Well, the police caught Ernst easily enough and they had enough evidence to charge him with murder, so he will be in prison for a while. He had been paid half the money promised up front which, strangely enough, he still had with him in the car. Unfortunately he may get a reduced sentence if he tells who hired him. But, that would also ruin his “career” as a hit man, no one would trust him after that. I want to get Koffman in a different way so he will stay behind bars for a long time.

Still, hiring this guy to commit murder might be enough. I would also like to get him for sex trafficking and drug dealing to put him out of business completely. But maybe I’m being too greedy. Have to wait and see what Ernst does now. The girls we just rescued are too scared right now to bring accusations against him, which I can understand. We will see if we can get them back home with their families which is the best thing.

One of them had been kidnapped, the other two thought they were going to be models and were horrified to find out what was really expected of them, but by then it was too late to get away. The rest of the day was uneventful and soon we were in bed for the night. “Does this mean the case is now over Steve?” asked Celestine. “Well, basically I guess it is,” I replied, “the remainder of the Dog Dragons have been arrested too for attempted murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking and gun smuggling.

The Dogs tried to implicate the Black Wolves but the police told them that they have never been seen in Bremen, so that was ended quickly.” Meowy.= “Still need to find buried treasure in human Jazzy house.” Meowser= “Yep, that right, have to find treasure first for human Jazzy.” “What are you two talking about,” I asked, “there is no buried treasure here.” Meowy= “Yep, there is so buried treasure, human Akila, human Alizea and human ghost Kitty tell us about buried treasure.”

Meowser= “Yep, they tell us and they not lie.” “Hmm, okay, you win,” I said, “but tonight we sleep, tomorrow we look for buried treasure.” That caused Snow, Sir Night, Azura and Tracker to start jumping for joy! Sky and Angel were already sleeping but Azura and Tracker woke them up by bouncing around on top of them. They were not too happy about that however. “Hey, I thought you two were supposed to take turns guarding us tonight,” said Celestine.

Sky and Angel looked over at us, then at each other. “You first,” said Angel and she turned over. Sky continued looking at her then grabbed the blanket and shuffled her way over to the big chair, sat down, wrapped herself in the blanket and gave one huge sigh. “Hey, it’s cold without a blanket,” said Angel. “Soleil, could you bring us an extra blanket please?” I asked. She came right over and spread a nice warm blanket over Celestine and I.

“Thank you,” I said. “You’re very welcome Steve,” she said cheerily. “People shouldn’t be so cheerful at night,” said Sky. “Hey, I’m still cold,” said Angel. “Oh, sorry,” I said, “Crystal, Angel needs a blanket, she’s cold.” She came in right away with a rolled up blanket and tossed it on top of Angel and left. Sky was laughing so hard she almost fell off her chair. “People shouldn’t be so happy at night,” said Angel as she tried in vain to straighten out her rolled up blanket, “I give up.”

So I got up and straightened it out for her. Even the cats helped, pulling the blanket down over her feet. Then I kissed her cheek and said good night. Then I did the same for Sky, then Celestine, then got back into bed. In the morning Sky and Angel brought us breakfast in bed, even for the cats. Later we went downstairs to find out about this buried treasure. “Apparently the girls found something in an old book in my library,” said Jazzy, “it mentions a treasure that was buried somewhere around the house.

So, we all went outside to look around, except Akila, Alizea, Kitty and the cats. They all went down to the cellar. Obviously it can’t be down there, it’s an old stone floor, if anything is buried under those stones then it’s lost forever. Soon I got a call from the girls in the cellar saying they had found the treasure! We all ran excitedly down the stairs to the cellar and stopped when we saw the girls and cats just standing close to one of the walls waiting for us.

“Um, where is this treasure you found?” asked Jazzy. “We don’t know yet,” said Akila. “But we did find the main treasure stone,” said Alizea. “Right, we just need to figure out what to do with the stone to open the treasure door,” said Kitty. They stood there smiling at us. Nearly everyone in our group groaned. Just then Jennifer communicated with me that she sensed danger close by and to get everyone outside. So, I told everyone to get outside and away from the house, but with guns out and ready for a fight.

Only ghosts allowed to stay inside, except Kristina is to go with Jazzy. After everyone was gone outside Jennifer communicated that the danger must be for me and to get outside too, fast! I told the ghosts to come with me outside quickly. Unfortunately just as I said that there was a huge explosion and Jazzy’s house was blown apart into small pieces!

Meanwhile, somewhere else. “It worked beautifully boss,” said Niklaus, “no one survived that blast!” “Good,” said Koffman, “now get out of there before the police arrive.” “Yeah, I can already hear sirens boss,” he replied, “so we are on our way back home.” “NO, you go to Berlin!” he said angrily, “You have to remember the details and not get caught.”

“Yeah, right boss,” he said, “it’s off to Berlin for us, don’t worry about a thing.” “If those guys get caught, they’ll talk,” said Felix. “That’s what I’m afraid of too,” said Koffman, “would you like to take care of them? Double your usual bonus.” “I’m on it boss,” said Felix. Koffman gave him an envelope with money for expenses. Now, back to us once more.

Koffman had used that old treasure idea as a way to get us in the cellar to kill me and as many of the Investigators as he could. It would have been devasting except for Jennifer sensing danger which saved many lives. But, that was a big explosion. Was it big enough to kill our ghosts? It certainly was big enough to kill me, so what actually happened?

To Be Continued. ©2026 Steve McLeod.