Sometimes we have learned that strange things happen, and at the oddest of times. While we were down in the lounge talking to Warren Clarke, something happened upstairs in the room next to ours. That is where Angel, and some of the other girls and cats, were guarding Emerald. There was a quiet knock on the door, so Angel asked Suzette to answer it.

When she opened the door it suddenly flew open and the young woman who worked at the front desk was literally thrown to the floor and 3 men entered, closing the door after them. They said nothing, just began shooting at Angel who was standing in front of Emerald. But the men stopped shooting and tossed their guns onto the floor, yelling that they were burning hot!

“Attack!”, yelled Angel. The other girls jumped into action and so did the cats. The girls were doing just fine in the fight, but the cats decided to end it and four times that familiar sound was heard, “Thwock!” All three men lay on the floor, dead. Then the girls went to the young woman to check on her. She was alive, but beaten badly. We were just arriving at our room when Angel communicated with us and we were soon in their room checking on things.

As I turned one man over I heard Emerald gasping behind me. She was pointing at the man I had turned over. “That tattoo!” she exclaimed, “Those are Mr. Clarke’s men!” She didn’t know we had just been talking with him in the lounge. Each of the men had the same tattoo on their right arm. Poor Emerald was terrified seeing this and couldn’t even speak for a few minutes.

Melanie and Jennifer were trying to calm her down and reassure her that she was safe with us, and no one was going to harm her while she stayed with us. Lily, our new nurse and good friend of Sienna, was with us on this case and she quickly came to the room when I called her. “She should probably go to an ER and see a doctor,” said Lily, “but she is going to need protection too.”

“Yes, a lot of protection,” I admitted, “and we can’t afford to spread ourselves too thin, not knowing what we are up against. Let Kat take a look, then we will decide what to do.” “What do we tell the manager?” asked Sky. “Nothing,” I answered, “he will want to call the police and we don’t want them involved just yet. Some just might be on Clarke’s payroll.

Clarke lied to us and deliberately tried to kill Emerald by luring us away from her. Emerald, you must be a very important woman, are you willing to help us destroy these people so they will stop hurting other people?” “I’ll do whatever you want,” she said, “but I really don’t know how I can help. I was just a secretary for Mr. Cairns.”

“Well, that means you know a lot of information about him and his business,” I said, “and that information can be a huge help to us. I imagine you also know something about this Warren Clarke too. Just tell us what you know and I promise we will keep you safe.” “I admit,” she began, “you people kind of make me scared too, I mean, those men shot at Angel and she wasn’t hurt. But…I still trust you as well. There is just something about all of you.

Please don’t be mad at me when I say I’m scared of you…but there are some strange things.” I smiled at her. “We would never be mad at you for that,” I said, “we understand, and I will try to explain some things to you. I can’t tell you everything right now, but if you stay with us later, then I will explain everything fully. Fair enough?” “Yes, fair enough,” she said, smiling in return.

“What shall we do with these men?” asked Sky. “We will return them to their owner after breakfast,” I said, “along with a note, since I doubt he will be awake that early. He made a big mistake and we are going to let him know that. We are also going to set a trap for whoever likes to follow us.” Kat did wonders for that young woman from the front desk and we offered to protect her right now too and she gladly said yes to our offer.

She didn’t want to go to the hospital either, she was afraid those men, or their friends, would find her and kill her. She is single and lives alone, so that helps for protecting her. She does have family, but not here, they live in N. Carolina. She just moved here about 6 months ago and hasn’t made any friends yet, which is also good.

The remainder of the night was quiet and we all slept well, even if not for very long. We had a nice breakfast, then loaded the three men’s bodies into one of our vans and off we went. Handy being able to haul them out invisibly, and we had our own big guys carry those bodies out. Aari and his team are here, made a little larger with Mandar’s Team 2, which are all men.

I’m glad Mandar allowed us to use his Team 2, since our guys team is rather small now. They have a new name now as well, it was kind of necessary to change it. Now it is simply called Jensen’s Jaguars, since Aari’s last name is Jensen. Emerald told us where Clarke lived and we went there first. Rock and Bear carried the bodies up to the front door, invisibly, then they came back to the van and drove away.

Kat remained and rang the doorbell and one of the servants, a man, came to answer. He opened the door and Kat gave him a backhanded slap, then dropped an envelope in front of him and left. He looked at the bodies, picked up the envelope and closed the door. Kat returned and we drove away. Next we go to visit Martin again and he better be more talkative this time…

To Be Continued.

©2025 Steve McLeod.