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For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
While Jennifer and the Wildcats were having breakfast, Dimitri had come in with 6 other men to have breakfast as well. The girls spotted him right away, but they decided not to do anything just yet, after all, they had just begun eating and they didn’t want their pancakes to get cold. So, they would just keep an eye on them for now, especially Jennifer and Kristina. That way they could take care of any guns that might show up before any of the girls are shot.
Meanwhile, back with Marchetti, who was at his office early that morning for an important meeting. “Hey Mr. Marchetti,” said Giorgio, “check out the news.” Apparently the police had an important update on the murder case of Vincent. Now they found his wife’s body in their house, so obviously she was not a suspect anymore. It was also obvious that she had been murdered, they said. Marchetti smiled at that news. “Well, well,” he said, “Dimitri has done his job again. And they are looking for Dimitri as the killer. That is perfect, just perfect!”
Marchetti was laughing now. “I wanted Rocco to kill Dimitri,” said Marchetti, “but now he won’t have to, the cops will take care of him for us!” “Unless he’s actually working for the cops too,” said Nilo. “We will soon find out,” said Marchetti, “if the cops find him and let him go, for whatever reason, then we know he’s working both sides. Then Rocco can have him. But for now, call Rocco and tell him to stay away from Dimitri.
And, who knows, maybe those bad puppy dogs will kill Dimitri for us since they seemed to like Carmen for some reason. Then the cops can go after them and chase them back to the frozen wasteland of Canada where they belong.” Giorgio then called Rocco and told him to stay away from Dimitri for now. I had called Rossana to see if the police could make that announcement about finding Carmen’s body in the house, without saying that she had died a year ago. Rossana liked that idea and hopefully it might bring Dimitri out in the open for us, and it worked.
The Wildcats were wearing their T-shirts with their name on it, a fact that was noticed by Dimitri and his men. “Those Wildcats are a hot bunch of women,” said one man. They all agreed. A couple of the men then waved and winked at the girls. The girls smiled and waved back. “I didn’t think men winked anymore,” said Hope, “kind of old fashioned.” One man then got up and came over and put his arm around Jennifer. “Hey babe,” he said, “you’re the hottest gal at this table. How would you like to come and sit with me for a while?”
“I’m sorry handsome,” she said, “but I’m a married woman.” “Hey, that don’t matter to me babe,” he said, “that just makes you more interesting.” He then bent over to give Jennifer a kiss, but she stopped him. “I think you better go sit down,” she said, “you’re moving along a bit too fast for this old woman.” “Old?” he queried, “Why you are not old at all, you’re just perfect to me.” The other men, having noticed their friend was still over talking with those beautiful girls, they decided to come over as well. That’s when Jennifer and 5 of the Wildcats stood up to greet their new “friends”.
Once all of them were close by, Jennifer decided to lead the way with a little fun. Her man tried once again to kiss her so she slammed her arm into his stomach causing him to bend over groaning. The other girls did similar things with their men, either with elbows, knees or fists. Then Jennifer told them all to return to their own table and leave them alone. The hotel manager saw what was happening and called the police who happened to be close by and came in quite quickly. The manager met them and pointed to the Wildcats so the police came to talk with them.
“We hear you have been causing trouble,” said the one officer, “we don’t tolerate that kind of thing in our city.” “They started it,” said Jennifer, “and that man over there in the black jacket is someone you are looking for, Dimitri, also called the Lizard. He is wanted for murder right now so I would think you should be spending your time with him, not us.” The two officers looked over at the men. Dimitri and his friends stood up quickly with their guns out and told the police to keep their distance. But suddenly they dropped their guns yelling about how hot they were.
However, Dimitri ran for the door and just as he opened it a young woman was standing there and she touched him, knocking him onto his back. By that time more police had arrived and arrested Dimitri and the others. “Sky, you bad girl,” said Jennifer smiling, “shocking that man like the way you did.” “That’s me,” said Sky, “just a regular Bad Girl.” All the girls laughed, then went back to their rooms. A couple of hours later the girls heard on the news that Dimitri had escaped custody before they got him to jail. Apparently he had a hidden gun that was not detected during their initial search of the man.
“He didn’t have any other guns,” said Jennifer, “or any other weapons of any kind. They let him escape.” Jennifer then told me, so I called Rossana about it. She told me they had been thinking there was one or two officers working for Marchetti and now they know for sure which two. Giorgio then told Marchetti that Dimitri had escaped. “I knew it!” said Marchetti, “He is working both sides. Okay Rocco, get him today and I will pay you triple.” “Consider it done Mr. Marchetti,” he said, and off he went. Rocco went driving along some streets where he figured Dimitri might be hanging out and sure enough he spotted Dimitri.
He stopped the car and honked once and Dimitri came running over and opened the front passenger door. But just as he was about to get in, his eyes got big and Rocco shot once. Dimitri fell dead onto the street and Rocco sped away. He was using a stolen car and quickly stopped on another street and got into his own car and drove away. People were walking back and forth along the street, paying no attention to what just happened. Later, on a news headline it was mentioned finding Dimitri’s body on the street with a single gunshot wound to the head.
“That Rocco is better than Dimitri,” said Giorgio. “Yeah, for some things,” said Marchetti, “but Dimitri was more ruthless, so he was better for certain jobs.” Just then Rocco returned and Marchetti had his money waiting. Then he handed him another envelope which Marchetti only used for certain very important jobs. “This is for a rat,” said Marchetti, “a cop in our midst.” He then nodded toward Giorgio. “Take him somewhere and come back without him,” said Marchetti. “Hey, wait,” said Giorgio, “you’re wrong, I’m no cop!”
Later, at the flat where he lived with his wife, there was a knock at the door and she answered. As she opened the door, Giorgio’s body fell inside, with a knife still in him. She dragged him inside and locked the door quickly, then called the police. Rossana called me and let me know what had happened. However, she told me again to keep away from Marchetti. There was too much at stake and they wanted to pull down his entire organization, which was spread over 3 countries.
But we did get permission to thoroughly check Vincent and Carmen’s house for valuables. Carmen had told Courtney that there must be something valuable in that house, but she didn’t know what. It was shortly after telling Courtney about that when she suddenly disappeared. So, the Wildcats and Bad Girls will do that, along with their cats. The Black Wolves will come back home, since the girls are able to take care of themselves…
To Be Continued. ©2026 Steve McLeod.
Marchetti was fuming after the Black Wolves retaliated for his shooting of Rock and John, but the fault was his own. He had no reason to attack the Wolves like that and the whole purpose was to kill Aari, the leader of the Black Wolves. Fortunately Carine was there and holding Aari’s hand to keep him safe the whole time that he and Marchetti, along with his two bodyguards, were having what was supposed to be a neutral talk. That is something that rival organizations will do on occasion, and they will respect the neutrality. So, I had told Aari to attack Marchetti fast and hard so he would understand that he made a foolish mistake which would not be tolerated.
Meanwhile, back with us at the chateau. “Steve, I need Kat right away,” said Samantha, “or we will lose John.” I immediately called Sky and told her to bring Kat back right away, and why we needed her. She had Kat back within less than a minute. Apparently John had been shot twice close to his heart and Samantha was able to remove the one bullet, but the other was so close to his heart she didn’t feel that it would be possible to remove it safely and John would likely die.
So, Kat kept John alive while Samantha removed the bullet. I have known John since my very first case, although at that time he was not a friend, but rather an enemy. It was through him that I received the “Nowhere” drug that plagued me for so long. But, at one point when I had been charged with murder he came forward with information that proved my innocence, even though he was wanted by the police at the time. However, Baldwin’s lawyers helped him and kept him out of prison. He then had a real change of heart and joined the Investigators, becoming one of my best friends.
Samantha said Rock was hit with more bullets, but none were as serious as with John, but it will be a long recovery for both of them. That’s going to be hard on Rock, he doesn’t like lying around doing nothing, he’s even worse than me as far as that is concerned. I’m hoping that Marchetti learned a lesson and that he will keep away from us now, but somehow I doubt it. However, he doesn’t know that the Black Wolves and us are together, but he still might be angry enough now to take it out on our teams. So everyone will need to be very careful right now.
The police don’t want us getting involved with Marchetti himself and they would like us not to put too much pressure on his organization either. We are here to find out who killed Vincent, Carmen’s husband, but instead it turns out we are looking for the killer of both Vincent and Carmen, since Carmen turned out to be Courtney who is Carmen’s twin sister who was doing her own investigative work to find out what happened to her sister who disappeared a year ago. It’s obvious who ordered the killings, though it is highly unlikely that Mr. Marchetti actually did the job himself, one of his men did that.
But which one is the question, and the answer is most likely Dimitri who is known as the Lizard. Or, it might have been Vincent himself that murdered his wife and buried her in the basement of their home. I’m actually leaning toward the latter explanation. From what Courtney has told me about her sister, I think she was getting increasingly uneasy about what was going on in their home and told this to Vincent, possibly telling him a lot that she wanted it stopped.
She may have even threatened to go to the police and tell them about Mr. Marchetti. That would be enough for Vincent to get nervous and say something to one of Marchetti’s men. Then Marchetti tells Vincent to get rid of his wife, or both Vincent and Carmen would die. That could have made Vincent decide it was better to kill his wife, than for him to die as well. Then, for whatever reason, Marchetti decided it was time to kill Vincent too.
Perhaps Vincent was getting nervous and nervous people can be a problem for a criminal organization because it means that perhaps they have decided to work undercover for the police, or for a rival organization. That’s when Dimitri shows up and kills Vincent. It all makes sense, but, how do we prove such a thing? We did get a DNA sample from Courtney and it matches the remains we found in the floor of the basement. So, we know that is Carmen buried there and we are presently getting permission to remove Carmen’s remains and bury them in our cemetery.
Courtney liked that thought. She has also asked if she can stay with us and join the Investigators. She likes what we do, especially that we help people who can’t afford to pay for the service of a private investigator. Courtney did take some course in police investigating back in the US where her family is from originally, but she failed the final exam. However, she would like to try going through our course and training, so I told her we would do that. I also told her we don’t make things easy for anyone, everyone gets the same training and must pass the same tests. She understood that and still wanted to try.
I decided to call Rossana again and tell her my theory, which she agreed with, and that surprised me a bit. I also wanted to know what we could, or could not, do now. One problem is the police have infiltrated this organization and have two men working in high positions now. One of them our team has met already and his name is Giorgio, so we have to be careful not to kill him or the other man whose name is Anthony.
Rossana sent me a picture of him but I would have to distribute this one carefully so it is not found on any team member that might get captured. But for now, it looks like all we can do is go after the Lizard, which is Dimitri, unless Marchetti sends his men after us, then we can defend ourselves. Courtney was fine with that too since all she wanted was to find her sister and if she had been murdered, then try to find the murderer. She agreed with me that it was likely Vincent who killed Carmen and he is now dead.
Meanwhile, back to Italy. Since Kat was here I gave permission for Jennifer to take Kat’s place as leader of the Wildcats. No one would know the difference anyway. While they were in the restaurant having breakfast, in came Dimitri and six men with him…
To Be Continued. ©2026 Steve McLeod.
