Well, the renovations to our new home are nearly complete and everyone is very excited about living here. We have more land here than any of our other homes and that is very nice too. We put in two helicopter pads which will be handy for us. And now The Investigators has changed a bit too. Since we have grown so large, I decided to split us into three smaller Investigator teams.

Each one will be able to handle cases on their own, and we can always join the teams if we need to. Rock, Aari and Kristina will be the team leaders for each team, Sky and myself will not be part of any team, we will just go along as needed or if we just want to get out on a case. Mostly I will be the armchair first leader to oversee all of the teams and help them with advice.

Annelie will also not be part of any team, she has her work here as normal. She will be teaching Sky and introducing her to all of her contacts, just in case she needs to take over. Sky was already learning a bit before, but now it will be more complete. Everything was going very well for us right now, it felt really good to relax and just be able to rest for a change.

We all needed this break from cases for a while. Then one day Astrid got a call from her dad telling her that her mom had a heart attack and was not doing well. She asked if she could go home which I gave her permission to do right away. Her two friends, Kerstina and Roxette went with her. I suggested it would be good to have them along for safety, and just for comfort too.

Astrid was Tiia’s human so she wanted to go along too and I told her that would be a wonderful idea. Baldwin had them flown home on one of our jets. The next day Galyna, Catalina, Aoife and Mac were in town picking up bread and a few other things for us. Mac was there mainly as a guard for the girls, but while they were shopping he stopped at the little cafe next door for some coffee.

While sitting there he spotted a sign, which was in French, but he recognized the word ‘chats’, so he asked the owners about it. They had the place up for sale because they were moving closer to their daughter. They were an older couple and he was not in good health. But they had 2 cats they could not take with them and so were looking for a good home for them.

Soon Mac was walking out to the car with those two cats and the girls were already sitting there waiting for him. They forgave him for being late when they saw those adorable cats. “This fella is mine,” he told them, referring to an oddly colored male that was white with black stripes. His name was Tiger. The other cat was a female, orange colored like Rusty but with long fur. Her name was Ginger.

“She would be perfect for Dawn,” said Mac. The girls agreed, but they were a bit surprised that Mac would have even picked up the cats. He does like cats, but does not usually spend much time with them after the death of MC, who was his little buddy. Dawn did want a cat and she loved Ginger the moment she saw her!

Later the cats were playing out back with the new members of our cat team when suddenly the alarm sounded, “Code Red, 1C”. “Muffin!” I yelled, and everyone ran outside with weapons ready. She had been shot, but the bullet just grazed her left front leg. “Good thing that person was a bad shot,” said Malcolm. “A bad shot, or a deliberate miss?” I asked, while everyone looked at me.

Then Storm came running back to us from the back fence, with a note in his mouth. It read “Just wanted to let you know I could have killed that precious cat of yours Steve, maybe next time I will. Or perhaps I will kill someone else on your team. You will not know until it happens. Think you can stop me? Then try to catch me if you can. I will even help you a bit, my name is Craig Masters, I am sure you will remember me. I will be back again, count on it.”

He then signed it. I gave the note to Annelie. “I want to know everything about this man,” I said, “and fast! And someone call Astrid and warn her, this guy may not be working alone.” After rereading the note Galyna said she figured the man was a loner, by the way he wrote and they way he taunted me and dared me to find him.

She could be right, but who is he? The name sounds familiar, but I cannot put a face to it for some reason. And why is he doing this? “I have to lie down,” I said, “my back is paining.” Sky took me to our bedroom and called Beryan to massage me. Kat and Dawn came too…

To Be Continued.

©2023 Steve McLeod.