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For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
We all went to bed after that bit of excitement with the safe, all except Misty, she couldn’t sleep for some reason. I told her she should try going to bed earlier, maybe that would help. She then screamed, which was a rather odd reaction to my advice. Oh well. The night passed quickly, but then, there were only 3 hours left of the night. I’m glad they have such a big restaurant in this hotel, kind of necessary when all of us are here. While eating breakfast I was kind of daydreaming a bit, wondering what could have happened to all that gold.
And who is this Ben Regrette? Cristy is busy trying to find information about him. She even asked Wisty and Melody to help. But still they could not find a thing about this man. Obviously it is someone that Koffman knows and he didn’t think this Ben fellow was serious, yet he was. Since the gold was at Mary’s house, it would seem that Mary and Ben must have been working together, otherwise Mary would have noticed. Hmm, that note was pinned onto one of the skeletons, was that Ben?
Could he have helped Mary hide the gold elsewhere and then she killed him? Or did Bernadette kill him and then her and Mary will split the gold? Lots of thoughts and ideas, but are any of them accurate? Mary is likely the only one who knows the hiding place of that gold. Just as I was thinking about this, 4 men came into the restaurant with automatic weapons and opened fire around the room! I grabbed Soleil quickly to keep her safe and Jennifer grabbed Vivienne!
Sky and Angel were slower at getting down to the restaurant this morning and they came in behind these 4 men. Courage leapt on 2 of them and Sky took care of the other two, so that all four of them were killed. Ambulances were soon arriving at the hotel and taking many of our girls to the hospital. Kat and her Wildcats had gone to a different restaurant, to spread our patronage around a bit, so we had Misty’s and Dawn’s teams with us and that totaled 37, plus Jennifer, Sky, Angel, Vivienne, Soleil and myself.
Yves and his family had decided to eat in their room this morning, which turned out to be a wise decision. I think these men were actually here to kill Yves and his family, Francois is likely quite upset with Yves turning against him. Whatever the case, Francois has made a big mistake and we will have to “discuss” this error with him. Right now I need to find out how serious the injuries are for our girls and if any of them were killed. Our friend the Inspector came to see me at the hospital.
By this time I had contacted Kat and Aari. I was glad that Macy had not been hit by any bullets. Fortunately Sky and Angel arrived just as the men had begun to shoot, so they were able to stop them before things became worse. Since we couldn’t prove who sent these men, I asked the Inspector if the police could stay out of it for now, since I wanted to trap Koffman too and not just Francois. He agreed to that and instead brought in police to guard our girls that had to stay in the hospital. That would free up more of our team for us to use.
I had Sky take Soleil and Vivienne back home for safety, and I took Jennifer home so our two new girls would have someone they know with them. I then brought Kristina back with me and told Sky to bring Suzette and Colette back with her. Twelve of our girls ended up in the hospital with various wounds, 5 were in very serious condition.
Meanwhile, back with Francois later in the day. “The four men were killed,” said Percival, “but 12 of those Investigators are in the hospital.” “None were killed?” asked Francois. “No, but 5 are in very serious condition, three likely won’t survive.” Francois slammed his fist on the desk. “None were killed!” he yelled, “they should have been able to kill several of them! That’s the only way we can get rid of them! We lose the gold, but we can’t lose those stupid Investigators! And who is that Ben Regrette?!”
“I haven’t been able to find out Francois,” said Blaise, “it is like he does not exist.” We knew that Francois had his own listening devices in the house, but we left them alone and decided to talk carefully. I had told them to mention this Ben Regrette so that hopefully we would learn from Francois the identity of this person. Unfortunately it didn’t work out that way. I had asked Soleil if she knew, but she didn’t, her grandmother had never mentioned the name. More and more I think that one of those skeletons is Ben.
That doesn’t help however. Mary must know who he is, and possibly Bernadette as well. Hmm, there is a thought, so I asked Bernadette if she knew Ben Regrette. “Do you really think I will help you?” she asked. “Would you like to go free?” I asked her in return. “You would never let me go,” she retorted, “you want me in prison.” “Yes, I would like you in prison,” I admitted, “but I also want to know about Ben Regrette, so I’m willing to let you go for information about him.” I then told Sky to remove her restraints, which she did.
“You will find Ben in that big safe in Mary’s basement,” she said laughing, “a nice bit of work, I must say. He is with his beloved girlfriend, Felix’s first wife. Ben and Mary took the gold and hid it somewhere, although Mary says Ben took and hid it without telling her where. I killed Ben at the arranged time when Mary was out and had a good alibi, just in case Ben’s body was found right away, but it never was. So, now Francois is trying to get Mary to talk and tell him where the gold is located. I think Mary is telling the truth, she doesn’t know.
Francois has her chained in the basement of his house, in case you’re interested. May I go now?” “Yes, you may go,” I said, “I always keep my word.” She left quickly, whistling while she went. “Now what?” asked Sky. “Well, I plan to go and wait for her to retrieve the gold that isn’t there anymore,” I said. “Wait,” said Misty, “you knew where the gold was hidden and didn’t tell anyone?” “I just found out about it this morning,” I said, “and Jensen’s Jaguars took it all away.”
I then smiled at the girls. They just stared at me. “I thought we were going after Francois tonight,” said Angel. “We are,” I said, “but it’s not night yet. Hopefully Bernadette will want to move quickly and won’t wait until it’s late tonight before retrieving the gold. She will need to round up some help first, so I doubt she will arrive before dark.” “Um, would it be too much to ask where we are going?” asked Sky.
“Not at all,” I said, “we’re going back to Mary’s basement, that’s where you said the gold was hidden.” “We didn’t say anything,” said Misty. “Well, Angel did,” I said, “she mentioned that big, wood box that you two couldn’t move, so I went and looked at it. After removing a board on the lid, there it was, gold bars.”
To Be Continued. ©2025 Steve McLeod.
After Mac pulled the huge safe door open, the three girls stood there and said, “Wow, look at that!” all at the same time. Then they turned and looked at Mac. That is when Mac did something that none of them had ever witnessed before. He pointed at them and began to laugh, and laugh, and laugh. It wasn’t long and he was actually lying on the basement floor laughing, loud and long! “I have never seen Mac laugh like that before,” said Misty. “Yep,” said Sky and Angel at the same time.
“Chuckling a bit,” continued Misty, “but never laughing so loud and long.” “Yep,” said Sky and Angel at the same time. Then poor Mac started gasping, he was laughing so much he couldn’t breathe properly. “Oh, oh,” said Sky, “give him artificial rescuation Misty.” “Me? Why me?” she asked, “He’s a man. I can’t do it.” “Why not?” asked Angel, “It’s just like kissing, kind of. You just put your lips on his lips and…” “I know how to do it,” said Misty, “I learned it in the nursing course I’m taking with Dr. Samantha.”
Sky and Angel look at her. “You’re taking a nursing course?” they asked together, “There isn’t enough hours in a day for you to do that along with everything else. No wonder Steve wants to spend a week with you to find out when you sleep.” “I sleep at night,” she replied, “except when ghosts come along and kidnap me and bring me to cold, damp basements.” Finally Mac was able to talk again. “You should have gotten dressed before coming,” he said, “wearing clothes keeps you warm.”
“I am wearing clothes,” she said, scowling a bit at him, “Sky didn’t give me a chance to change.” “I know!” exclaimed Sky and she disappeared. She was soon back with a robe that belonged to Soleil. “This is short,” said Misty, “and she’s taller than me.” “Quit complaining,” said Sky. “You knew about this safe, didn’t you?” Misty asked Mac. “Well, not completely,” he said, “these safes come in three styles. This one has two doors.” It did indeed have another door, which is what surprised the girls and why Mac laughed so much when he saw the look on their faces.
“How do I open this one?” asked Misty. “You don’t, I do,” he said, “you stand way over there.” “Why? I want to watch,” she said. “These safes sometimes have a bomb attached to the inner door,” he explained, “and when the door is opened, it goes boom.” “I’ll go stand over there,” said Misty. “Um, wait, that means you could go boom with the safe,” said Sky, “we can’t let you do that, you’re too important for the team and Steve would never forgive us. I will contact Steve and see what he wants to do.”
Sky did so and I asked her if she could shelter Mac from any explosion. She asked Mac if he would be nervous having her close while he worked. He said no, so she went over and leaned on him while he worked. Misty and Angel sat on a big wood box watching from a safe distance. Angel held Misty’s hand to keep her safe, just in case the explosion was huge, like the safe. Misty suggested they move the box slightly so they could see better. Angel agreed and they tried to push it, but they were unable to budge that box by even a centimeter. “I wonder what’s in it?” asked Angel.
“Who cares,” said Misty, “I just want to see what’s in the safe.” “True,” said Angel. So, they sat and watched, and waited, and watched. “It’s exciting to watch a master at work,” said Misty. Angel looked at her. “If you think this is exciting then you must be bored a lot,” said Angel. “Hush,” said Misty. Finally Mac had the door open, so Misty and Angel ran over and they all stared at the contents. “There’s no gold,” said Misty, “just a couple of old skinnies.” “I wonder who they are?” asked Sky.
“Possibly the first Mrs. Koffman,” he replied, “they never found her body. And maybe her boyfriend. There is the gems from that jewel heist too.” He took out a large box containing the beautiful gems. “Oh, those are amazing!” said Sky, “Too bad we can’t keep them.” Sky then communicated with me what they had found. She said there was also a note pinned to one of the Skinnies. It should be noted that Skinny was the name Muffin had given to skeletons on our third case, and the name just carried on. Anyway, the note read, “The joke is on you Koffman, the gold is gone and only I know where it is! Ha, ha, ha!” It was signed Ben Regrette. “You didn’t think I was serious.”
Meanwhile, back with us. We had heard, through our listening devices planted in Francois’ office, that Francois was planning to kill Koffman once he arrived. Francois was fed up being a “servant” to Koffman and wanted the whole operation for himself. Unfortunately we couldn’t hear the whole plan because they left the office just as they were getting to that part. “We need someone on the inside,” I said, “it needs to be someone fearless, looks very young, can take care of herself in a fight and is very sneaky.” We all started to think and just then Sky, Angel and Misty appeared.
The rest of us looked right at Misty and smiled. “Well, nice seeing everyone,” she said, “now I’m off to bed.” She got to the door and that was all. “Misty,” I said, “come here please.” She stopped, slouched a bit and kind of shuffled over to me. “Misty, how would you like a super sensitive job that requires you best skills and would earn you 3 weeks of vacation time right after this case?” She stood there without saying a word. “Um, you’re not saying anything,” I said to her. “I’m thinking,” she said, then she looked over at Kitty who was slightly behind me.
Kitty was motioning no to Misty and used her hand to make a gun and shoot someone. That’s when she pointed at Misty. “Well, I really do need some sleep,” said Misty, “so, off I go.” “Actually, Misty doesn’t look young enough,” said Jennifer. “Hmm, I think you’re right,” I said, “maybe we should give up that idea. But we do need to find out when they are planning to kill Koffman so we can warn him.” “Um, why do we want to warn Koffman?” asked Misty, “We wanted him dead, this save us the trouble.” “Yes, but Koffman was more predictable,” I said, “Francois is not.
So having Francois as our enemy would be more dangerous.” “Oh, yeah, I guess you’re right,” she said, “anyway, we brought back a huge box of gems!” “Why didn’t you say so?” I asked. “You didn’t ask,” she said. “Must I always ask?” I replied. “It helps,” she answered in return. I sighed. “oooo, that was a big one,” said Misty. “It helps,” I said. Then I got a call from Jazzy saying that Koffman would be coming to meet with Francois in 2 days.
I asked Yves what he knew about the planned meeting. He didn’t know much more than us. He knew that Francois was talking about killing Koffman at some point, however, and Francois was a power hungry man. He also knew when the meeting would take place, and that was certainly important. Now we need to have a talk with Koffman…
To Be Continued. ©2025 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 