-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
As we were eating breakfast, Vincent and I were talking about the Investigators and he did know quite a bit about us, though only what we actually have available for people to see. We don’t want our enemies to know too much about us, but we can’t hide completely, we are too big of an organization to hide completely the way we did when we had less than a dozen people. Anyway, as we were eating, chief Winters came in with some members of that street gang and all of them had shotguns with them, aimed at us, or more precisely, at Vincent and I.
“Good bye Vincent,” said Winters, “and you too McCann!” I quickly grabbed Vincent, pulling him to the floor while the girls went into action. The ghosts, Sky, Kristina and Kitty jumped first, as did Courage, looking like he came from under the table. The attackers tried to shoot, but their shotguns wouldn’t work and when they saw that huge lion coming their way, they tried to run! However, Courage caught some of them and the girls shot some, while Sky went for Winters and Kitty went for the gang leader.
Kristina was running after the gang members who managed to make it out the door, jumping high and landing in front of them. She smiled and the fight was on! She handled those four quite easily. I communicated with Kat to get over here quickly with her Wildcats, not knowing how many other gang members might be outside. They were on their way over for breakfast anyway, so they just drove a little faster. However, the police were watching for them and gave chase, so the back van stuck a pipe out the back door and thick, black smoke billowed out causing the police to stop rather quickly.
A new trick for us and it works nicely. I’m sure the police will complain about that later though. Sky was smart enough not to kill chief Winters just yet, we need him to find out where the bodies of Ivy’s family are located. I’m beginning to think we may not ever find them and that would be hard on Ivy. “I hope I didn’t hurt you Vincent,” I said, as I helped him get up, “but I wanted to make sure you were not shot.” “First time my life was saved by a lawman,” he said chuckling.
“But I’m not a lawman,” I reminded him, “if your assumptions are correct, and I’m not saying they are, that would make me a private investigator, not a police officer. Usually the police don’t even like having a PI around.” “I guess you’re right about that,” he said, “anyway, thank you.” “You’re welcome,” I said, “hmm, now my coffee is cold.” Just as I said that Misty arrived with more coffee for us. Then she set the coffee pot down, though she kept holding onto it, and she put her arm around me. “Cristy tells me there is a nice little store in this town,” she began, “that sells homemade clothes.
And there are some things that Cristy would really, really, really, like. Do you suppose we could stop in there today to pick up a few things before they sell out?” “I imagine Misty would also really like some of those clothes too,” I said. “Now that you mention it,” she said smiling, “there is one or two items. Ivy would maybe like something there too.” “Sounds like an interesting store,” she said, “maybe we could take an hour or so to look around?” Sigh, I think that store is going to sell a lot of clothes today.
“oooo, I didn’t realize the coffee pot was on your hand,” said Misty, blowing on my hand. “I don’t think that will help,” I said, “I’m surprised you didn’t use water.” I knew right away I shouldn’t have said that, but it was too late and she poured a glass of water on my hand. Sigh. Vincent laughed. He was a bit curious though why the hot pot didn’t burn me. I told him I had a new type of artificial hand. My explanation got me kicked by Ivy for some reason. Sigh.
I then started to ask Winters where the bodies of Ivy’s family had been put. He just smiled at me, so I gave him a hard backhanded slap, knocking him off his chair. I helped him get back up. Then Sky came over and put her hand on his back, giving him a bit of electricity which caused him to yell. “Just a light amount my dear twin,” she said, “it might work better.” She smiled and went back to her breakfast. I asked Winters again, but his mouth stayed closed. So, I tried it Sky’s way and sent Winters flying about 8 feet away.
Sky just sighed and shook her head. Now Ivy laughed. But Winters talked this time and said he had sent men out to find the bodies and bring them back to the hospital. They should be back by mid afternoon. So, I let him go for now, but told him he needed to clean up all those dead bodies since he brought them. I also told him that if he tried such a stunt again, he would be among the dead bodies next time. When I came back to the table I asked Vincent to leave Winters alone for now until we retrieve the bodies of Ivy’s family.
He agreed to do that. He also told me that he would be taking care of Scott and Veronica since she is supposed to be in charge here. I could have the mayor, councilor Don and the fire chief, who was also involved with this group. Guess he is in charge of all the “accidental fires” around here. Speaking of accidental fires, the Black Wolves are busy this morning with their own accidental fires. They went around to the mayor’s, Winters’, Don’s and the fire chief’s houses and once they removed any occupants of the houses, they used some of Catalina’s special fire bombs.
Those bombs can start a major fire very quickly and soon those houses were engulfed in flames. The fire department didn’t have the resources to tackle all those fires at once, so each house burned to the ground. No one was harmed in the fires though, the Black Wolves made sure of that. Veronica was living with the mayor, which is why she had no separate house.
And Scott lived above the Shining Moon, so his place was spared. Vincent did tell me there would be no sex trafficking done at the Shining Moon anymore, which made me feel better. But, something happened while that fight was going on at breakfast, one of our girls went missing! It was Dawn. The girls checked our rooms and all through the hotel, but she was nowhere.
Kat mentioned that two of the gang members had gotten away and it looked like there were two on one of the motorcycles, but she just figured it was one of the other gang members. Then I got a text from Scott with a link which he said would show me my missing girl. I clicked the link and couldn’t believe what I saw…
To Be Continued. ©2025 Steve McLeod.
The round table discussion wasn’t going well for the town leaders, they were definitely scared of Vincent, though they could easily have killed him. However, that would bring rather swift and decisive retaliation from The City Club, and I think they realize that too. Vincent will be taking over the Shining Moon, though I’m not sure what that means exactly. Things likely wouldn’t change much and could get even worse. However, I already know the police are keeping track of The City Club and don’t want me to interfere with them directly.
I can do what I want with the people here, however, so that is good. Vincent has said I can take all the girls that are working here though, unless they would prefer to stay, but hopefully we can reunite them with their families, like with Chelsea. I asked TJ if she would like to be free or stay here and it didn’t look like she really believed me, so I had Katresa explain things to her. Apparently her parents had died from heart attacks in the same night, which sounds rather suspicious.
She is an only child, so were each of her parents. Hmm, Scott really does his homework and picks out girls from families and then kills the parents. I wonder how many underage girls he has here at the Shining Moon. Anyway, after Katresa talked with TJ, she then wanted to come with us rather than stay here. So I told Katresa to take TJ out to the limousine where she will be safe with Kitty and Sherry. Chelsea is still there too and doesn’t yet know about her family and the house fire.
We didn’t at this time either. Meanwhile, Aari and the Black Wolves came down the street where Chelsea’s home was located and noticed it burning with the firefighters sitting around drinking coffee and watching the fire, but doing nothing to fight it. An older woman was out there yelling at them so Aari stopped to see what was going on. The woman then told him what had happened and Aari had Carine communicate this information with me. “Now I know why you were a little late to this meeting chief Winters,” I said, “you went over and killed Chelsea’s family and then had the fire department set the house on fire to conceal the evidence.”
The look on his face was quite amazing. “That is all a lie!” he exclaimed. “No, it’s all the truth,” I said, “I guess that’s what you do with the families of all the girls that work for you Scott, that way they have nowhere to go if they run away from you. Of course you would normally have the Curator do the killing, but chief Winters sent him on a nice vacation to Las Vegas with lots of money to spend after he killed Miss Peterson’s family.
Notice that I was able to find the Curator quite easily chief Winters, how come you couldn’t do it? I did tell you before that have great resources at my disposal. Now, perhaps we can finish things by paying Miss Peterson the money you owe her, some $800,000. Let’s go get it from your safe, Scott.” “I already checked his safe,” said Vincent, “it had very little in it.” “Did you check both safes?” I asked. “Scott only told me about one safe,” said Vincent, as he looked over at Scott.
We then went to a back room, but only one safe was visible, and it wasn’t very big. “Behind that bookcase,” I said to Scott. Vincent looked at him too and soon a much larger safe was revealed and Scott opened it. There was quite a lot of cash in this one, plus drugs. Vincent had his men take all the cash out of the safe, about $2,000,000 worth. Vincent counted out the money for me, which the girls put in boxes and carried out to our car. The fight was over outside now so it was safe to take the money out.
I then gave an address to Vincent and told him this is the house where they kept the rest of The City Club’s property. “However, I had some of my people watching that house,” I said, “and a large truck came up and they took a number of large boxes out of the house, put them into the truck and drove away with it, escorted by some guys on motorcycles.” That got a lively argument going between the town leaders and finally Vincent stopped it. I then handed a piece of paper to chief Winters with a phone number on it.
“That’s the Curator’s phone number chief,” I said, “I’m surprised you didn’t know that, or maybe you did. Call him and find out where he put the bodies of Miss Peterson’s family. Then maybe I will let you live.” I then asked Scott where the other girls are kept and he told one of his men to show me. There were only three other women who chose to leave, so we took them back to the hotel with us. I quietly suggested to Vincent it might be a good idea for him to return to the hotel with us, to ensure his safety.
I think these people just might be foolish enough to try and kill Vincent. The night passed quickly, but without incident which was nice. After all, it was quite late by the time we returned to the hotel. We all went down for breakfast and everything was functioning normally with the assistant manager in charge. Apparently it is Mrs. Winslow, or whatever name she wants to use this week, is the true owner of this hotel, something that doesn’t surprise me.
Vincent and his two men came into the restaurant shortly after us and he asked to join us. “You are quite different than I would expect from the head of such a large organization,” he said to me, “perhaps you are someone else?” “My boyfriend built this organization himself,” said Ivy, “and he has always been a ‘hands on’ type of person, not someone who sits behind a desk. He likes to stay involved.”
“Yes, I can see that,” said Vincent, “The City Club has great resources too, just like you mentioned having, and we have discovered another large organization called The Investigators, who are also from France. They have a man as there leader and are an organization of women. Could you be one and the same?” Ivy looked at me, as did some of the girls close to us.
“Yes, we could be the same,” I said, “but we are not after you or The City Club. We want the murderers of Miss Peterson’s family and a few other families as well now. I would like to put these other people in prison if possible, but, if it comes to bringing in the state police, I will make sure they leave you alone.” “Do you have that much influence with the state police?” he asked.
“I can keep them away from you,” I said, “they don’t know you and you have been helpful to us.” “They might know me,” said Vincent, “I’m sure most police in this area have photos of the top people of The City Club.” “Perhaps,” I said, “but there are ways to keep you safe, including making sure you leave this town before I call in the police.” It was at that point chief Winters came in with some of that street gang, all of them carrying shotguns. “Good bye Vincent,” said Winters…
To Be Continued. ©2025 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 