything was okay. She said Jennifer had been trying to communicate with me for half an hour and got no answer from me. She had sensed danger and was trying to warn me. That was kind of strange, I wonder if it’s because of all the battering I have received this morning.
She connected me with Jennifer and I filled her in on what had happened. “Steve, make sure those girls are kept safe,” she said, “I don’t like what is going on.” I told Jennifer about Misty throwing me around and wondered if that could affect my communication ability. “I doubt it Steve,” she said giggling, “oh, sorry about that, but it is kind of funny.”
“Thanks,” I said, “try communicating with me now.” She did so and it worked just fine. I told her to remind Cristy to contact Jazzy for me. She said she would do so right away. “Okay everyone, time to search this house thoroughly,” I said, and we all set off to do so. We hid Muffin and Tracker under the couch and I left Storm to guard them.
Jewel and Azura came with me and we searched Aileen’s bedroom. What a lot of stuff in there. She had an old trunk at the foot of her bed which I was unable to move. However, it wasn’t locked to I opened it and began tossing stuff out, mostly old clothes and some dishes, pictures and a few books. Nothing much heavy though, so why couldn’t I move it?
I still couldn’t move it. Then I noticed it had a false bottom. It wasn’t hard to figure out how to remove the bottom and under it were bricks. That made no sense. Then I remembered another case we had about a year ago, so I scraped the bricks and gold shone through. Nice. Still, I should have been able to move that trunk a little. Oh well.
I kept looking. Behind a picture was a wall safe, so I called Misty in to help. “Cool,” she said and she proceeded to tell me about the safe. “Can you open it?” I asked. “Should be able to,” she said smiling. Sure enough, she had it open rather quickly and it was stuffed full of money. “Um, any hidden places in this safe?” I asked.
“Nope, this one is just a normal safe, nothing fancy,” she said, “but that is sure a lot of money!” “Here’s a bag we can use for the money,” I said, and I dumped the contents onto the bed. Then I began to put the money into the bag, but Misty was looking at the things I had dumped out of the bag. “Hey Steve,” she said, “this looks like a code book of some kind.”
I went over to look at what she found but just then the cats looked at the bedroom door and began to growl. Misty had her gun out quickly and I took hold of her other hand, making us both invisible. Then the two brothers entered the room. “Finn, look, they found the safe,” said Garrett. “Yeah, but they didn’t take the money,” answered Finn.”
“They also found the gold,” added Garrett, “but they left that too.” “I wonder where everyone is,” said Finn, “their car is still here, but no one is around.” That made me curious, Carine wouldn’t be able to hide all the other girls, so what happened to them? I said something to Misty, then I made us visible again. “Whoa, how did you do that?” asked Garrett.
“Don’t move you two,” I said, “or you will be shot immediately.” “What a minute,” said Finn, “you have no right looking through mother’s things, we could have you arrested for that, and for stealing our money.” “Your money is all there,” I said, “we didn’t take any. It must have been those other two guys we scared away.”
“Two guys?” asked Garrett, “Finn, they’re after us now!” “Grab the money and we’ll head to England,” said Finn, “and don’t try to stop us PI.” “Put your gun away Misty,” I said, “they have two, so they win.” “Yeah, now move out of the way,” said Finn. We did so. “Be careful,” I said to Garrett and pointed to the floor.
He looked down and Misty kicked him right on his forehead, then to his stomach, then to his head again and he was down and out. While she was busy I punched Finn in his lower back. He groaned and turned so I punched him in the stomach twice, then kicked him, but he was still on his feet. Then Misty kicked his head and he was down and out too.
“You need to kick his head,” she said to me. “I can’t kick high like you can,” I told her. “You need to practice more,” she said. “That won’t help,” I said. “It won’t hurt,” she replied smiling. We picked up all the money and went to look for the others, but they were nowhere around. We then went to retrieve the cats who were still under the couch, sleeping.
“Wake up you 3,” I said, “did you see where the other girls went?” Meowr.= Not know they go somewhere, they searching house. “Oh, there you are,” said Carine, “I went up to the attic to look around and when I came back down just now, everyone was gone.” I looked outside and our car was gone too.
“I had sensed trouble,” I said, “but thought it applied to the two brothers.” “How could someone come in here and kidnap the others without them warning us?” asked Carine, “That makes no sense.” I called Dawn, but she hadn’t heard from the other girls. She said Aoife was okay and had been dismissed from the hospital, so they were all back at the hotel.
I told her to get everyone out looking for our car and to come pick us up right away. Amerie, Melanie, Melissa and Alizea arrived quickly and we soon joined the search for our car and hopefully find our girls with it.
We headed to an area of the city with some large, vacant buildings where they could hide out limousine. “Drive slowly past these buildings,” I said to Amerie. We drove past a few, then suddenly I told Amerie to stop just ahead.
I called the others and told them to meet us at that spot. These people had Sherry, Milena, Aasta and Brandy, so we had to be careful going into that building. I spotted our car inside that building we just passed, but that does not mean the girls are in there too, they may have been taken somewhere else…
To Be Continued.
©2025 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 