Our new chateau is much larger than our old one, so Jennifer and I have a larger bedroom. It has a smaller bedroom off to one side which is where we sleep, the main bedroom is where our bodyguards stay at night, and they can take turns sleeping on the bed in there. During the day I rest on that bed and get my massages there as well. We also have a small home office off to the other side of the main room which is very nice. We are on the top floor right next to one of the two towers.

The guys on our team stay at the old chateau with Baldwin, along with Penny, who is married to Matt, and Brook, who is married to Miles. Of course Rock lives here with us too since he is married to Annelie. I am lying on the bed right now waiting for Caleigh to come and give me my massage today. She is just as good as Beryan and it gives Beryan a rest now that she only needs to massage me every other day. I had my eyes closed but felt something and when I opened my eyes Sky was lying on the bed next to me, smiling.

“Did you make the bad girls your bodyguards yet?” she asked. “Uh, no, I haven’t had a chance to talk with Jennifer about it,” I said, “and she must give her consent for it, just like you did.” “Good,” she said, “just make sure you don’t wait too long, it’s important. They will be good bodyguards for you.” “I agree,” I said, “and I have come up with a team called the Bad Girls, with your suggestions. Now I just need a name for it, Jennifer doesn’t like the name Steve’s Bad Girls.”

Sky giggled. “It could be considered a bad name, I guess,” she admitted, “but the girls like it and that is important.” Right then Jennifer came in from the office and looked at me on the bed. It looked like I was touching something and talking quietly. Caleigh then arrived too. “I must go,” said Sky, “remember what I told you and please be careful.” She then disappeared again. “Daydreaming again Steve?” asked Jennifer.

“Uh, yeah, guess I was,” I admitted, “and it’s starting to… well, it doesn’t matter right now.” “Suzette used to have a real problem with daydreaming,” said Caleigh, “almost got us discovered by Sebastien’s men once. So, she asked us to help her. Amerie and Chloe did wonders with her and she no longer daydreams like that anymore.” “Hmm, I must have a talk with them,” said Jennifer, “since it seems to be starting to affect Steve, or bother him anyway.”

“They would be most happy to help,” said Caleigh. “Would you bad girls like to come along early tomorrow morning when we go looking for cats?” I asked. Wow, did she get excited! She jumped right over me, landing on the bed beside me. “Do you really mean it? For real?” she asked excitedly. “Yes, I mean it, for real,” I said, “but only if you are ready to leave by 7:30.” “We will be ready! Even earlier if you want!” she said, still excited.

“However, we won’t be going unless you massage my back,” I reminded her, and she went back to work right away. After Jennifer and I went to bed, she asked me why we had to leave so early. “Uh, I just want to get out,” I said, though I obviously didn’t sound too convincing. “Hmm, okay,” she said, “and I agree, the bad girls would make good bodyguards for you, so we will add them to the list and remove any that are part of the Wildcats team, since they are not around much anyway.”

“Yes, I was thinking that would make sense too,” I said, “I didn’t realize I had mentioned that to you yet.” “Yes, you did, earlier today,” she reminded me, and smiled. “This daydreaming is really starting to bother me,” I said, “I have been wanting to talk with you, Kat and Angel about it.” “No time like the present,” said Jennifer, and soon the other two ghosts were with us talking all about this. “Nothing we did to you before would have this effect on you Steve,” said Kat, “your daydreaming has moved around between this and that and now has landed on Sky for a while, which is understandable.

Being cooped up inside all the time is definitely not good for you, it will be necessary for you to get out and involved in cases again, even if there is danger.” “Between the 3 of us we should be able to guard Steve all the time,” added Angel. “True,” said Jennifer, “but if what Sky told you about Carmen is true, then you can’t be the one to deliver those gems to her. She wanted you before and she still wants you, that was evident in her note.”

“We can go along and make sure he isn’t kidnapped,” said Kat, “Carmen will never know. By the way, I like the idea for the new Bad Girls team, maybe it could be called Steve’s Bad Girls.” I think that was the loudest sigh I ever heard from Jennifer. The night passed quickly, breakfast is over and we are now nearly at our destination in the city, the Cat Shelter. We have Muffin, Snow, Jewel, Rusty, Ginger and Midnight with us to help us find the right cats.

If there are any cats able to communicate with us, they would most likely be more willing to talk with our cats, than directly with us. Katresa and friends are very excited about the possibility of finding their own cats, even though I reminded them that they would have to be willing to share, and not each have their own cat. They are amazingly good at saying “awwwwwwww” all at the same time. But I plan to be firm with this, we already have quite a few cats.

However, it would be nice to have at least 5 cats with each team. I think this would be very beneficial, cats are small, quiet and fast. However, that would mean another 12 cats, so, maybe we should aim for 4 cats per team. That would still mean 7 more cats. Maybe 3 cats per team would work just fine? Oh well, let’s see if we find anymore cats at all. Our friendly cat shelter has expanded and now has nearly 300 cats! I came with 10 of our girls, plus those 300 cats, equaled 3 hours.

We did find 5 more cats however, so I guess it was worthwhile. We had lunch, did some shopping and then returned home. Charlette is getting along well with Erika, even though there is a slight language problem at times, but Aasta is fluent in French so she is helping the girls right now. I am guessing it will be wild when we arrive home with our five new additions. Unfortunately Annelie was not quite so excited when she told us what she found out about those gems and how they will be guarded.

It would have been nice to have more time planning our theft, but, time is something we don’t have. They will be much too heavily guarded on the way to the museum, so that is out. We must be careful not to hurt or kill anyone, that means we can’t use bullets, only our sleeping darts, which means we need to be closer. The guards will have automatic weapons and large caliber machine guns, plus armored trucks.

So, it means stealing them from inside the museum. But, if we do it at night and turn off the alarm system, there will be 30 police officers arriving in 10 minutes, plus the security guards in the museum. I am not concerned about the museum guards, we can deal with them easily, but 10 minutes is just not enough time to get away before the police arrive. However, something is making me feel uneasy…

To Be Continued.

©2024 Steve McLeod.