After the autopsies were done, Kerstina came out after cleaning up, but she was frowning a bit. ”What is wrong Kerstina?” I asked. ”How old were Amber’s sisters?” she asked. ”They were 17 and 19,” answered Amber, still sobbing. ”That does not match the two girls in there,” said Kerstina, “I would say they are more like 12 and 14.” Amber stopped crying. 

“Steve, what happened to my sisters?” she asked quietly. I did not want to answer that question, but I certainly had a good guess. But how could I tell her that? The other doctor came out just then and I went over and grabbed him, pushing him against the wall. ”What happened to my girlfriend’s sisters?” I demanded, “You know those bodies are not of her sisters, now what happened? 

Who is paying you to lie to us? Speak up or someone will be doing an autopsy on you tomorrow!” Mac came over then and flipped out his knife. ”Look, I do not know anything about this,” he whined, “I am just a doctor, I do my job, the police said these were the daughters of the man and woman brought in from that house fire. Please, I am married and have 2 kids myself.” 

“You are a liar!” said Amber loudly, “and we will prove it!” ”Yes, we certainly will,” I said, “you better warn your boss that we are in town and we will find my girlfriend’s sisters and we will take this city apart doing it!” We then left and went back to the hotel. Annelie then called us after dinner. 

“Good news,” she said, “they have checked up on Aari Rockwood and found out all about his operations. Unless that group over there has some big muscle behind them, they should be getting worried about now.” ”Sounds good Annelie,” I said, “what about Team 2?” ”They are already in place,” she answered, “waiting to be called into action.” 

“Good, here are 3 places they can ‘check’ out tomorrow,” I said, “all 3 open at 2pm.” ”I will let Rock know,” she said. ”Oh, I will send Bouncer over to help them too,” I said, “they may need the extra muscle for their job.” In the morning Bouncer went to join Rock and his team, so that gives us each 14 team members. But right now we need to find out who is running things here and what they are doing. 

My guess is they are involved in a lot of things, likely owning this small city in one way or another. We want to stop that, but we also want to try and find Amber’s sisters, if they are still alive and they probably are not. Their bodies will likely never be found either. That part is going to be very hard on Amber. 

Meanwhile, “We better be careful with those people,” said Phil, “that Aari guy has a big organization, across Europe, in Canada, and in South America.” ”I told you we should have killed those sisters too,” said a woman, “now they want to find them and that means they will stay around even longer.” ”How did they manage to get that lawyer working for them,” said her husband, “the biggest legal outfit in town and they are all over the world too. I have tried to get them for us, but they will not touch us.” 

“Perhaps we are not big enough for them,” she answered, “after all, this Aari Rockwood is worldwide and that means a lot of money.” ”Yeah, and a lot of trouble for us,” he said. ”Maybe we should give her sisters back,” she suggested, “that might be enough to get them off our backs.” ”One of them is dead,” he answered, “but we still have the younger one.” 

“Good, then get the word out to these people where they can find her,” she said, “so we lose one studio, we have a bigger one across town anyway.” ”I do not like it,” he said, “but I guess it is worth a try, otherwise they will be a headache for a long time.” Now, back to us. We just decided to cruise around the city for a while, then went back to Amber’s house to look around. 

“They want this house for some reason,” I said. So I sent the cats to look around the place. ”Likely there is something hidden in here,” said Aari, “that is why they killed Amber’s parents, there was something in here they wanted, or they just wanted this for a new place to hide stuff.” ”What would be in here?” asked Amber. ”Could be most anything,” said Mac, “drugs, money…” He was interrupted by Sky. 

“Perhaps a place to use for a photo studio,” she said, “we found lots of photo equipment hidden behind a false wall in one of the closets.” Amber knew what that meant. Sky frowned at me. ”Better,” she said, smiling. About this time Rock and his team went to the first place and thoroughly trashed it, not one thing was left intact. Rock then told the manager to let his boss know that this is just the beginning…

To Be Continued.

©2023 Steve McLeod