Here we are, relaxing at the chateau and everything has been nice a quiet for us. It has been 8 days since our last case, Rock and John are still in the clinic recovering, though the girls are spoiling them terribly. I told them that would be okay for now, but not too many snacks, they had to follow Samantha’s rules and they all agreed to that. All except Steffie. She kept sneaking snacks in for those guys every day until Samantha came to me, then I had to call Steffie and have a talk with her. “But Daddy,” she said, “they need food to get better.”

“They get all the food they need already Steffie,” I assured her. “But Uncle Rock say he’s wasting away not getting enough food to eat,” she said, pouting. Then I had to talk with Rock so Steffie wouldn’t get into trouble. “Oops, guess she does bring me a lot of extra food,” he said, trying to hide under the blanket. Sigh.

Today is a sort of special day, all of the team leaders and ghosts are on a special shopping trip in the city. They do this periodically, oh, and no male team leaders are allowed on this shopping trip either. That means Aari and I are not invited, which is probably a good thing since they like to spend the whole day shopping and that is too long for us. So, since Aari and I are not invited to this special day event, then each time they randomly pick four others to join them. This year they picked Macy, Cristy, Amber and Crystal.

I don’t ask why they pick four instead of two because I might get an answer I don’t understand anyway. Unfortunately things didn’t quite work out the way they had planned this time. Just as our first group had finished lunch the Code Red alarm sounded, “Code Red Missing Team”! That could only mean our shopping girls have gone missing, or some of them anyway. Jennifer communicated with me right then and let me know that the four girls, plus Misty and Dawn, have gone missing. I told them to keep looking and I would send two teams in to help.

I called for Dawn’s team and Misty’s team to get ready for leaving in 5 minutes, and why. But, before they headed out the door I got a phone call. “Call for you Steve,” said Wisty. I told everyone to be quiet and said to play the call through the speaker so everyone could hear. “Hello Steve,” said a male voice, “by now you know about your missing girls. I want you to know they are perfectly safe with me, providing you are a reasonable man and I am sure you are. I want you to do something for me.” “And what might that be?” I asked, trying not to sound angry.

“Nothing, absolutely nothing Steve,” he said, “I want you to stay away from Betty Wilcox, that is all. Stay away from her for 2 weeks and I will happily return your girls to you.” “Well, considering I don’t know this Betty Wilcox,” I said, “staying away from her should be rather easy. But, how do I know you will keep your word and return my girls to me at the end of 2 weeks?” “Well Steve,” he said, “you will just have to trust me on that one. But if you try to look for these girls, then I will have to kill them.

Or if you try to look for me, I will have to kill them. Just stay home, relax and everything will be just fine. You can take on other cases if you wish, but not for Betty Wilcox, stay away from her. Oh, I have removed all the trackers from these girls, so that won’t help you.” “If I do what you say,” I said, “then I want to talk with one of them each day.” “Very well,” he said, “I thought you would want to do that. Any particular one?” “How about Misty?” I asked. “Very well,” he said, “at 12 noon each day you can expect a call. Please don’t try anything foolish and call off those other girls, I know they are looking.”

“I will call them back home right away,” I said. He then hung up. “Jennifer,” I said. “Yes Steve,” she said, “we are looking all over, but I guess someone took them and they are long gone.” “Yes, I heard from their kidnappers,” I said, “so I want all of you to return home, immediately.” There was silence. “You don’t mean that, do you?” she asked. “Yes, I do,” I said, “I want all of you back here right away, I will explain when you get home.” Jennifer and Sky were here almost immediately. “The others are coming back in the vans,” said Jennifer frowning at me, “now, explain.”

So I told her about the phone call. “Have you forgotten that we’re ghosts and can stay invisible while we look?” she asked. “What about the vans?” I asked in return, “They will likely be watching those vans to see if they return home. Plus, they may have taken the girls out of the city to a different location, perhaps even a different country. The man had a German accent, which doesn’t mean anything necessarily, but it might. We will look for them, but quietly, so our girls don’t get killed. This way we have 2 weeks to find them.

Trixie and Wisty are looking for this Betty Wilcox and each day I get to talk with Misty. If she remembers our code, and I’m sure she will, then we will find out some information each day too. Plus Storm can hopefully talk to her each day too and get more information from her. Although at the moment Storm and the other cats are a bit angry with me.” Just then Snow jumped up on my lap. Meowy.= “Me not angry with you, me know you have plan. Mommy Muffin teach me well, she always say you can be trusted, sometimes ideas are weird, but always can be trusted and would always help team embers.” She then hugged me.

“Thank you Snow,” I said, “I have an important job for you now.” She sat up and saluted as best she could. “Snow, it’s not necessary to salute,” said Jennifer. Meowy.= “Oops, forgot.” “Anyway,” I said, “please go talk with the other cats and let Storm know he has an important roll to play in rescuing our girls.” Meowy!= “Yep, me go right away!” I stretched my leg out and she slid down, then off she ran. “I have been picked to apologize on behalf of our two teams,” said Valeria, “we should have known you wouldn’t just leave them.” “Now we need to do some planning,” I said, “but first we need to find out something about Betty Wilcox.”

“She doesn’t exist,” said Wisty. “Agreed,” said Trixie. “Melody, Akila, Tracy,” I said, “help out on the computers to find this mysterious Betty Wilcox for us please.” They were soon looking as well, but an hour later there was still nothing at all about this woman. “That makes no sense,” I said, “she must exist, why else would this man tell us to keep away from her.” “It is rather odd we can’t find her,” said Jazzy, “I have my contacts looking for her as well.” By the end of the day we still did not know anything about this woman…

To Be Continued. ©2026 Steve McLeod.