Well, it was certainly a surprise to find out that Matt had been exchanged for someone else. Now, does that mean that Matt is dead, or just being held captive by whoever these people are that are living at that castle? Matt holds a wealth of information in that head of his, if his captors can extract that information, it would be bad for us. And there are ways to get information from people, involuntarily, if they don’t give it voluntarily.

Matt would never give in to them, so they would have to use other means. And that means we don’t have much time to rescue him. They did an amazing job at making a twin of Matt, except his DNA doesn’t match, or his fingerprints. Plus, the knowledge he had was a bit outdated. He thought I was still married to Sky, he did not know she was dead. He still doesn’t, Kat was careful not to feed him new information. He did not know I was married to Jennifer.

He knew he was married to Penny, but did not know he had children and that Sapphire was one of them. Oddly, he did not know that the cats can communicate with us, but that is information the real Matt could give to our new enemies. The fake Matt kept asking to see Baldwin or Mandar and asked when they would be back at the chateau. Apparently he has important information to share with them, but only with them.

He also thought that I was still the leader, not Kat and Jennifer, which makes sense, that is very new information. The fact that he keeps wanting to see Baldwin and Mandar together to talk with them, tells me that his main plan is to kill them both at the same time. That would be bad for their corporations, and it would also be bad for us. I called Richard and asked for Mandar, but he was away on a business trip.

I told Richard what had happened here and that there is likely someone new wanting to kill Mandar, so make sure he does not come out here until we have this cleared up. He said that he would tell Mandar right away. “Thanks for taking care of that for us Steve,” said Jennifer, “I think we need to talk with Samantha and get you out of recovery.” “Not so fast,” I said, “strange things are happening to me right now, I need to stay on recovery until we find out what is happening to me.”

“And why did you not say anything to me?” Jennifer scolded. “It just started today,” I said, “I feel scared at times and want someone close to me, someone that is closer than the others. If you have to leave me at all, even for a short time, I need someone to stay right beside me.” “That could be a side effect of that new drug you were given,” she said, “I will talk with Carolyn right now.” Meanwhile, all the men are back here, but in our jail.

We are telling them that is the new procedure whenever anyone is captured, just to make sure that no problems have occurred with them, like sickness or whatever. So they have to be locked up for 24 hours. That should keep them calm, hopefully, and keep our fake Matt from thinking we have discovered him. Whoever did this has had this planned for some time. Even the fake Matt’s voice is almost perfect, it can only be detected by machine, though Angel thought his voice was different.

Even the way he walks and other mannerisms are perfect. A lot of time went into this and they would have had to take a lot of videos of the real Matt too, plus audio. That means that someone is watching us very closely. Kat, Jennifer and Angel were now in our bedroom to talk and shortly Carolyn and Melissa will be here to check on me. Both of them were concerned about this side effect that suddenly started. “I have been thinking,” I began, and my four bodyguards began clapping.

“Very funny,” I said, “and I am going to remember that. (sigh) Anyway, I was thinking that perhaps one of Baldwin’s servants has been secretly taking videos and audio recordings of Matt, and maybe some of the other guys too. That would be the easiest way for this to happen.” “Hmm, that does make good sense Steve,” said Kat, “we need to check that out right away, before anything else happens.” She then called Aari and told him what my thoughts were, and he agreed that is a real possibility, so they would check things out quickly.

Some of the girls went over with more cats to help look for hidden cameras. If one of Baldwin’s servants is a spy, then he might be able to help us out. Kat now told the other girls to leave while the three ghosts stayed with me to talk. “I think it is time for you to become a partial ghost Steve,” said Kat, “are you ready?” “Any time you are Kat,” I said smiling, not knowing what to expect. She had me lie down and Jennifer was lying right beside me.

“You will need to sleep for a while Steve,” said Jennifer, “but don’t worry please, I will stay right here beside you the whole time.” “With you by my side,” I said, “I definitely will not worry. Um, you are not going to kill me, are you?” Jennifer giggled. “No Steve, we will not do that,” she said. That is all I remembered and I was soon asleep. Jennifer was waking me up just a few minutes later, or so I thought. But now we were in bed, not on the bed.

“Time to get up and shower Steve,” she said, “breakfast will be ready shortly.” “Wow, it seems like I have only been sleeping a few minutes,” I said, “um, this might seem like a silly question, but what part of me is a ghost?” She giggled again. “We will tell you all about it after breakfast,” she said, “now, get up and get moving, I’m hungry.” “If you’re really a ghost, why do you keep getting hungry?” I asked. “Hmm, perhaps Kat was a bit hasty in her decision,” said Jennifer giggling. Sigh.

“Does that mean you are not going to answer my question?” I asked. “If I don’t eat, I will get too light and float away,” she said laughing. Sigh. “By the way, how do you feel this morning?” she asked. “Actually, great!” I said. After breakfast the three ghosts got me alone in our bedroom again. “Aari and Mac found out the two servants that had been taking videos of Matt,” said Kat, “but they had no idea what those people wanted to do. Seems there is a group of 8 men and 1 woman and the woman is the leader.

Her name is Liana, but the servants have never seen her. They did meet one of the men, named Gordon. They actually had taken a photo of him, without his knowledge, just in case we caught the two of them.” “And they were hoping that might bring some leniency from us,” I said, “is that right?” “Yes, you’re right Steve,” said Angel, “but we have no record of this man in our files, or any woman named Liana.”

“She might be related to one of our previous enemies,” I said, “or, perhaps she is someone new.” Just then I had an idea and told Kat to call Carolyn and Melissa up to the bedroom. Carolyn had never heard of her but Melissa smiled when she heard the name. “She is from our old gang,” she said, “and she would be second in command now.

They would love to get back at you for what you did to them. I am sure that killing Baldwin and/or Mandar would be their primary objective as that would seriously hurt The Investigators.” She also figured they would kill Matt once they got the information they wanted from him. Which means we need to find him fast…

To Be Continued.

©2024 Steve McLeod.