It has now been a whole month since our last cases and the very confusing mess we had. Sky is back to normal now and is presently out with the girls practicing with their guns. Some of those girls are fast, but the fastest are Sky, Kat, Dawn and Aasta. Out of the men, Mac is definitely top, followed by Miles and John. Mac and Kat are the two fastest overall and too close to call, even with our machine which measures to 7 decimal places.

But all cannot be fast and each team member has their own unique abilities. Charly, age 20, is now an official member, as is Amber (who is totally healed now too, age 22). Chantelle, age 24, is fine and since she had originally signed on with Baldwin Corporation as a nurse in one of his largest factories, I asked if she would like to be a nurse in our clinic.

We can always use extra help. She jumped at the chance. Now we have two doctors, Li Jing and Kerstina (one of Astrid’s friends that had joined us earlier), and two nurses, Bridgette and Chantelle. Bridgette is also our vet. Sten is fine now too and back to enjoying his wrestling with Rock. Since Rock’s parents are now both dead, he asked if his little brother, nicknamed Bouncer, could join us.

So, now he is a full member also. He is actually a little bigger than Rock at 6 foot 8 inches tall and weighing in at 375 pounds. Like Rock, he is all muscle and gets along with everyone just fine, he is 30 and single. Oh yes, Penny, who was shot by Reggie in the leg, is now fine as well. Penny is 6 feet tall and I think she has her eyes on Bouncer already. Reminds me of Annelie and Rock.

Bouncer does not have a chance. Tandi, Mandar’s cat is back to full health too. Some of us were sitting in the library, waiting for our morning donuts, when Amber came into the room and stood in front of me. “Sir, I would like to say something,” she said. “Amber, have you read through our rule book yet?” I asked her. “Yes Sir, I have most of it memorized,” she replied.

“Obviously you missed a section, right near the beginning,” I told her, “the part that says although we are a team of PI’s, we are also a family. That means you do not call your leader by the term ‘Sir’, my name is Steve and you will always address me by my name. And everyone else by their names too.” “Oh, sorry Sir, I will try to remember,” she said, “but now, may I say something?” Sigh.

“Yes, you may,” I said. “Well, I know you want to check on the deaths of my family,” she began, “I do not have any money to pay the usual fee. Actually, I have no money at all.” “I did not ask for money,” I told her, “in our team, we always investigate free for any team member. It is the way we do things here.” “I have everything I can find,” said Annelie just then. I was about to check my laptop, but glanced over to Annelie.

“Are you okay Annelie?” I asked. Baldwin looked at her right away then as well. “I am fine,” she assured me, “it is just so hot in here.” She was right, our air conditioning unit is giving us heat for some reason. It does work both ways, but the cooling part quit working a couple days ago and instead switched over to heat. The repair technician came yesterday but needed two parts which he had to order.

And the way it is hooked up, we would have to turn off all the electricity in order to shut the heat off. And we cannot do that, so we suffer with terrible heat. “Annelie is right, Steve,” said Baldwin, “we simply must open the windows or we will all start to faint in here.” He was right, so windows were opened throughout the house.

Annelie then got up to check on the donuts, she could tell we were getting impatient, or, Baldwin was anyway. I checked through the police reports that Annelie found. She found the originals, hidden away from the main files in an obscure place. If a file exists, Annelie can find it, and she actually enjoys digging through files. But why hide these files?

Annelie said there is faint writing under what we could read, and she will try to find out what it says. Meanwhile I was picking out my team to go back to the US and start our own investigation. I will take Mac, Aari, Matt, John, Miles, Bouncer, Sky, Kat, Catalina, Dawn, Kera, Charly and Amber, plus Snow, Rusty, Ginger and Tiger. Rock will lead the next team, if we need some help…

To Be Continued.

©2023 Steve McLeod.