Since Jennifer was with them, they were able to get inside the house easily enough, but, there was an alarm system and it was working. “Can you figure out how to turn it off Mac?” asked Kat. He never said a word, but he did touch the key pad and walked away. “Done,” was all he said. “Done?” asked Sky, “But you didn’t even try to punch in the code.” “Don’t need to,” he said and he continued walking. Sky zipped around in front of him. “Hold on Mr. Talkative,” said Sky, “how do you know the alarm is off?”

“There’s an on/off switch on the bottom,” he said, “I turned it off. But it won’t stay off for long, it’s for people who might forget their code temporarily, gives them time to think. Now I’m going to the basement since the alarm system likely doesn’t cover the basement, just the main floor.” “Okay, that’s better, thank you,” she said and she let him go past her. “Are you trying to annoy Mac?” asked Kat. “I just wanted an answer,” she said, “and I got it.” “I don’t think I’ve heard Mac talk so much,” said Jennifer. “True enough,” said Kat giggling. Off they went searching different parts of the house.

Jennifer and Sky remained on the main floor and Kat went upstairs to look through the bedrooms. They certainly had a big house for a young couple with no children, there were 6 bedrooms upstairs and 4 bathrooms. Downstairs there was a very large living room, kitchen, dining room and 2 more bathrooms. Carmen enjoyed doing various crafts, so she had a room on the main floor dedicated to that. Vincent had a large office, as did Carmen, since both of them worked from home. There were also two other rooms, both of them were locked with electronic locks.

Sky played around with them and the one door opened into a small room that appeared to be a video recording room. She then opened the other lock and the door opened to a completely round room. It had natural wood paneled walls with a red carpet and red painted ceiling. There was a large round bed in the middle of the room and on the ceiling above the bed was a large fan with 3 lights, but the lighting was very soft. It didn’t take her long to realize what was going on in that room. Kat had found a similar room on the yacht, though it wasn’t round.

It would appear that both Vincent and Carmen must be involved in this, or at least Carmen knew what was going on. Yet she never mentioned this when Kat and Jennifer were talking with her. Meanwhile Mac was investigating the basement which was divided into 6 rooms. One was a laundry room, one a storage room, one a game room, and the largest room was just a typical looking basement room. Then there were 2 rooms that were locked. Mac had the first one open quickly. It was a very nicely decorated room with two couches and 6 large, comfortable chairs.

Mac recognized this room as a meeting room for top people of an organization of some kind, likely criminal in this case. Carmen should have known about this room, even if she had never been inside the room. Meetings were held here and she must have known about them, so why didn’t she mention that to Jennifer? This isn’t looking good for Carmen. When Mac opened the second locked room he was quite surprised to find it was empty. Why lock an empty room? Unless he was planning to put things in there but never got it finished. Or perhaps the police found something interesting and took it away as evidence.

Tiger, Mac’s cat, was certainly interested in that room though. He was going all around the room sniffing and that told Mac that the room had been used before, but for what purpose? Finally Tiger stopped right in the center of the room and began jumping up and down. Meowy meow!= “Something here!” Mac looked, then went and got a steel bar he had seen and came back. He began to drop it slightly from the edge of the room to the center. He then smiled. Mac didn’t do anything right then but he did tell Kat about what he, or rather, what Tiger, had found. Kat then came down to check on it.

“Chipped cement?” she asked, “You’re excited about chipped cement?” She looked at Mac rather bewildered. “It’s hollow under that spot,” he said smiling, “which means something is under there.” “Hmm, Vincent kept telling Carmen that their future was in the house,” she said, “so maybe he has buried something valuable under the floor there.” “Possibly,” said Mac, “or perhaps a body.” Kat just stared at him. She had a terrible thought right then, but never said anything. “Why not open it up Mac?” she asked and then went back upstairs.

“Open it?” he said to himself, “Just like that, open it. With what?” Pounding that spot with the steel bar was getting him nowhere, so he started to look around. Tiger sat there swishing his tail, waiting impatiently for Mac to return. Then he remembered something. There was this odd looking chair thing with a board attached to it. So, he pushed and pushed and got it into place. Then he went into the game room and came out pushing a bowling ball with his head and he began to run fast pushing that bowling ball right up the board and over the top and it landed with a thud on the cement floor, cracking it.

Then he tried it again and this time the bowling ball got stuck in the floor. Tiger sighed. Just then Mac came back with an axe and saw what Tiger had done. He removed the bowling ball and shone his flashlight into the hole. “Good job Tiger!” he said. He then picked him up and gave him a big hug. Then he called Kat again and all three girls came down to take a look. “I guess this is why Carmen didn’t tell us about the treasure,” said Jennifer, “I think we need to talk with her again.”

“I agree with you sis,” said Kat, “and we will do so in the morning.” “We can only visit in the afternoon, remember?” said Jennifer. “Yes, you’re right,” she sighed, “but what should we do with this?” “Just leave it and hope no one finds out,” said Sky, “we certainly can’t move it.” “And Tiger gets a special treat for this one,” said Kat smiling. Jewel, Azura and Rusty all agreed with that! They all went upstairs with Mac following slowly behind them, saying to himself, “They’re going to spoil my cat doing that.”

The next day Kat called the jail to make arrangements for visiting Carmen, but she was told that Carmen had been freed. Apparently there was not enough evidence to convict Carmen and they were now looking for a different suspect, one of the bodyguards. Carmen had gone home with her brother. Kat and Jennifer knew that Carmen didn’t have a brother, therefore her life was in danger and they quickly drove back to the house…

To Be Continued. ©2026 Steve McLeod.