Well, we finally arrived at our destination, a secret house that Mandar has for special occasions, such as this, a place for us to hide out for a time while we do some thinking. No one knows we are here, unless there is an informant among us, but if there is we should find out fairly quickly. There is definitely a traitor on the team, but I’m hoping that the traitor is still with the other group, and not with our group. Once we were more or less settled in to our new place to live, then Misty and Cristy wanted to have a meeting with me.

I asked if the ghosts could join our meeting and they said that would be okay. They just wanted us to know we could stay here as long as necessary and Mandar would look after our every need. They would be staying here with us as well, that way they can look after us better. For now they asked that none of us leave the grounds and for the first 3 days to seriously limit our time outside. I told them we would do that.

We talked more about security and they asked if I had doubts about any of the team members that came with us. They also asked about Rochelle who had just come to us and also about Trapper, his friends and Delphine. So I filled them in about who these people are and why they are with us. I did admit that we knew nothing about Trapper’s friends, but I did believe that Trapper and Delphine were completely trustworthy. Annelie was just going to start checking out Trapper’s friends when all of this began to happen.

Cristy said she would check them out. As it turns out, Cristy is just like Annelie, she can find out any information that we could possibly need about anyone or anything. That will be very helpful right now. Misty is the organizer and problem solver of the two. Together they make an unbeatable team. No wonder that every time I mention their names to Mandar, he just says “NO”, before I have a chance to say anything more. Sigh.

I sure hope that there are no traitors among the group that came with us. Jennifer and I have not noticed anything, no danger and no trouble among the team. Even the cats have not noticed anything, so that is good. Later Samantha talked to the twins about taking me to a clinic so she could get some blood tests done. Misty smiled and took Samantha to the basement where there is a small, but well equipped clinic for us to use.

So, naturally she had me down there quickly and she was busy taking tubes of blood out of my arm. I asked her to leave some blood for me too. She just said I should never make her laugh when she has a needle in my arm. I kept quiet after that. That evening I had another meeting with my ghosts and told them we need to be extra careful. We might be safe here, or we might not be, so we can’t take chances. All of them had already considered that and were planning to be very watchful.

I also had included our cats in this meeting since they are also extra good at being watchful. Beryan was now giving me my evening massage and Amerie, Katresa and Caleigh were in the room too as they will be my bodyguards for tonight, along with Jennifer of course, plus Muffin, Storm and Snow. The girls were playing with the cats for now. Beryan said I was very tense, something I already knew, so she gave me a longer massage than normal.

But, about an hour later I began to shake again, like I had done earlier, so Jennifer called Samantha right away and she gave me something to relax me. Meanwhile, “Where did they go?” she asked. “No idea, Mandar flew them somewhere to one of his secret safe houses,” he answered, “that could be anywhere in the world.” “Hmm, well, I will find out where they went,” she said, “I am not finished with Steve yet. He will pay a high price for what he did to me.”

“Be careful,” he said, “or you will be the one paying that high price. You have already destroyed The Investigators, we just need to get the story out about what he has done and no one will hire him again.” “No, not yet,” she said, “I want him to feel the inside of a prison first. I want things so bad for him that even his wife will leave him.” “That will never happen,” he replied, “finish him now while he’s down.” “You just do what I told you,” she said, “I will take care of Steve.”

“Okay, my part is easy,” he said, “in a couple of days the remaining Investigators here will be part of history.” “Just remember, you only have two days before that stuff wears off,” she reminded him. “Can’t she give them some more?” he asked. “Is something affecting your memory?” she asked, “You already killed her, remember?” “Oh, right, she was the one that did it,” he said, “maybe we should have kept her alive.”

“No, I wanted her dead so they wouldn’t find out who betrayed them,” she said, “she was starting to get nervous and nervous people mess up.” “Okay, the boys and I will get things set up so we can finish off this group of The Investigators,” he told her. “Just remember, kill those 7 women first so they can’t retract their accusations,” she said, “then it will look like Steve deliberately silenced them.” “You sure know how to do things,” he chuckled, “I will call when the job is done.”

“No, you can’t call me, I will call you later tomorrow afternoon,” she said, “you should have it done by then.” Now back to us. Just before we went to bed our ghosts came by to say good night. Well, not quite, they had a different reason for their visit. Sky had taken Angel and the two of them went back to our chateau to look around a bit, and do some listening too.

They discovered that a woman had phoned one of the guys, so Angel got the phone number of the woman. “Good, we will give that to Cristy in the morning,” I said, “and she can track it down.” But when Sky mentioned they were going to track our plane I decided to call Cristy right away. “Yep, they can track it,” she said, “and it will lead them to Lisbon, Portugal.

Oh, that phone number is from Canada, I’m surprised you didn’t recognize that Steve.” She giggled. “Okay, so I missed something,” I said, “Canada is a big place after all.” “Uh huh, and you are stressed,” she admitted, “so I will let you get away with it this time.” It was late and we were all tired, so it didn’t take long to fall asleep.

To Be Continued.

©2025 Steve McLeod.