Rock ran over and picked her up, putting her in one of the cars. Then he, along with 2 of the girls, took Penny to the clinic. She had been shot in her left leg, which shattered the bone a bit, but she should recover fully with time. At least we hope so anyway. When Rock and the girls returned, we decided to have a meeting about this trouble.

We have to find Reggie before he starts killing us. But he can do a lot of damage by injuring people in some permanent way too. Maybe that is really what he wants to do, and that would be terrible as well. He must be in the area, close enough to watch us at times, but he must be living further away so that we cannot find him easily. He would not be living in our small town, we could find him too easily there.

However, he might think that way too, so we need to search our town just to make sure he is not there. Sometimes the best place to hide is right close by, in the open, as it were. Hmm, that is a very good thought. Dawn brought that idea to us. My brain needs to work better. However, that is why we have a team.

We have talked with the people that own the bakery in town, and they will be making some changes for us. We are their biggest customers, we go through a lot of bread and other pastry and we just cannot bake it all ourselves. We would need a much bigger kitchen and hire people to do the baking for us, we just do not have the time to do it ourselves.

But the cats will be checking our food all the time now, not just when we are on a case. After we all went to bed, we turned off the outside lights that we normally would leave on all night. We want to start doing things more randomly now and hopefully that will help to throw off Reggie. I do remember he likes things to be regular and hates when things change all the time.

So perhaps if we continue making changes it will get him frustrated and then he will not think clearly, he will be more hasty in his decisions. That way he will be more likely to make mistakes. And that is what we want. Unfortunately, we do not yet have our electronic fence in operation, but we do have Team 5 and Team 6 taking turns guarding the place outside 24 hours a day.

Plus we help with that too. Mac and Malcolm are taking turns watching at night. They are both about the same size, Mac is 5 ft 10 inches tall and Malcolm is 5 ft 8 inches, Mac weighs about 180 pounds while Malcolm weighs about 175 pounds. Mac can walk around as silent as a cat, even through forest areas. He and his new cat Tiger, get along very well.

While patrolling around that night Tiger suddenly stopped, so Mac did as well. Meower, said Tiger quietly and pointed with his tail. They moved in closer. Mac could see two men, but could not see who they were. He told Tiger to get closer, just in case it was 2 men from Team 6. Tiger came back. “Are they from Team 6?” he asked. Meower said Tiger and shook his tail back and forth, signifying no.

When Mac looked again, one man was walking away, so he waited. Once he was gone Mac went closer. The remaining man was looking toward the chateau and suddenly he felt a knife at his back. “Just walk,” said Mac firmly. Once in the open the man quickly turned around, swinging his own knife. Mac spotted it in the moonlight and moved, so he only got a minor cut on his arm.

Picking a knife fight with Mac can be deadly, for the other guy. Sure enough, Mac stabbed him and the man fell. Tiger then pressed his alarm button which brought Team 6 over to Mac. They brought the dead man inside to see if I knew him, but I did not recognize him at all. Oddly, he had ID in his wallet. He was from Sweden!

I asked Annelie to check him out and interestingly he was a member of that Swedish criminal organization that killed Astrid’s father. Now Mac was sorry he did not move in more quickly and catch both men. “I am glad you did not try,” I said to Mac, “you used good sense tackling just one man. We want to keep you around a lot longer yet.”

He just smiled, “thanks, guess you are right.” Was that other man Reggie? Or just another accomplice of this man? No way to know for sure. But they are also watching us or how would they have gotten that bomb on board our jet? Perhaps Reggie informed them, but how would he know what we are doing? We have been doing all the work on this chateau ourselves, just to make sure we have no problems.

Then it hit me and I went to see Baldwin who was awake and in the library now. I put my phone on his desk. “This is how they know what we are doing,” I told Baldwin. “Get all the phones Steve,” he said, “and I will have new ones here by morning.” He also sent new phones to the team in Sweden. Muffin sent a message to Storm and he told Kristina. He also sent a message to Aari and they also got rid of their phones.

Two cases at once is too much. What will Reggie do next? Mandar was at work early and a letter was waiting for him in the morning mail. Just a note really, “If you know what is good for you, do not help Steve and his PI team.” Craig Masters. “We shall see, my man, we shall see,” he said as he rubbed his cat Tandi, “Mandar does not give in to threats…”

To Be Continued.

©2023 Steve McLeod.