John and his friend looked at his gun, but it was working perfectly now. He even put on a silencer and shot it, no problems at all. “That proves she is a ghost,” said Herman. “It proves nothing,” said John, “except the gun did not work for some reason.” “Well, why does it work fine now, but not before?” asked Herman. “I have no idea,” said John, “but I do not believe in ghosts.”

“I sure do,” said Herman, “and I say she is a ghost, maybe some of the others are ghosts too.” John just shook his head. Right then he got a phone call. “Well, did you kill her?” asked Kenaston. “No, the gun would not work,” said John quietly. “She is a ghost John,” said Kenaston, “she will end up killing you instead, and maybe all of us. You cannot win against a ghost.”

“I think you and Herman should go live in a ghost town,” said John, “maybe you can find more ghosts to live with.” “That is not funny John,” said Kenaston, “I just do not like the fact those PI’s are working on this. And we do not even know if Jackie inherited anything, except that old mansion, and it is not worth that much.” “She kept saying there was a book that was priceless,” said John, “but I went over every book in that library, and there are thousands of books there, but none are worth anything.”

“If it is priceless, it would be in a safe, not on a bookshelf,” said Kenaston. “I thought of that too, but I looked everywhere in here and could not find any safe,” said John. “Then why not give up?” said Kenaston, “we are wasting our time on this.” “No, I believe she did inherit something, but not a book,” said John, “I just have to find out what it is and take it. She is bound to lead me to it sooner or later.”

“It better be sooner or I am out of this,” said Kenaston firmly and hung up. “What now?” asked Herman. “We wait and watch for a while,” said John. Meanwhile, we had a meeting in our room, except for Kyan and Cinnamon who were watching Jackie. I would have included Jackie, but I wanted to tell the others about Lily and was not sure if Jackie could handle that information just yet.

We all agreed there must be a room, or rooms, hidden somewhere for John and at least one friend to be staying. But how did they eat? Unless all they ate was cold food, otherwise the smell of cooking food would be noticeable, no matter how they cooked it. Unless they were underground somewhere and had a good vent system that opened into the yard somewhere.

So Kat, the cats and I went outside to sniff around while the others looked around the mansion for a safe, or secret door. “Too bad this old fountain is not working,” said Kat, “it would look nice.” “Yes, I will ask Jackie about it,” I said, “maybe there is a way to turn it on from inside the house.” “I hear voices,” said Kat and she put her ear up to the fountain, “yep, there are voices.” I tried listening but could hear nothing. The cats tried listening too, but they could hear nothing, they just looked at each other.

Meow,meow.=Maybe ghosts can hear better than us. Meowy.=Yep, that probly it for sure. Meow,meow.=I glad she nice ghost, me not afraid of her. Meowy.=Me agree, very nice ghost, me not like bad ghost. Meow,meow.=Me not like bad ghost too like you. Meowy.=Yep, you and me both the same. “See what you have done to those two?” I asked, “now they believe you really are a ghost.”

“Maybe I am,” said Kat smiling and she hugged me. “Hey, people might be watching,” I said. “Well, we are married, so things like this are normal,” she said, “otherwise Jackie might get suspicious.” “Yes, you have a point,” I said. “And we were married in my old life,” she added smiling. “None of that kind of talk in public,” I said, “someone might hear.”

Meow,meow.=Now me get confusion. Meowy.=Yep, me confusion too. We walked around some more until Rock phoned me. “We found something Steve,” he said, “come take a look.” We went back inside and over to the large closet down the main hall on the first floor. It is just full of cleaning supplies of all kinds, but, the whole back wall was open now so we followed the passageway a short distance, but it ended nowhere.

While Rock was standing there looking around, Snow spotted a button on the wall right at floor level and she pushed it. The floor then fell out from under Rock and he suddenly found himself sitting on some old wood stairs. Surprising that he did not break them. We went down one level and there was a door on the right, but locked. That did not stop Rock, however, and he pounded his way through quite easily.

Meanwhile upstairs, someone had come to the door and the butler opened it. Catalina then hit the alarm…

To Be Continued.

©2023 Steve McLeod.