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For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
I put Kat in charge of searching for a way into this prison that doesn’t exist. She said that Sienna, Misty and myself would stay in the room, with one ghost as our main guard, and tonight that would be Angel. Kat and Jennifer would search together, with 2 cats, which would be Rusty and Jewel for the first two hours. Sky and Carine would search together with Azura and Storm.
That would be Storm’s team of cats. Muffin’s team will be Moonbeam, Tracker and Celia, and they will stay with us for the first two hours, then they will switch with Storm’s team to go out searching. Muffin and Storm are the two best cats we have for finding secret doors. Kat has done something to the cats, like she did for me, so they too can go invisible, however, it’s still not like our ghosts when they go invisible.
After they were gone for about half an hour, Misty came over and sat on my lap and put her arm around me. “What’s wrong Honey,” she said, “I can tell something is bothering you.” She did that so naturally, I was quite surprised. “How do you know something is bothering me?” I asked, and gave her a kiss. She surprised me again by reacting quite normally.
“A wife always knows when something is bothering her man,” she said, smiling. “That does seem to be true,” I said, “although I don’t sense any trouble, I am still worried about this case.” “You’re afraid that we won’t find anything, right?” she asked. “Yep, that’s exactly right,” I replied, “it certainly won’t look good for me if we don’t find anything. It will mean I can’t be trusted anymore.”
That’s when I started shaking, a lot. Sienna was closest to us, so she helped Misty get me back into bed and covered with blankets. Misty slid under the blankets to help warm me up. Sienna looked at Angel and shook her head. Angel frowned. She had started to send a message to Kat, but stopped, so Kat asked what was going on. Angel just told her it was a false alarm, that everything was fine.
Then Courage walked up onto the bed and lay down on the other side of me. Good thing it’s a large bed, she really does produce a lot of heat too. The cats lay down on top of her, purring. After 2 hours the two search teams returned to our room. “We couldn’t find a thing Steve,” said Jennifer, “unless the door is in one of the offices which are along the back wall of this place. But opening those doors would likely set off an alarm.”
“I’m always amazed that you girls can’t just go through walls,” I said, “well, Sky, you do that whenever I call you.” “It only works if you call me,” she said, “I was made specifically to be your guard and able to come when you call.” “Maybe when Angel goes out this next time, she will hear something,” said Carine, “she has the best hearing of us all.”
Carine was certainly right about that, even though she has incredible hearing too. “Couldn’t you see through the wall like that time in the museum?” I asked Carine. “I need Sky for that,” she said, “and although Sky was with me, her light would show up on the video cameras and that would alert the guards.” “Yes, I guess you’re right,” I said, “and we don’t want to attract attention just yet.
But that hidden door must be in those offices.” “Why are you in bed?” asked Jennifer. “Oh, uh, I was cold,” I answered, “so the girls put me in bed to get me warm again. I started shaking and felt cold anyway.” “I hope you’re not getting sick,” said Jennifer. She stayed behind this time and Angel went with Sky, while Carine joined Kat. Muffin and her team replaced Storm and his team.
I like the idea of putting the cats into teams like that. After another 2 hours our teams came back and again they had no good news for us. After breakfast we sat around in our room talking, and planning our day. Meow.= Maybe secret door not on inside, maybe it on outside. (said Rusty). We all looked at him. He just looked at the ceiling. “What a smart kitty cat,” said Misty with a big smile. Rusty’s ears went straight up and he also sat up nice and proud.
So, we decided to look around on the outside today to see what we could find. At lunch, which we were eating outside, Muffin told us she and her team found a door with trees and flowers painted all over it. The door was on the brick fence around one of the pools. Angel and Carine looked at it too and it went nowhere that they could see since it was right up against the rock of the mountainside.
Hmm, that was actually good news, except how do we check that one? Too many people around during the day and the doors of the hotel are locked at night so we can’t get out without setting off the alarm. The door into the mountainside likely has an alarm too. Sky could disable the whole alarm system, but that would be noticed and bring out all of their guards which number 50 in total.
That isn’t a problem, but we are trying to do this without attracting a lot of attention. That evening I spent some time looking for something in one of our cars, but was unable to find it, so I came back inside. Jennifer and Kat were with me for protection, just in case. Misty was along too, helping me look.
As we walked past some of the employees, Misty remarked how I am always losing, or misplacing, things lately and shaking her head as she said it. I could see people grinning as they overheard Misty. Sigh. Back in our room we settled down for the night. “Did I do okay Honey?” asked Misty. “Yes, my love, you were perfect,” I replied.
Then she looked at Jennifer. “Um, this is okay, right?” she asked. “I don’t see anything wrong, you’re his wife,” she said smiling. We have to pretend at all times, even when we’re alone, that way there is less chance of making a mistake when we’re in public. Kat and Carine left with Rusty and Celia for their first look around of the night, ready to begin Plan A…
To Be Continued.
©2025 Steve McLeod.
Cynthia did get us very detailed plans of this Montagne Resort, including right from the time it was built, which was back in the 1920s. But there was nothing to indicate that a jail of any kind was ever built as part of this place. That I found rather odd, since it obviously had been constructed, so people must have known about it at the time it happened.
“Search for news items, newspapers, anything at all,” I said, “it could not have been done completely secret. It had to be dug into that mountain in some way and that would require dynamite or large machinery to break up that rock.” “Not if there was something already there,” said John, “for example they may have made the area much larger at the beginning to use for expansion at a future time, or perhaps it was built in front of a mine where tunnels and shafts would already be present.”
That made a lot of sense, so I told Cynthia to check on those possibilities for us. “I have Sienna for you Steve,” said Misty, “have fun.” I wonder what she meant by that? “Steve, why did you wake me up at 4am?” she asked, “I just got to bed at midnight, some people, like myself, enjoy sleeping at night.” “Then you should really try going to bed early,” I said, “it’s better for your health anyway. Besides, this is important and you’re the only person that can help us.”
“I find that hard to believe,” she sighed, “however, what is the problem?” So I filled her in on what happened tonight and why we need those reservations for today. There was silence on the phone for about 2 minutes. “Is Jennifer there?” she asked finally. “Yes Sienna, I’m here,” Jennifer replied. “Are you 100% behind Steve on this one,” she asked, “or did something happen to him?”
“I back Steve 100%,” said Jennifer. Meow, meow.= Me think my human bang head again, but I with him 100 too. That made Storm wrap his long tail around Muffin and purr loudly. “I will see what I can do,” she said, “but no promises.” Cristy was now helping Cynthia and she is better at digging up information, but she has had more experience doing it as well.
She finally found an old permit of some kind that called for the excavation of an area twice the size of what was used. The actual construction of the hotel made no mention of that information however, which is kind of interesting. That would put the “prison” directly behind the hotel, so there must be a secret door to get into that prison. Sienna got back to us in a couple of hours with some good news.
“They had a cancelation yesterday,” she said, “so there is one room available which sleeps 8 people. Therefore you can bring 7 people in total.” “You mean 7 besides myself?” I asked. “No, I mean 7 people total,” she said, “I will be the 8th person. I opened a new company 6 months ago and you are now the new CEO of that company and Jennifer is the General Manager.
This retreat is for us to get acquainted and talk over plans for my new company. I figured this would make a good cover for you as well.” “Um, well, that is a good thought,” I said, “but it might be a bit dangerous for you to join us on a case like this. I mean, we have been talking about why they would need a prison and it could be for sex trafficking, or extortion or simply for ransom purposes.
You would be a good target to kidnap.” “Perhaps, but I have you and your team to protect me,” she said quite calmly, “so I am not worried. Oh, since Jennifer is your General Manager, she can’t be your wife, that goes against my policy. So, you will have to pick another of your girls to play your wife since I already said your wife would be along as well.
And don’t tell me you have never done this because I know you have done things like this many times.” I asked Jennifer to pick someone for my wife and she just giggled. She does that a lot lately. Jennifer’s pick surprised me, quite a lot actually, and it made one of the other girls laugh out loud. However, she stopped rather quickly when Jennifer stared at her.
It was Cristy who laughed because it was her twin sister Misty that Jennifer picked. “Me? Why me?” asked Misty. “Because you are not yet known in our organization,” explained Jennifer, “and you are very skilled in many things, including acting and we need someone good at acting the part of Steve’s wife.” “But I don’t know anything about being married,” she said, talking very fast, “I’m single, not married, only single, what am I supposed to do?”
So, Jennifer gave her a crash course in being married. I think she fainted once. Misty, not Jennifer. This should be fun. Well, we have our team, the 5 ghosts, Misty, Sienna and myself. Plus a cat for each of us. Sienna made sure the cats could come along as well. That means Muffin, Storm, Jewel, Rusty, Tracker, Azura, Celia and Moonbeam (Amerie’s cat, for Sienna).
We arrived at our destination at 2pm and checked into our room, which was very large and had several hidden cameras and listening devices. We had a couple of scramblers out and turned on right away, even though one would have been sufficient. But I wanted to make sure we were protected. “Rather interesting,” said Dorian, “nothing is working in Room 8, no cameras, no listening devices. Nothing but static.”
“Which means they have a way to block them,” said Fabien, “nothing unusual considering who is staying in that room. Someone like Sienna has the means to do whatever she wants, that’s what happens when you’re the wealthiest woman in the world.” “Hey, she would make a good target to kidnap,” said Dorian.
“Do not even think of it,” said Fabien, “that would bring a small army up here and they would take this place apart. However, she could be a good source of revenue if we were to kidnap one of the others. I will think about that, over the next few days, and see which would be the best one. For now, leave them all alone, and I mean that. And don’t worry about those other things for now either, just watch them.”
For today we are just walking around and enjoying the scenery and nice weather and taking mental notes of everything we see. Tonight we will look around more earnestly. Kat, Jennifer and Carine were already looking around in places that were accessible to people anyway. For now they are doing things openly, later everyone will be invisible which makes things so much easier.
Even I can participate in that, though Jennifer said no to that, at least for the first night. We went to bed early so that everyone could be up at 1am to begin searching for the prison. Our short night went by quickly and it was soon 1am. Jennifer and I don’t sense trouble or danger, so that is a good thing. What will we find? Will we find anything?
To Be Continued.
©2025 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 