For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
I was lying in bed at our clinic waiting for the results of my scans. Jennifer insisted that Samantha check me thoroughly, so she did. “Why did you stay in the house by yourself?” asked Jennifer, “That is against the rules!” “Did I do that?” I asked, “I thought Friskie was in the house with me, and she’s a ghost.” “Yes, she was there,” said Jennifer, “but she’s new and doesn’t know how to control her abilities yet, you should have had Sky with you, or Angel. And why phone the police from inside the house when it would be safer out in the limousine?” “Did I do that?” I asked, “I don’t remember calling the police. Where is my phone?”
Jennifer got it and looked at it. “Hmm, no calls on here since you left home,” she said. “Maybe I didn’t have a chance to call the police,” I suggested. “Perhaps, but still, you were going to call them,” she said. “I don’t remember that,” I said, “probably this knock on the head made me forget.” Just then Samantha came into the room. “Well, there is nothing wrong with Steve’s head at all,” she said smiling. “That’s what you think,” said Jennifer, “maybe you should do more scans, or other tests, or something.”
“There’s nothing more to do,” she said, “Steve is fine, except for a headache.” “How can Steve get hit on the head with a hard object and not get hurt?” asked Jennifer. “Oh, that’s an easy one!” said Misty walking into the room at that point. “Don’t you knock?” asked Jennifer. “The door was open,” said Misty quietly. “Oops, that was me,” said Samantha, “I forgot to close the door. That door closer thing doesn’t work.” “I’m sorry Misty,” said Jennifer hugging her, “I’m just a little upset with Mr. Leader over there. Now, what was your idea?”
“What if someone had a hand held version of that weapon that hit Steve before,” suggested Misty, “Steve said it felt like being hit with a hard object.” “And someone could have opened the back door and shot it at Friskie and me,” I said, “then run back to a waiting car in the lane, or hid somewhere close by, then left when it was clear.” “That’s just what I was going to say!” said Misty excitedly, “Smart minds think alike you know!” “What has that got to do with Steve?” asked Jennifer.
For some reason all three of them began to laugh uncontrollably when she said that. Sigh. Once they settled down, which took a while, I then tried to say something again. “This means that Carmeline’s brother is in control of this whole deal,” I said, “or rather, his wife is in control. Medina and Colin were working for her. Philly is the main character in all of this, Harold is just a puppet but doesn’t know it yet.” “Hmm, that reminds me,” said Jennifer, “we need to let her know about Helene too.”
“True, but that can come later,” I said, “once we have Sugar safe too. Um, by the way, where is she?” “On the plane heading back here,” said Misty. Then Jennifer told me they moved Carmeline to house 2 because they noticed someone seemed to be watching the house. Hmm, Philly is working overtime to get at Carmeline, but I guess now that she is out of prison she could perhaps challenge the will and at least get a share of it. Philly wouldn’t like that too much. Jennifer left and so did Samantha, but Misty stayed to visit. “Misty, go get some clothes for me please,” I said, “Jennifer took mine.”
“Um, that could get me in trouble,” she said. “Remember all those chores you used to do?” I asked, “I could reinstate them if you would prefer.” “What clothes would you like?” she asked smiling, so I told her. “Um, what if I get caught?” she asked. “You are the sneakiest sneak in the world Misty,” I said, “no way you can get caught.” Off she went and returned in 10 minutes with my clothes. “Now, go to the pool for a while before I leave here,” I said. “But I was at the pool this morning and Jennifer knows it,” she said. “Did you swim?” I asked. “Um, no,” she said.
“Then go swimming, it’s good exercise,” I said smiling. She was gone amazingly fast. Samantha then poked her head in and said I could go. I got back into bed just in time. Off I went. I communicated with Kat to see how things were going now and she said there is no sign of anyone watching the place yet, but it hasn’t even been one day so far. Hopefully Philly won’t be able to find that house, however, I’m curious to know how she found out about the first house.
I asked Kat if she checked Carmeline for trackers and she said they did find one in her shoe, but they got rid of all her clothes. So I asked her to check for embedded trackers in her skin. Sure enough, she had two of them, both in the bottom of her feet. It was a nice, professional job too. The cats were then used to sniff around and they found another tracker in the back of her neck. All three were removed and Kat healed her very nicely so that no scars will remain.
Unfortunately Philly now knows where Carmeline is again so I called Sky back and told her to take Carmeline to house 3, along with Kat, then take Kristina and Kitty. Then she can take some of the others, then Vlora and her teams can head back home for now. Afterward Sky can come here to take some from here to house 3. Kind of a rotation of the team.
Meanwhile, “What’s up Philly?” asked Harold. “It seems that a bunch of those guards Steve has around Carmeline have gone,” she replied, “which means he thinks she is now safe and doesn’t need so many people guarding her now.” “So what’s next?” he asked. “What would you do without me?” she asked, “We get some more men over there and go into the house, take Carmeline and bring her back to us. Then we kill her.” “Why not just let your men kill her?” he asked.
“Because I want to do it myself!” she said emphatically, “She has caused us enough trouble, now it’s my turn. And since Colin finally got that brat Sugar to tell him where Carmeline’s gems were hidden, we can now kill her too and Colin as well, once he hands those gems over to me.” “I still don’t understand how my parent’s estate was only worth $50 million,” said Harold, “I’m sure dad said it was worth $500 million.”
“It was, my dear Harold, it was,” she replied, “I gave you 50 million to play around with, the rest I invested. That money will make us billionaires, not just millionaires! We will create our own empire! If I left it in your hands, it would only last a couple of years, this way it will last me a lifetime.” I wonder if Harold caught that last part, she went from ‘we’ to ‘me’ real quick. Meanwhile, Sky just returned to the chateau. “Whew! I should get some frequent flyer points or something,” said Sky as she relaxed in a big chair. “Go spend some time in the pool,” I said. “YES!” she said and she was gone…
To Be Continued. ©2026 Steve McLeod.
We had just rescued Sugar from her life of being sex trafficked by her husband, who worked for a woman that we know named Medina. She was at the house when we broke in and, as could be expected, we were not welcomed by her and her men. In the end Medina tried to kill me but was thwarted in her attempt by being killed by Sky. Sky tossed a lightning ball at her which caused Medina to be thrown right out the living room window and onto the lawn. She was dead.
Too bad she didn’t accept my offer to let her go but she never did like to lose. I told our team to leave quickly, although I’m sure the police will likely come looking for us anyway, but that’s okay, I will call them myself so it doesn’t look like we are trying to run away from something. “What are you doing Steve?” asked Friskie. She and I were the last ones in the house. “Calling the police to let them know what happened here so they can come and look things over,” I said. I waved for her to leave.
“No, Jennifer told me you were never to be left alone,” she said, “so I stay until you leave too.” “Okay,” I said smiling. Friskie then heard a noise down the hall, so she moved over a bit to take a look, but still staying in the room with me. I was basically behind her at this point and while she looked down the hall, Sky came walking up the steps to the front door to see why we were taking so long. Suddenly something hard hit Friskie on the back of the head, knocking her to the floor.
Then there were 3 shots fired which brought Sky inside very fast! Rock, John and Mac came running back inside quickly too when they heard those shots. Sky noticed the back door open and she was out there in less than a second, but she could see no one. Meanwhile, just as we had first arrived at the Davies’ house, Aari, Bear, Oskar, Clarence and Burk had arrived at the offices of a large investment firm where Sugar’s husband Colin worked as an investment advisor.
Quite a respectable job, no one would ever suspect him of being what he really was, a sex trafficker, drug smuggler and extortionist among other things. Aari was posing as an investor from a large company in Finland and he had already booked an appointment with Colin the day before. His secretary showed him into his office and then left, closing the door after her. Colin stood up to shake hands with the group and then went over to a cabinet to offer them a drink.
Aari and the others followed him but suddenly Bear grabbed his arms pulling his hands behind his back and slapping handcuffs on him amazingly fast! While he did that, Burk quickly put a nice professional type gag over his mouth. Then Aari told him why they were really visiting him, because of what he was doing to his wife. Aari explained he was the leader of a gang called the Black Wolves. He told Colin that his cousin was good friends with Sugar and since he and his gang were in the area, they decided to come and check on things. Aari said he wasn’t too happy to find out what he had been told was actually true.
Burk then mentioned he found a safe behind a picture. “That is so typical Davies,” said Aari, “first place anyone will look, now, open it please.” Bear took the handcuffs off him and he opened the safe. “No money in here,” said Burk, “oh, wait, what’s this?” There was a false side to the safe which he removed and pulled out a large quantity of drugs plus several envelopes with money in each one. Burk handed them to Aari. “Well, well, looks to be 10K in each one,” said Aari, “that’s $120,000. Not bad at all. Your wife will need some expense money, and of course, there are my expenses as well.”
“Hey boss,” said Burk, “I found this way at the back, a cloth bag with some gems in it.” “I wonder how many times you had to beat your wife to get these gems?” Aari asked Colin, “One thing is certain, they don’t belong to you or your wife, so we will take those too.” Then Aari got a call from Rock telling him what happened and to leave right away. So, Aari used his ring to put Colin to sleep, after Bear punched him a few times and broke a couple ribs. On their way out Clarence touched the back of the secretary’s neck with his ring and she was very quickly asleep at her desk.
They had put everything back to normal in the office, except they left the drugs out on Colin’s desk. Once they were driving away, Cristy turned the building’s security cameras back on, she had turned them off earlier so that Aari and his team would not be picked up. And, when Colin and his secretary wake up, they won’t even remember that Aari and team were there. Aari then called the police and told them about a drug deal happening in the office of Colin Davies.
It will look like something went wrong, which is why the bruises and broken ribs. Colin will have a tough time explaining things at any rate. And, of course, only Colin’s finger prints will be on anything since our guys wore gloves. We are very careful these days not to leave anything behind that might be found. The guys headed straight to their hotel and waited for our call, but what is going to happen now?
Sky brought me back to our clinic right away after I had been clubbed by someone, just like Friskie had been, but she wasn’t hurt, just knocked down. Not being able to control all of her abilities yet, that hit on the head caught her by surprise. Unfortunately neither of us saw who it was, but the person obviously escaped out the back door. Several of the team ran around looking for someone in the area, but most likely a car had been waiting for him, or her…
To Be Continued. ©2026 Steve McLeod.