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For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
I had told Amerie and Chloe to walk with Felicity to her car and remind her to be careful and not tell anyone that she had talked to us. But, I guess we were not careful enough. While walking to Felicity’s car, another car pulled up alongside them, the back window was open and a man shot. Felicity fell to the ground right away and both of our girls shot at the car as it sped away.
It circled around through the parking lot and turned to go out the exit when suddenly the car exploded! Catalina had followed the girls down when she saw them leave and she tossed one of her special packages at the fleeing car. She has an amazing throwing arm, truly amazing. Amerie had just called me when the explosion occurred, telling me about Felicity.
She was still alive and an ambulance soon arrived to pick her up. But would she be kept safe in whatever hospital they decide to take her? Not too likely. This was a deliberate hit. Someone hired these men to kill her and when that person finds out they were not successful, that person will try again. It isn’t hard to figure out who did the hiring, and they must have been following Felicity around that day, perhaps other days too.
We should have been doing that too, but we are kind of running low on personnel. We need to do some thinking about this. Meanwhile, we picked up some interesting news from our bugs in Cairns’ office. “Why is it every time I come here you are casually sitting there watching TV and drinking coffee?” bellowed Haugen, “Now, turn that thing off and listen to me!”
Cairns quickly turned off the TV and asked what was going on. “Do you ever pay attention to the news?” asked Haugen, “Does the name Felicity ring a bell perhaps?” “Uh, yeah, that’s Martin’s girlfriend,” he replied, “she just had a birthday recently, turned 17.” Haugen just stared at him. “Why didn’t you tell me she was just a kid?” asked Haugen, “That means she was 15 when he started dating her.”
“I didn’t think it was important,” said Cairns, “but why the interest in Felicity right now, she is hardly important to us?” “She just visited Martin today,” began Haugen, “then immediately went over to those PI’s to talk with them. Martin must have told her something rather important. Then they sent two guards to walk her out to her car, which tells me they were happy with the information she gave them.
Then a well known hit man, named Feller, gunned her down, but was killed by those PI’s before he got away. And it was my crazy cousin, the Governor, who hired this hit man. He called to let me know and I told him that was the most stupid thing he could have done!” “Oh great!” exclaimed Cairns, “now what will we do?” “I told the Governor to go away for a few days,” said Haugen, “he has a place in Florida, so he will go there.
Next, you get Amanda back here, and I mean now! Plus those kids, if that insane Ms. Cameron hasn’t killed them. If she has, then kill her too!” They didn’t say much more that was important, except possibly killing Felicity while she’s in the hospital. We will try to prevent that, somehow. I told Kat it was time for her and her Wildcats to visit the Governor, before he left on his little vacation.
I then sent a copy of this conversation between Haugen and Cairns to Aari and told him to go visit Ms. Cameron. We would make sure he has the permission needed to see her. Maybe she will be persuaded to talk more when she hears that her life expectancy is rather short. Then I had another thought and told Kat not to leave just yet, maybe we should go and visit Wally Haugen first, and put a bit of a scare into him.
Kat didn’t like the idea of me going along, especially since she is the only ghost here right now. Meanwhile, back at the ranch. Hannah, her team, Jazzy, her people, plus Sky and Angel, were just pulling in front of the huge ranch house. They got out of the vans and began walking up to the front door when they were met by 4 rather large, muscular men who bluntly told them to leave now or they would never leave.
“Teach them a lesson Courage!” said Sky. Angel leaped into the air, changing into that huge lion and landing right in front of those 4 men, then attacking! “Oh, that’s nasty,” said Jazzy. It was soon over and they were all walking into the house. Hannah had her two Caracals with her as well so they could help sniff out Amanda if she was there still.
Sky had brought some clothing from Amanda so that they would have her scent. It didn’t take them long to pick up her scent in the house and they tracked her down to one of the bedrooms. My team of girls, with Angel, followed the Caracals. The door was locked and very heavy wood, so Angel once again became Courage to easily break down the door.
Amanda and another woman in the room were terrified when they saw that huge lion, but our girls quickly had them calmed down after explaining who they were and why they had come. Jazzy’s men had stayed with her to make sure no one managed to escape. While they were waiting, a tall man with black hair came downstairs to see what all the noise was about.
“Well, well, if it isn’t my old friend Raven,” said Jazzy. He just stood there with his mouth open a bit. “I hear you now own this fine establishment,” she continued, “well, I’m sorry to say this, but we are here to put you out of business.” “I will say this, you must have a lot of courage coming into my territory with so few men,” answered Raven. Just then Courage, the lion, came and stood behind Raven.
“That is all the Courage I need Raven,” said Jazzy, as she pointed behind Raven. He turned around and when he saw that lion, he pleaded with Jazzy not to kill him. “I want Amanda and anyone else who wants to come with us,” Jazzy demanded, “and I want to know who you are working with. Give me that and you can go.” He took her and Sky into his office and handed them some papers from his safe.
Sky spotted a lot of money in that safe and said those women who are leaving him need money to start over. He handed her all the money in the safe. “This is what we need Sky,” said Jazzy, “I always keep my word Raven, so you are free to go.” And he certainly left in a hurry after making sure that Jazzy and our team had what they wanted and were safely leaving.
Sky and Angel were sitting beside each other when Sky said, “Gotta go!”, and she, with Angel, disappeared. “I would love to know how she does that,” said Jazzy. “We all would!” laughed Aasta. Back to us. “You don’t seem to be in trouble Steve,” said Sky as they returned. “Not yet, perhaps,” I said, then explained what we were going to do. Meanwhile, back with Aari and his team in Dallas…
To Be Continued.
©2025 Steve McLeod.
The police did have a lot of questions for our team after the fight at the photo studio, but Aari showed his ID and told the officer in charge that they had been hired to find a woman and her children. They had good information that the children were there at that studio, but unfortunately they did not find them. The adult women that were also prisoners there were able to tell the officers the full story of that studio and that it was actually for the purpose of sex trafficking.
They also said the kids in question had been there until the previous day, then they disappeared. They said that happened numerous times after they no longer wanted the children. Hopefully they haven’t killed Amanda’s children, but it sure looks like they did. We need to leave Aari down there looking around for another day or 2, but we also need to send a team out to California to look for Amanda.
The longer we wait on that, the less chance of finding her alive. But, if we send a team to California, that will spread us rather thin, and that is dangerous. Guess we need to bring more of our team over here and that means I will have to ask Mandar for a couple of teams to help protect our chateau. So, I called Cristy.
“Jazzy said you were much too slow asking for help,” she told me, “so her, Hannah and most of Team 1 should be landing in Los Angeles in about 2 hours. Jazzy took some of her people along too, and Mandar sent two of his teams over here to help guard the chateau.” She sounded very cheerful, as usual.
I did leave Hannah in charge of my Team 1 and told her she could make decisions as she saw fit to do. She is an excellent leader, as I well know, we fought each other for a long time. She knows how to do things and make good decisions. I hope they can turn up some good news for us, we sure need it right now. Cristy said they would be in touch with me just before landing.
Not long after I called Cristy, Mac showed up at our room. “Find anything?” I asked. “Yeah, found a small crypt with the Greene Family on a plaque above the door. I went inside and there were 4 urns of ashes, Emerald’s parents and her two siblings, plus an empty urn with Emerald’s name on the name tag beneath it. Her death is listed as being today.
I removed the name tag and replaced it with a sticker I had with Governor Haugen’s name on it. I told a worker at the cemetery that the crypt door was open and he went to check. Hope he saw the name change.” “I hope so too,” I said, “that should cause some interesting noise, which I’m sure we will hear about. We also need to be extra vigilant today and keep Emerald and Cindy safe and alive.
They undoubtedly want Cindy dead as well.” Hannah called next and I told her that 3 vans would be ready for their use. They could pick their own hotel, an expensive one so our enemies know we have someone with money backing us. I wish they had one of the ghosts with them, but I guess they will be fine. Next we heard an interesting conversation in Cairns office.
“Those PI’s found the crypt with the ashes of Emerald’s family,” bellowed Haugen, “and they removed Emerald’s name from the empty urn and put my cousin’s name in place of it! I don’t think that is funny!” “No, no, neither do I,” said Cairns rather nervously, “but we can just say it was a prank done by kids, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“And if news got out, it would be a big problem for the Governor,” said Haugen, “have you found Amanda yet?” “Um, no, not yet,” said Cairns, “but my men are working on it.” “What about the kids?” asked Haugen, “Or has that insane Ms. Cameron killed them already?” “I’m not sure,” said Cairns, “the police have raided her place and arrested everyone, including Ms. Cameron.
Lester told me this, and he also said that there were other people there, a bunch of men and one woman who seemed to be the leader. They had police ID and were working undercover.” “Oh great, I do not like that at all,” said Haugen, “that means the police could be watching us here as well.” “Maybe not,” said Cairns, “it might have been because that woman from the florist shop registered a complaint about the photo studio.”
“Hopefully that was it,” said Haugen, “but the timing with the Governor’s name on that empty urn makes me nervous. And I don’t like being nervous!” Meanwhile, Kat’s Wildcats found Felicity at home and had a talk with her. She claimed not knowing where Amanda was right now, but when she discovered that we would give her $100,000 to know specifically where Amanda is, she then agreed to find out from Martin.
Apparently he told her he knows where she is, but he didn’t want to tell her or Cairns might get upset. Felicity went over to Martin’s house right away to get this information for us, if she could. Fortunately we have his house bugged everywhere, so we will be able to hear their conversation no matter where they talk.
Martin didn’t appear willing to tell her at first, but she reminded him about their agreement, which, unfortunately, they didn’t talk about. “Okay, okay,” said Martin, “just make sure you don’t tell Cairns that I told you. He knows where Amanda is, but hasn’t told Mr. Clarke. If Clarke finds out, he would kill Cairns and Amanda, and maybe us too.
Amanda is out at the Triple X Ranch near Los Angeles, it’s a big sex trafficking place. Cairns just manages it for someone else, but I don’t know who.” I was calling Hannah right away and told her where to find Amanda, and to get there quickly. “Don’t take chances,” I said, “it’s a big place and that likely means a lot of guards.
Cairns is only the caretaker, I don’t know who owns it.” “We can find out the owner for you Steve,” she said. “Don’t worry about that right now,” I said, “get Amanda out and somewhere safe, that’s the main thing. And please, be very careful.” “That we will Steve,” she said, “that we will.” I then talked with Sky, just to see if she might be able to travel over there to help out.
“I just need to know where they are,” she said. So, I gave her the name of the hotel and their room number. We then checked the coordinates for the hotel and off she went, with Angel. I didn’t mean for her to take Angel, but she had been leaning on Angel’s shoulder and that was enough to take them both. Hopefully they won’t be gone too long.
But, I guess we only need one ghost to protect Emerald and Cindy, along with some Bad Girls and some cats. Another ghost to look after me, with some Bad Girls and some cats. Kat’s Wildcats will have to be on their own for now. It didn’t take Felicity long to be at my hotel door, knocking. Amerie answered and let her in.
I asked if she found out anything and she told us where to find Amanda, giving us the right information. She then told us something else, Martin told her a man named Raven owned the Triple X and a photo studio in Dallas. “That man is supposed to be very dangerous,” she said, “he told me that when he walked me out to my car.
(Then she got very quiet) I really hope you find her and the kids, I never wanted anything bad to happen to them, really I didn’t. When he first started dating me 2 years ago, I didn’t even know he was married. He didn’t tell me until 3 weeks ago when I suggested we get married. Oh, keep the money, I just hope you find Amanda and her kids safe.” She then left…
To Be Continued.
©2025 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 