News of Carmen’s death spread quickly once the police got involved and we had to call them in on this one. Before the police arrived I stayed crouched by Carmen’s body and promised her I would get Brielle for killing her. While crouched beside Carmen I felt an arm around me. At first I thought it was one of the girls since they were here quickly and are standing guard around me right now. But, it turned out to be Sky, or at least, I think so. But is she real or just part of my daydreams?

“She was sincere Steve,” said Sky, “she really wanted to change to our side. Maybe we could get permission to take her body to bury in our cemetery. Otherwise she will end up forgotten in some unmarked grave somewhere.” “That is a good idea,” I said, “I agree, she was sincere and she would have made a good addition to our team.” Then Sky disappeared and another arm was around me. It was Suzette this time.

“You are talking to yourself again Steve,” she said, “let us bad girls help you, I know what daydreaming is like, and it can be dangerous.” I looked at her. “Yes, I think you are right,” I said, “perhaps a vacation will help me.” “That might be a good idea Steve,” she said, “we can come with you to keep you and Jennifer safe. We will pay you back for our cost, since we do not have money yet.” “There is no cost for you as our bodyguards,” I told her.

We were soon finished dealing with the police. There was a 1 million dollar reward for Carmen, dead or alive, which I wasn’t going to take, but Mandar insisted that I should and we could put it toward our orphan fund and maybe a few extras. So I did end up taking it. Soon Carmen was buried in our cemetery which is starting to have a lot of graves in it. Her two cats have transitioned into our “family” amazingly well, something I was concerned about.

Perhaps it is because of all the other cats, even though the caracal is the largest of our cats now, though not much bigger than Rascal who is an ocelot. However, the caracals have longer legs so that makes them look a lot bigger. Now that we have Mandar back, this case is essentially over, even though I want to go after Brielle. But the case was about getting Mandar back, not anything else. Therefore we need to have a meeting about this and vote on whether or not we should chase Brielle.

“You can’t expect us to risk lives to hunt down a woman who killed her partner in crime Steve,” said Baldwin, “that is not really what the Investigators do, correct?” Baldwin was right, of course, it’s even in our rule book. Maybe this daydreaming is affecting my judgement, after all, asking the team to put their lives on the line for this would be unreasonable. If Brielle directly attacked us, that would be different, but she did not do that.

Her men could have killed me easily too, but they didn’t, which means they had specific orders to leave me alone. Perhaps Brielle didn’t want our team chasing her after she has seen what we can do. The idea was put to a vote among the team leaders and it was voted down, so I left it alone. I then requested a one month leave to deal with my daydreaming problem before it begins to affect the team and our operations. Baldwin thought that might be a good idea and granted leave for Jennifer and I.

But Baldwin insisted that if we do go on a vacation, then the bad girls would go along to help with protection. I was going to ask about that, but now I don’t need to, so that is good. I am still not sure what we should do with Charlette, but for now she will stay with us. Her foster parents have been arrested and will likely spend a fair amount of time in prison since 3 other young girls disappeared while in their care. Each time they said the child ran away and the explanation was accepted each time.

That seems rather strange to me. While in London we met a woman in her early 30s who said she would like to join our team of investigators. We brought her back with us and she is now going through our training program. She is doing very well and I think she will make a good addition to our team. She will be one of our oldest on the women’s side, with only Annelie being older than her. Her name is Hannah, she has two sisters but they will not speak to her at all.

In actual fact, they hate her, because she used to be involved in a criminal gang. Sky had warned me about some traitors on our team which we have now discovered were bought by an enemy of ours, a man who is a nephew of Toledo, to work within our team and help to destroy us. The man’s name is Granger, so Annelie is now compiling his life history for us so we know what we are up against with him. The girls that had been bought by him were on Vlora’s team, 7 of them in all.

So, Vlora resigned, though I didn’t want her to, but she felt responsible since she didn’t notice what was going on right in her team. She is going through retraining with Mandar security teams. Mandar has done a complete overhaul of his security training. He has never had a problem with his security before but I guess they were getting a bit lax in some areas. We need to be more careful too, 7 traitors is a lot. As the Investigators grows, so do the chances of problems like that.

For now, we won’t be adding anymore new people to our team, after Hannah. Interestingly, those caracal cats really like Hannah, so I guess she will look after them. Well, our case is done, even though it seems like an odd place to finish it, but our objective was accomplished. Now, has Sky returned, or is she just part of my daydreams?

She has been seen by Jennifer and Amerie now, so that would suggest she is real, yet that doesn’t make sense. Hannah thinks, like others, that I need to get back out working on cases again instead of staying at home where I spend too much time daydreaming. I need to think about this some more. But somehow I doubt we will get a vacation though.

The End. A new story will be coming along soon.

©2024 Steve McLeod.