Jennifer took Giselle out of the library and off to Giselle’s bedroom, along with Galyna. Giselle obviously knows Lyla from somewhere, and I think I know where. That would be why Lyla stayed out of sight from Giselle, she didn’t want Giselle knowing who she was. But why? Giselle was a slave, it’s not like she could do anything against Lyla, so why the secrecy? Then we have this shooter, we will do things a bit differently when we bring him in so he won’t be able to see Giselle.

That should help to keep her calm too. Angel came in and sat down beside me. “And how did you get away in time?” I asked, “Or did that huge explosion have no effect on you?” “Well, Jennifer didn’t think it was wise to take a chance,” she said, “even though we believed I would survive the explosion with no problem. But, I returned to myself so I was able to slide out of that harness easily enough since it was so big. Then Carine quickly grabbed me and took me out of there incredibly fast.

She is fast you know, like Kat.” “Hmm, that is certainly good to know,” I told her smiling, “and I’m glad you listened to Jennifer, best not to take chances when it’s not necessary.” “Perhaps you should listen to your own advice sometime,” she said, more seriously now, “we don’t want you getting killed, when there are other ways to do things.” She then got up and went back to the kitchen. Then Amerie came and sat on my lap, giving me a hug. “I agree with Angel, Steve,” she said, “no more taking chances.”

“Okay, I will listen to you on one condition,” I said. “And what is that, my adorable big brother?” she asked. “I still go on cases,” I said, “and you will be one of 5 constant bodyguards around me while on the case.” She looked at me. “That was actually two conditions,” she said, “but okay, I agree. So, you picked one bodyguard, I will pick two and Jennifer will pick two.” “You better be careful little sister,” I said, “Jennifer might not like that arrangement, she might want to pick all 4.”

“Then I will give her suggestions,” she said cheerfully. Jennifer then returned and said she left Giselle with Galyna and Penny. Along with helping on the computer, Penny is now a certified counselor for our team, with Galyna. Hannah has a lot of great contacts, just like Annelie, so she will also be trained to use the computer for us. When Jennifer returned, she informed me that Lyla is actually Giselle’s older sister Vivienne. “I had been wondering about that,” I said, “considering her reaction to seeing that picture of Lyla.”

“Her own sister,” said Amerie, “to make her a sex slave. I would like to get my hands on her!” The next day, after breakfast, I decided to try something to see if Giselle has ever seen the gunman that tried to kill her yesterday. Jennifer will stand beside Giselle and keep both of them invisible. That way Giselle will not need to be afraid and the gunman will not know that Giselle is with us. I asked a couple of Trapper’s men to bring him to the chateau.

They brought him into the library and stood him over by the far wall. Then Jennifer went to get Giselle. As they came back into the library, Giselle took one look at our prisoner and she told Jennifer she knew the man, but wasn’t quite sure who he was. She kept looking at him for a few minutes, but she just could not think of his name. Finally the two of them left the library and began walking down the hall. But, suddenly Giselle stopped.

“Now I know!” she exclaimed, “It is my brother Beau!” “Well, well,” I said to the gunman, “we caught the big Beau Lefebvre.” “You finally thought of my name?” he asked, “Took you long enough. I would say you are not much of a private investigator, since it took you so long.” That didn’t sit too well with Katresa and she came over to Beau. “Steve is the very best PI anywhere!” she said firmly. Beau had been noticing that the girls were wearing their guns in holsters at the back of their waist.

So, when Katresa came close, he suddenly grabbed her and took her gun quickly from the holster, then used it to hit her on the head, knocking her unconscious. I moved toward him when he did this but he had the gun pointed right at my head and he told everyone to drop their weapons, which they did. None of our ghosts were present, a fault of mine I suppose, but we did have 10 other girls in here with guns, plus me and two of Trapper’s friends, though they didn’t have guns.

Unlike us, they can’t just carry guns with them when traveling to other countries. “Sky,” I said. The man yelled about his now very hot gun, throwing it onto the floor. Then Sky showed herself and kicked the man twice in the stomach making him fall to the floor groaning. Trapper’s friends then took him, dragging him back to his “accommodations” for now. “Will you ever learn to stay out of trouble, my dear former husband?” asked Sky. “Well, I did call you in time for a change,” I said.

“In time for what, your funeral?” she asked, shaking her head. Sigh. We locked up Beau and then headed up to Paris and to Giselle’s old house. We won’t bother waiting to finalize permission to look around the house, we will just get things moving along. We did stop at the address we had for the current owner, but it was an empty building waiting to be torn down. That figures. Anyway, we went to Giselle’s house and parked our vans down the street a bit.

We brought Giselle with us, just in case she might be able to remember something once we were back inside the house. Surprisingly, Giselle said that all the furniture was the same, it was like nothing had changed in the time she had been away. That is kind of interesting for sure, however, we soon discovered that someone was living in the house, though no one was home at the time. The girls said it was likely only one woman that was living there. Perhaps that woman police officer?

Neither of those police officers were with the police force anymore, and both had disappeared from the area. Obviously one is still around, the one pretending to be 90 years old, and she is likely the one living here in the house. She may have a different job now, and that is why she is not home. Or she may be out shopping, which is not a good thought since that would mean she could return at any time. However, we soon discovered she was indeed at home.

We found her body stuffed into an old trunk in the basement, she was likely killed just yesterday. That means Beau could have killed her before trying to kill Giselle. Or it could be someone else, although I really don’t want anymore new people involved in this case, we have more than enough now. Then we checked a small storage room in the basement and discovered the remains of the other police officer. She had been killed some time ago obviously.

We should be getting the police involved now, but if we do, then there will be no way for us to search the house. So we will wait until tomorrow, or later today if we find what we are looking for. Now, we just need to find out what that is. I kept asking Giselle different questions, such as where her parents worked. Both were in their 50’s, her father was retired and her mother only wanted to stay at home and look after the children.

Her father had a modest income and everything about their life and house seemed to fit that perfectly. There was no large bank account and no investments or life insurance. The father had a small office in the attic of the house. Everything we found was related to his job, until…

To Be Continued.

©2024 Steve McLeod.