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For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Once inside Elenore said to me she was glad that no bullets hit me, but I told her two did, however, I was wearing my bullet proof vest which protects me front and back. She was relieved to hear that. Now that we know this case is going to be so dangerous, all of the team will be wearing their vests while outside. I asked Elenore if some of the girls could stay with her tonight for protection. She was very happy with that idea and she has lots of room since it is a 4 bedroom house even though 2 of the bedrooms are quite small. I told her that didn’t matter, the girls won’t mind a small room to sleep in.
I am going to leave 6 of the girls here and they will take turns staying awake during the night to guard Elenore and the house. While we were talking Friskie went over to Misty who was studying that baseball. “That biker was from a criminal gang Steve,” said Jazzy, “why would he stop to toss a baseball?” “It is a criminal gang for sure,” I said, “how did you know?” She just looked at me. “I was involved in the criminal world for 20 years Steve,” she said, “I know another criminal when I see one, especially when they have that kind of name on their jacket.”
“I must admit, the baseball is hard to understand,” I said, “yet it seems to be just a normal baseball.” Misty then came over and handed me the baseball. Hmm, seems it isn’t quite normal after all, it had a message written on it. I didn’t think anyone sent invisible messages anymore, but there it was, “Meet me at the fish, 4pm”. He writes a nice message, short and to the point. “You’re not planning to go, are you?” asked Jazzy. “Well, it’s the only way to find out what he wants,” I said, “I won’t go alone though.”
I then communicated with Jennifer and Kat about the message. They agreed that I should go, but only if I took Sky and Angel with me and one of them had to hold my hand at all times. I agreed with that. At 3:50pm we stopped in the parking lot. “I don’t see any fish vendor,” said Misty. “There isn’t one,” I told her, “turn your head that way and you will see a fish.” She turned and looked. “That thing is a fish?” she asked. “Yep, they swim around in the lake,” I said. “Nope, I will not swim in this lake,” she said.
“It’s too cold for swimming anyway,” I said. “Good thing, ’cause I would never swim in that lake with a fish that big,” she said, “nope, not me, never, not a chance.” “Okay, you girls stay here, only Sky and Angel can come with me,” I said, and off we went. We arrived at the fish at precisely 4pm and the man was sitting on a bench, so we went over to him. But before we got to the bench Angel stopped me. “Wait, there is something wrong,” she said, “I will check him out, but you stay here with Sky.”
I wasn’t going to argue though I didn’t sense any trouble and Jennifer hasn’t contacted me about sensing danger. Angel said something to the man, but he didn’t speak, so she gave him a light push and he fell off the bench onto the sidewalk. He had been stabbed! So, we quickly returned to our car and went back to the hotel. Oddly enough the police were waiting for us and tried to arrest us for the murder of the biker. I asked how they knew about the murder of the biker and apparently they received an anonymous tip so they checked and found him dead.
They were told I, or one of my team members, killed him. I asked why they left his body on the bench. They wanted to see if I would return to the scene of the crime. I told them they have been watching too many movies. There is no logical reason for me to go back to check on a dead body, that would be foolish. He then mentioned we had also killed that man over at Elenore’s. I said there was no “also” involved, we did not kill the biker and they have no proof we did. The man over at Swann’s place shot at us and then he fell out of the tree, how could we kill him from where we were standing without shooting him?
They had to admit there were no marks on his body, one of the nice points for those lightning balls. Sky can make them hot or cold and either way they pack a lethal punch of electricity, though I didn’t mention that. Right then our lawyer arrived, Misty had called him to come down to the lobby and help us with the police. He managed to get rid of the police quite quickly too. They could hardly arrest us for anything, they didn’t even catch us at the body of that dead biker.
I do wonder who killed him though, perhaps his own gang? Or was he killed on Swann’s orders? This is quite interesting though, we have just begun our investigation and already two people have been killed. Fortunately none on our side though. We went to the restaurant and had dinner and while there I sensed trouble in the room. I finally narrowed it down to one table where four men were sitting. “Those men are carrying guns,” said Friskie as she looked out across the lake.
“How can you tell when you’re looking the wrong direction?” I asked. “I saw them when the waitress brought our food,” she said casually, “and I noticed you were checking people in the room.” “Yes, they are trouble,” I said. That’s when the other girls turned and looked too. “Try not to be so obvious, please,” I told them and they went back to eating right away. “Men with guns are always trouble,” said Jazzy. Just then our 5 guys came into the restaurant and joined us. I had reserved a table large enough to add them since I knew they would be arriving shortly.
I even ordered for them and the waitress brought their food out quickly. “The 4 men at that table have guns,” said Mac. “Yes, we were just discussing that,” I replied, “I also sense trouble from them.” “Men and guns usually spell trouble,” he said. Jazzy had just taken a drink of water and she spit it out all over Sky when Mac make his comment. Seems she was trying hard not to laugh. “I’m all wet,” said Sky. For some reason that got Misty laughing.
Sky reached her leg across and touched Misty’s knee giving her a gentle touch of electricity. That caused Misty to say “AA”, though not too loud, and she jumped also. Sky just giggled and kept on eating with Misty frowning at her. We finished and went back to our rooms, but those 4 men were still at their table talking as we left. The guys came to our room so I could bring them up to date on our day of events. Then Melody called to give us the information they have found on Swann…
To Be Continued. ©2026 Steve McLeod.
Jennifer’s call to me came in loud and clear and since Celestine was standing next to me, I pushed her to the ground and with me landing on top of her! I figured there must have been a shooter nearby and Celestine and I were likely the targets since she is playing the part of my wife on this case. As soon as we hit the ground, four bullets struck, two in the ground and two on my back. The two hitting the ground narrowly missed Celestine. When the bullets struck everyone hit the ground.
Everyone except Sky, Friskie and Blake Swann. Friskie, who was standing next to Sky, pointed to a tall pine tree and Sky tossed a lightning ball causing a man to yell and fall to the ground. I got up and stared at Swann. “And why didn’t you fall to the ground Mr. Swann?” I asked, “It’s quite a normal reaction when someone is shooting at you. Unless, of course, you know the person is not shooting at you.” “I have had enough of your accusations McCann!” he yelled, “Arrest that man!” “Seems to me, officer,” I said, “that you should be going to check on that man who shot at us.”
“Oh, yeah, I better do that,” he said, “uh, but there might be other shooters in the area so I better call for backup first.” While he was doing that I started to walk over to the man. “Get off my property McCann, now you really are trespassing!” he yelled, as he came running after me. I just ignored him this time until I came to the shooter, until we came to the shooter actually, since Sky, Friskie and Misty came along. Celestine went inside, Sky had told her it would be safer for her that way.
Swann was still yelling at us when we came to the body which, unfortunately, had no identification on him. I kind of figured that would be the case, guy’s like this don’t generally carry ID. “You can’t dig through his pockets!” yelled Swann, “Only the police are allowed to do that!” I then stood up and went right up to Swann. “This man shot at my wife and I,” I yelled back, “I will do whatever I want! Strangely enough, he is on your property when he shot at us!” Misty was continuing to look through the man’s pockets while I yelled at Swann.
I thought perhaps since he likes to yell all the time that he might be hard of hearing, which is why I yelled too. Misty stood up as the police officer finally made his way over to us. “Arrest them! Arrest them!” yelled Swann extra loud this time, “They are trespassing! Arrest them!” “Um, Mr. McCann, perhaps it would be better for you to leave,” said the officer, “we will check on this man and give you an update.” I thanked him and we then went back to Elenore’s house.
“Rats,” I said, “I wanted to get the serial number off that gun, he likely got it illegally, but it’s possible he bought it legally too.” Misty smiled. “I got the number for you Steve,” she said triumphantly and quickly wrote it down. “I also finished going through all of his pockets,” she said, “and found these items.” She gave me a piece of paper with a phone number and 25K written on it. Odd for a hitman to carry such information, but maybe he is new at this. I will check on that phone number later.
She also spotted a handgun in one pocket, but she let Sky take it so Misty’s fingerprints wouldn’t get on it. Our ghosts don’t leave fingerprints on things they touch, so they are perfect for certain activities. There was also another piece of paper with a letter and number on it, but it didn’t make much sense, however, I sent that to Mac, he might have an idea. He got back to me right away with a simple answer, the letter was the first letter of the hotel name, the number was his room. Why didn’t I think of that?
Guess that’s why I have such a large team. I should have brought some of the guys along on this one. I also got in touch with Jennifer to let her know what was going on and she was not happy with the shooting part and told me to be more careful, and to make sure I look after Celestine! She also told me that the guys are on the way. Since I didn’t take any she decided to send them all. Most will stay in the city, but 5 of them will come out here to help us.
“I’m glad you thought of that,” I told her, “I love you.” “Uh huh, just be careful,” she said, “if you get yourself killed I won’t talk to you again. And…I love you too.” Poor Elenore was quite scared now after the shooting and she was talking about selling and getting away from that mad man next door. Just then the surveyors showed up, three of them, so I watched out the window. Two of them began to dig holes in the yard, so Sky, Misty, Tracy and myself went out to talk with them.
As we got to them, one of the men picked up his shovel which almost looked like he was preparing for a fight, but Misty and Tracy had their guns out in characteristic time of one second. The men both dropped their shovels saying don’t shoot, they didn’t mean anything, they were just lifting their shovels. I’m not sure I will believe that one, but I will let it go for now. The “surveyor”, who had no ID to prove he was a qualified surveyor, showed me a town planning map which showed the property line should be 4 feet closer to Elenore’s house. I took a picture of it and sent it off to Melody to check out its authenticity.
I then told the surveyor that if it was true, then Elenore’s property would go 4 feet past the fence that Mr. Swann put up on the other side of Elenore’s property since the lots are all marked out at 40 feet wide. We measured it together and he agreed with me, so he phoned Swann who then came running over, screaming at us once again. I guess he doesn’t know how to talk normally. The surveyor explained to Mr. Swann about the problem and that’s when he really exploded and hit the surveyor.
The police officer then held him back from doing anything more. The surveyor then hit Swann and his two helpers held him back. I then told them all to get off Elenore’s property or I would have them arrested. Just then more police arrived who had been checking things around the dead shooter. Everyone then left quickly, so we started back to the house. Before we got there a guy on a motorcycle stopped and said “Hey!” He then tossed a baseball, nicely, and Misty caught it easily with one hand.
The guy then rode away. Sky told Misty to toss it to her right away, which she did. Sky was concerned it might have been a bomb. However, it was just a baseball, nothing special, but it was kind of odd. The man had the name of a gang on his jacket, one that I recognized, but why the baseball?
To Be Continued. ©2026 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 