Well, here we are, back home and relaxing. We had a big ceremony for adopting Carrie into our family. Sky and I are now her parents. Sky is unable to have children, so we had been thinking of adopting, though we had been thinking of a younger child, however, we are both very happy that Carrie is now a part of our family. Carrie is also very happy, I think she still does cartwheels every day.

We have been home for 2 weeks now and everything is going smoothly for a change. Though we have not had any cases come our way either, which can be good at times. Still, we do not want to be without a case for too long. Mac, John and Vince are away on a vacation together, somewhere in Africa, but we can get hold of them easily if needed.

I have had a couple of minor headaches in the last 4 days, so that is doing good too. I am in the library with Annelie going over some things. We had to come up with new identities for Carrie, her name is now Trisha, and for Tamara and Kathee. Remember it is Kathee’s dad, a lawyer in Canada that helped me get The Investigators started.

He is the one killed by people associated with Carnival. So we want Kathee to have a new identity also for her protection. She is now a member of our team, having passed all the tests. Tamara has also passed all tests and is now a member as well. Trisha cannot officially join until she is 19, one of our rules, but she can still help us in various ways.

Since we discovered her true age is 16, she has 3 years to wait. Annelie and I have come up with a list of 10 names for Tamara and Kathee to choose from for their new identity. I got up to get some more coffee, but I stopped and dropped my cup. Annelie turned toward me, I was holding my head like I do with those bad headaches, which I sure had right then.

Then it felt like I was hit by Rock! Annelie even said it looked like someone hit me, and I went falling to the floor unconscious. Annelie came to me and pressed the emergency alarm. Everyone came running to the library! I was awake by the time Sky arrived, she had been outside exercising with some of the other girls. I told everyone what had happened, but I felt fine now.

Crystal came into the room last. “This was taped to the front door,” she said. It was a note which simply read, “Ha, ha Steve, Bang! We got you!” Crystal, Aasta and Trisha were the only ones to come in the front door, which is why no one else noticed it. But how did someone get in to tape it to our door? A failure in our electronic security system again.

Still, that is odd, because we have a backup system now too, it would be rather unusual for both to fail at precisely the same time. The note had been typed, on an old fashioned typewriter. Another rather odd thing. But, it means that when I felt like I had been hit, I really was hit, by something. But what? Some kind of electronic device perhaps?

From where I was standing at the time, I would have been in sight of one window close to where Annelie was sitting. Kristina took several of the girls to go have a look around the fence, to see if there was any evidence of activity. “It felt like a bad headache at the start,” I said, “just like I usually get. Then it felt like getting punched, like what I imagine it to be when Rock punches someone.”

“Except you woke up rather quickly,” said Annelie smiling. “Yes, and my head feels fine now too,” I added. “Maybe it was some kind of laser beam,” said Crystal, “it might not even need a window to come through, perhaps it came through a wall.” “That is nice to know,” I said, “but this room is well protected against such things, except the windows.”

“Maybe we need to make some new security changes around here,” said Sky, “like closing off the windows in this room permanently.” “Not a bad idea,” I admitted, “for now, close the emergency shutters.” Annelie did so. Baldwin is on an important business trip right now and he took Rock along for his personal bodyguard. Annelie wanted to call Baldwin, but I said no.

There was nothing he could do anyway, and this business trip was too important to disturb him at the moment. Mandar was coming for a visit later today, so I will talk to him about this and see what he thinks. “Where are the cats?” I asked, “why did they not come running?”

To Be Continued.

©2023 Steve McLeod.