Chapter 2

Monday morning, 9:50 am

Sarah Munroe drove her red VW convertible to the offices of Townsend Investigations. She parked out front, and looked at the building for a moment. Memories flooded her mind. Sarah had spent many happy moments and many scared moments within its walls. As a young girl, she had lived with her sisters, Kris and Jill, who had also worked for Charlie Townsend. They had gone on to pursue other careers after they had gotten tired of the detective business. Sarah had just finished her college and detective training, and was hired by Charlie. Ever since she was a teenager, and saw all the excitement, danger, and drama her sisters had experienced while working for Charlie, she knew that was what she wanted to do. She checked her watch, and decided it was time to go in. She picked up her purse and got out of the car. Sarah was tall and slim, with blue green eyes and a slender build. She walked with a confident stride into the building. Anyone who knew her well would not be fooled. She was nervous and excited about starting her new job.

Sarah walked down the familiar hallway. She tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear as she looked around. The inside of the building hadn't changed much in the few years it was empty. Charlie had closed the agency when all of his former angels had either retired or decided to pursue other careers, but he had kept the building. When he hired Sarah and her friends, he had opened it back up and cleaned out the dust. Now it was ready for action. Sarah hoped she was as well. She went into the office, and saw Scott Woodville, Jr. waiting for the arrival of the new Angels. He had been behind the desk, but rose when she came in. He was tall and thin, in his late 30's, with thinning brown hair.

"Hello, Sarah," he said warmly.

"Hi, Scott. How are you?" She extended her hand for shaking.

"Very well, thank you. Would you care for something to drink?"

"At 10:00 in the morning?"

"As you probably know, Charlie keeps his bar stocked for his clients. We also have some coffee, soft drinks, juices, and bottled water."

"I'll take the water, please."

Lisa Kishi came into the office. Her parents were from Japan. They had passed on the classic Japanese beauty to Lisa. She was of medium height, slender, with silky black hair that fell down to her shoulder blades. Like Sarah, she had always thought that crime prevention was an interesting field. When she was younger, she liked to take apart old appliances and electronic devices, and rebuild them into other things. She had studied sciences and technology in college, where she and Sarah had been roommates.

"Hi,'" she said.

"Lisa!" Sarah exclaimed as she gave her friend a hug.

"Hello, Lisa," said Scott. "Would you like something to drink?" He winked at Sarah as he made the offer. "We have coffee, soft drinks, juices, and water. We also have stronger drinks."

"I'll take the water, Scott."

Scott went behind the bar and got out two bottles of water as the third Angel, Kianna Morgan, came in. She was tall and thin, and had creamy cocoa colored skin. Her hair was pulled back into a bun. Kianna had grown up in Watts, a predominantly black area of Los Angeles. She was street smart. Her parents were not wealthy, and she had gone to college on a scholarship. As a child, Kianna had once tried to steal some candy from a local grocery store. Her pastor had caught her, and helped her turn her life around before she went down the wrong path. Kianna was tough, and could hold her own in a fight. She was also an expert at martial arts.

"Hey, everyone!"

"Kianna!" Lisa and Sarah exclaimed as they hugged her.

"Hello, Kianna," Scott welcomed her. "I'm getting the other girls some water. What would you like?"

"I'll take the water too, please."

Water in hand, the three new Angels sat on one of the couches. The phone rang. Scott answered.

"Good morning. Townsend Associates."

"Good morning, Scott, Angels."

Only Sarah knew the drill. "Good morning, Charlie." Lisa and Kianna looked at each other.

"Good morning, Sarah. Are Lisa and Kianna there as well?"

"We're here, Mr. Townsend," Lisa responded for both of them.

"Good morning, Lisa. Please call me Charlie."

"Good morning, Charlie."

"Good morning, Charlie." Kianna spoke up.

"Good morning, Kianna. Now that everyone is here, we can start going over the terms of your employment. Scott, if you would please pass out the folders..."

"Right here, sir." Scott picked up the manilla folders on his desk and passed them out to the Angels. "Inside these folders, you will find your employment contract, health and car insurance forms, and tax forms, and temporary PI licenses, which will work until we can get your pictures taken and permanent ones issued. Please fill out the forms and get them back to me as soon as you can." He handed them each a pen and they got to work.

"Most of these forms are pretty self explanatory, Angels," Charlie began. "You will need to give Scott your driver's licenses, birth certificates, and social security cards so that he can copy them. Be sure you fill out the tax and insurance forms. Each of you will recieve a company car. You may also use it for personal use. I will pay the insurance premiums and maintenance on them. You buy the gas."

"Sounds like a plan, Charlie," Sarah said as she started to fill in forms. Wow, Charlie had thought of everything. They would have expense accounts for things they might need while handling a case. They would have medical and dental insurance, as well as workmen's compensation, should they get hurt in the line of duty. Charlie would also cover any medical and hospitalization for injuries sustained on the job. If they were killed, Charlie would cover the funeral expenses. None of the Angels like to think of that part. There was a clause in the contract advising them to get their affairs in order, just in case. Sarah winced and signed it, as did Lisa and Kianna.

"Now for your cars, " Charlie said as Scott held up three key rings.

"Come outside, and I will show you your cars, ladies," Scott said, and led the way out back. Four sleek, top of the line cars were parked there. One was a bright red Ferrari. Scott pointed at it. "That one is mine."

"Whoa," said the girls.

"Charlie's taste in cars is definitely improving," Sarah said as she looked at the other three cars. There was a black Trans-Am Firebird, a white Corvette, and a bright blue Camaro. "Do we get to pick?" she asked Scott.

"Sarah, you get the Trans-Am. It's already registered in your name." Scott handed Sarah the keys and she jumped into the driver's seat of her new car. It had everything a person could possibly want in a car. The seats were of fine leather. It had a state of the art stereo system with both AM/FM radio, and cassette player, as well as surround sound speakers. Of course, there was a car phone with a hands free speaker option. It was an automatic transmission car. Sarah looked at the instrument panel. There were more gizmos and gadgets there than she could figure out. As long as the gas, battery, and oil levels were good, she was fine. She hoped there was an owner's manual in the glove box. Sarah got out of her new car.

"I love it, Scott. But what do I do with my old car?"

"Keep it or sell it, it's up to you."

Sarah loved her little VW convertible. It had been a graduation from high school gift, and had seen her through college and the police academy. She decided to put it into storage for now, until she could reach a permanent solution. Lisa was exclaiming over the Corvette, and Kianna was admiring the Camaro. Each of them had everything one could possibly want in a car, and the latest features available, as well as the car phone. The three Angels pocketed their new keys and went back into the office with Scott. The phone rang just as they came in. Scott hit the speaker button.

"Townsend Associates."

"Are you pleased with your new vehicles, Angels?" Charlie asked as the girls returned to their paperwork.

"We are, Charlie," they chorused.

"You are about to get a chance to use them. An old friend of mine, Jonathan Hart, has just phoned me."

"Jonathan Hart, the multi millionaire?" Sarah asked.

"Yes, that is the one. He and I have been friends for many years. I sit on the board of directors of his company, Hart Industries."

"So, why did he call, Charlie?" asked Lisa.

"His wife, Jennifer, has been kidnapped. He would like us to try to find her. He's on his way to the office right now."

Just then, there was a knock on the door, and Jonathan Hart poked his head in. The girls had seen him on tv and in the newspapers before, but his handsomeness up close was something else to be reckoned with. He had dark brown hair, and blue eyes. He had even white teeth. Each of the girls stared momentarily. Scott looked at them with some amusement and rose from his desk.

"Good morning, Mr. Hart. Welcome to Townsend Investigations. Please be seated. May I offer you a drink?"

The girls stood up to welcome Jonathan.

"Good morning, Scott. I know it's early, but do you have any scotch and soda?"

"Coming right up, Mr. Hart. Girls, why don't you introduce yourselves?"

Sarah extended her hand. "I'm Sarah Munroe. Nice to meet you, sir."

"Munroe. Your sisters used to work for Charlie."

"Yes, sir. "

"I am glad to see you are carrying on the tradition. I am sure you will do as good a job as they did."

"Thank you, sir."

Lisa was next. "I am Lisa Kishi. Nice to meet you, Mr. Hart."

"You too, Miss Kishi."

"And I am Kianna Morgan. It's a pleasure to meet you, sir."

"I am pleased to make your acquaintance as well, Miss Morgan." The pleasantries out of the way, Scott handed Jonathan his drink. "Thank you. Please, ladies, sit down." The girls sat on the couch facing the doorway, as Jonathan and Scott sat on the opposite couch.

"Suppose you tell us what happened, Mr. Hart," Scott began.

Jonathan took a sip of his drink. "This morning, our butler left on vacation. My wife and I drove him to the airport. We went home. I got some papers that I needed for a business meeting today. They were in my home office. I told my wife goodbye, and left for my meeting. She was going to stay home and work on her latest magazine article. I went to my meeting, and my secretary gave me a message. It said that Jennifer, my wife, had been in a serious accident, and I needed to get home right away, which I did. There was no sign of Jennifer. Our dog had been gagged and stuffed in a closet."

"Was there any sign of forced entry, Mr. Hart?" Lisa asked.

Jonathan shook his head. "None. There were some signs of a struggle in Jennifer's office, but other than that, nothing."

"Mr. Hart, do you have any enemies?" Kianna enquired.

"Lots of them. Jennifer and I have solved some cases, and sent people to jail. I've also made enemies in the business world. Jennifer has written newspaper and magazines articles that have ruffled some feathers. The possibilities are endless."

"I guess it would be hard to find out who could hate you so much and why," Lisa said, "and almost impossible to find everyone who's ever been annoyed by a newspaper or magazine article."

"You are right, Miss Kishi. I would like you girls to go to my office with me, and make some discreet inquiries. We will compare notes later this afternoon."

"Yes, Mr. Hart. We'll also need to go over your house where your wife was last seen." Sarah said as the Angels stood up to leave, and followed Jonathan out of the office.

"Whose car are we going to take?" Lisa asked as they left. Scott smiled and shook his head. He could hardly wait to drive his new Ferrari when he first got it, and imagined the girls felt the same way about their new cars.

The three Angels rode up to the Hart residence in Sarah's Trans Am. They had a brief discussion over which car to take. Knowing Mr. Hart needed to start looking for his wife, they had kept it short, and gravitated towards Sarah's car. They could work it out more diplomatically later. The girls were impressed with the Hart house. They followed Jonathan to the front door, where they parked their car and got out. The police were already there, going over the house and grounds. An officer came running up to them.

"Mr. Hart!"

Jonathan turned from the door he was about to unlock. "Yes?"

"Mr. Hart, we found a body at the side of the house. "

"Show me." Jonathan ran behind the police officer, with the Angels following him. They ran around to the side of the house, and saw a body lying on the ground, just out of view of anyone passing by the house. It was a man's body, and he had been shot in the back. This was the Angels' first encounter with a dead body. Each of them was rather grossed out, but managed to overcome it. They had to put personal discomfort aside and be professional. The Angels looked over the body, as did the police. Sarah looked around the area. "Lisa! Kianna!"

Her fellow Angels came running. "What?"

Sarah pointed to the ground. "Tire tracks. Look like they came from a large vehicle, probably a truck or a van. We need to get the cops to take a plaster cast of this right away." Sarah looked around, and saw Lieutenant Moss talking with Jonathan. She approached them.

"Yes, Sarah?" Jonathan asked.

"Mr. Hart, we found tire tracks next to the body. We'd like the police to take a plaster cast of them."

"And who might you be, Miss?" asked Moss.

"My name is Sarah Munroe. I work for Charlie Townsend." She flashed her badge at him. "My associates are over there going over the tire tracks and looking for evidence as to who could have taken Mrs. Hart. "

"I hired the Townsend Agency to help you out," Jonathan said.

"Very well." Moss didn't want a bunch of female private eyes on his turf, but if Jonathan had hired them, there wasn't much he could do about it. He and Jonathan followed Sarah over to the tire tracks. Kianna had taken pictures.

Lisa and Kianna looked up. "We think it was a truck or a van. Somehow, they got onto the grounds and in the house."

Jonathan looked at the body. "That's Harry Jones, our groundskeeper. Whoever took Jennifer probably took his van and used it as a getaway vehicle."

Moss signaled to his men. One of them came over. "Get a plaster cast of this right away." The officer nodded and ran to do his bidding. The forensic team covered the body and loaded it onto a stretcher.

"Mr. Hart, we will need to look inside your house to see if there are any clues in there," Sarah said.

"Of course." Jonathan led to the way back to the house. He opened the door for the Angels, and led them to Jennifer's office. "She was working on a magazine article in here. Apparently, there was a fight in here as well. I found the dog in this closet." Jonathan opened the closet door for them. They looked around inside. Other than Jonathan having found the dog in there, there was nothing out of the ordinary. The girls noted the signs of the struggle-the smashed vase, the remains of the coffee cup on the floor, the coffee on the wall. There was some overturned furniture. Kianna looked around the room, and went to the closet for another look. She found a small rag. Picking it up, she gave it a quick whiff.

"Probably chloroform. I'll get this to the lab." Kianna took a small plastic bag out of her pocket, and carefully put the rag into it. Sarah and Lisa looked over the furniture. Lisa looked at the windows with the floor to ceiling drapes. One was more open than the other.

"Mr. Hart, are these drapes usually opened or closed?"

"Max, our butler, often draws them closed in the daytime to keep dust out. Mrs. Hart sometimes opens them when she's working to let sunshine in."

The girls and Jonathan looked carefully around the windows, which extended from the ceiling to floor. Sarah saw a partial muddy footprint. She took out her pocket camera, and took a picture.

Jonathan looked at the window latch. It was unfastened. "This is probably how the intruder got in. Funny he didn't set off any alarms."

"I'll dust it for fingerprints." Sarah took out her fingerprint kit and got to work. "Do you have an alarm service, Mr. Hart?"

"We do. I may have forgotten to set it when we took Max to the airport. I will call them and see." Jonathan excused himself and went into the living room to make the call.

"I'll look outside for more footprints." Lisa went back outside and inspected the ground under the window. Kianna was busy taking pictures of the evidence of the struggle.

Lisa came back in. "I got pictures of the footprints. There are some right under this window. Now, I guess we go back to the office with the evidence that we've collected, and go over it."

Jonathan came in to the room, with Freeway in his arms. "I just spoke to my alarm service. I did set the alarm. Whoever broke in here, knew how to disable it."

"Mr. Hart, we've collected enough evidence to start our investigation. We will need to get Lieutenant Moss' number, so that we can coordinate our efforts with him. We're going to go back to our office now, and go through what we have. We will be at your office later this afternoon. If you think of anything else, please call us," Sarah said.

"Thank you, ladies."

"You're welcome, Mr. Hart. Goodbye." The Angels left the room, got Lt. Moss' number, and drove back to their office.

Jennifer lay on a cold stone floor in a dark room. She was still unconcious, and bound and gagged. The chloroform slowly began to wear off. Jennifer opened her eyes. She tried to lift her head, but it felt heavy. She felt dizzy, and closed her eyes again. She lay on the floor for some time until the dizziness wore off. Jennifer opened her eyes again. She tried to lift her head off of the cement floor. It still felt heavy. She laid her head back down on the floor. A door opened, and light came in. Jennifer winced at the sudden brightness.

"You are awake, I see," said the voice of her captor. Jennifer lay motionless. The person approached Jennifer, reached down, and roughly pulled her into a sitting position. "There, now I can talk to you better." Jennifer closed her eyes, and wondered who had taken her and why. "Look at me when I am talking to you!" the person demanded. Jennifer opened her eyes, and looked into the eyes behind the ski mask covering the face of her captor. "Do you know who I am?" demanded the voice. Jennifer shook her head. Her captor took off the ski mask. "Now do you recognize me?" Jennifer looked closely. It was a woman's face, and there was something familiar about her. Jennifer couldn't quite put her finger on it. She shook her head. "Of course you don't. You didn't recognize me back then either, even when you saw me every day. You were always so busy with your friends, being popular, and never having time for the unimportant ones. That is about to change, Jennifer Edwards. You think you are so smart, having it all. Well, you won't have it all now!" With that, Jennifer's captor marched out of the room. Jennifer was stunned. Who would hate her so badly to want to do this to her? Jennifer sat and thought about the people she had met in her lifetime. She had met many people over the years, and as far as she knew, didn't have any enemies. Maybe Jonathan did in the business world, but what would that have to do with her? Unless someone was trying to get back at Jonathan. But the person didn't mention Jonathan. Jennifer leaned her head back against the wall behind her. She wondered where Jonathan was.

The person's voice was vaguely familiar. She had mentioned Jennifer being popular. It must be an old school acquaintance. She had callled Jennifer "Jennifer Edwards," which was her maiden name, and not "Jennifer Hart." Jennifer wracked her brain. Who could it be? Obviously, it was someone who hadn't liked her very much. It had been many years since she had been in school. That was a long time to hold a grudge.

The Angels arrived at their office. "Any luck, girls?" Scott asked as they flopped onto the couches and chairs, and tried to mentally piece together the evidence they had collected. Sarah shook her head.

"We found some tire tracks, a dead body, and signs of struggle in Mrs. Hart's home office," Sarah leaned back in her chair and massaged her temples.

"We took pictures, and had the police make a plaster cast of the tire tracks," added Lisa.

"And we dusted for fingerprints, and I found a cholorform rag," Kianna chimed in.

"So, now we process this," Sarah said. "Who wants to do what? We need to develop the film, analyze the prints, and see what we can find out from that rag."

"I sometime dabble in photography, and use my bathroom as a dark room," Kianna volunteered. "I'll develop your pictures and mine."

"I'll run the prints and the rag over to the lab," Lisa said.

"I'll go with you. Maybe they have the plaster cast of the tire tracks ready." Sarah handed her camera over to Kianna. "Let's go. We'll be back in a couple of hours, Scott."

"See you," Scott waved as they went out the door.