We have now found out the real name of the woman posing as Mary, Soleil’s grandmother. It is Bernadette and she is married to Felix Koffman! “Well, well,” said Jennifer, “married to our old ‘friend’ Koffman. Now I know why you are so stupid.” That really got Bernadette angry! “If I didn’t have these restraints on,” she growled, “I would tear you apart with my own hands! I have killed people that way before and I can still do it.” “Oh, you do the killings for Koffman?” asked Jennifer, “You would not have a chance with me woman!”

“Take these things off of me,” she continued growling, “and I will show you what I can do!” So, Jennifer took the rubber handcuffs off her wrists and off her ankles. But as soon as the ones were off her ankles, Bernadette pounded Jennifer hard, with her two hands cupped together, knocking her head against Bernadette’s knee. Then Bernadette grabbed Jennifer’s long hair, yanking her head backward. Then she picked her up and slammed her onto the floor.

“I hope there’s no one in the room under us,” said Macy. Her and Jackie had come into the room just before I started having problems. “Good thing I had them send up some popcorn a while back,” said Sky. “Yep, goes good with a fight like this,” said Jackie. “Yep,” agreed Macy and Angel. “C’mon Jenny!” said Kat, “Don’t let her get away with that!” As Jennifer tried to stand up again, Bernadette kicked her side, then her head and Jennifer rolled onto her back. Then Bernadette stomped on her stomach, hard, but it was like hitting a rock.

She then stomped a second time, with the same result. Then Jennifer started giggling, then laughing out loud! She jumped to her feet amazingly fast, which surprised Bernadette and she stepped back a bit. “You are pathetic,” said Jennifer, as she tried to stop laughing, “you didn’t hurt me at all.” Then Jennifer went into action, punching Bernadette multiple times, then giving her one kick to her head and she landed against the door, then she collapsed onto the floor. Jennifer was careful not to kill her though, she just might be useful, and we would like to hand her over to the police and from there, to prison.

I missed the fight, but woke up when everyone began cheering. “What, no popcorn for me?” I asked. Kat had been rubbing my head all this time and I now felt better, no more confusion. I looked at her. “Sorry dear husband,” she said, “it’s a secret.” “Wow, you mean your employees keep secrets from you?” asked Soleil. “Well, they are not really employees,” I said, “we do things differently in our organization and we are all basically equal. But there are different jobs for each of us. I am the overall leader, with my wife Jennifer as Leader 2. Then there are leaders of the 6 different teams we have.

There are 5 active teams that go on cases and one home team. But, we can talk more about that later.” “Way cool!” exclaimed Vivienne, “Can I join too?” “Well, you have to be 18 to join the Investigators,” I said. She went from a big smile and excitement, to total quiet, and she went to curl up on a chair in the corner of the room. Jennifer went over to talk with her, then waved me over too. We put a bubble around us so no one could listen and she told us some horrible things she has been through.

She is an orphan, her parents died in a car accident when she was 5 and no one in her family wanted her, so she ended up in an orphanage, then in different homes from the age of 9 to 15, when she was kidnapped by Francois. Now, when she heard she was too young for the investigators, she suddenly thought we would send her back to the authorities and back to the family she was living with. But the father could not keep his hands off Vivienne and she was scared to go back.

Jennifer told her about our daughter Mandy, who is 16 now and went through similar things. I asked if she would like to come home with us. She was thrilled with that idea, so I called Sienna to get a lawyer working on adopting Vivienne. “You would really adopt me??” she asked excitedly. “Yes, we really would,” said Jennifer, “that’s providing you would like to have us as parents.” “YES!” she yelled. After talking a bit more, we came out of the bubble and Soleil had a question for me.

“Um, why do Jennifer and Kat call you their husband? You can’t be married to both of them.” “I call Steve my husband as well,” said Sky, giggling. That just confused Soleil and Vivienne even more. “Well, I’m Steve’s wife right now,” said Jennifer, “but Steve was married to Kat first, then to Sky, then me. Actually, there was one other woman in there too, but she was killed the first day they were married.” “We will explain things better when we are at home,” I said, “it’s a bit more complicated than it sounds, but I promise to answer all questions for you.”

It was at that point Kristina and her girls returned to the hotel with Yves and his family. We had already gotten a room for them, right next to ours. Now we needed to help Yves with that bullet in his shoulder. We did have Bridgette and Cindy with us, two of our nurses, so I asked them to remove the bullet so Kat could do her work. “We can do that,” said Bridgette, “can’t you Cindy.” “We went from ‘we’ to ‘you’ kind of fast,” she said sighing, but they quickly went to work on Yves.

I had also called Misty to come with her team and I had Sky take Kristina back home, I like to have at least one ghost at home. “Hmm, we need some disinfectant,” said Cindy, “did you bring some?” “Um, no,” said Bridgette, “I thought you would bring it.” “There’s that ‘you’ again,” said Cindy, giggling. “Would this work?” asked Misty, who had just come into their room, and she handed a bottle to Bridgette. “Yep, this will work,” she said, “uh, does Steve know about this?” “What? No! I mean, yes!” said Misty, “I mean, I don’t drink that stuff! Steve told me to get it for you.”

Misty was quite red now, then she added, “I got it from the lounge, and it wasn’t easy, the door was locked and the man at the front desk kept looking at me.” Bridgette and Cindy just looked at her. “Oh, hey,” said Misty again, “can I watch you take out the bullet?” “There will be a lot of blood,” said Cindy. “If you need me,” said Misty, “I’ll be in the next room.” “My, she certainly left in a hurry,” said Josephine. “She doesn’t do well when there is a lot of blood,” said Bridgette, “but don’t worry, there won’t be any more than there is now, but this is already too much for Misty.”

Back to us, I had told Sky and Angel to return to Mary’s house and destroy those fake smoke detectors, but to make sure they go invisibly since the house is likely monitored. When they arrived the house was a real mess. “They have been looking for something,” said Sky. “And, they are in the basement right now,” added Angel. Sky told me about this so I said to check it out.

They found Percival and 3 others looking at something behind some boxes, so they decided to go over and take a look too. Behind those boxes was a huge safe! “How come you can’t open it Percy?” asked one man. “This has a different kind of lock,” he replied, “one I haven’t seen before, it would take a pro to open this safe.” Sky communicated this bit of news with me. That’s why they want Mary alive, she has the combination for that safe…

To Be Continued. ©2025 Steve McLeod.