“Yes, how true. Can you tell me about a co-worker you had named Danielle McDermitt?”
Ah, so that’s what this is about, they’re investigating Dani for the senator. Inwardly I breathe a huge sigh of relief. I know I’ll be able to go home soon because of what I just found out from the fire marshal.
“Dani came to work at the office close to a year ago. She was fresh from college and became a junior intern. She worked mostly with Ben and Regina; they weren’t on the political track but rather political analyst/commentator track. I think she just got her degree in poli-sci and journalism. Anyway, she spent a lot of time with the senator and his senior staff, until recently. A few weeks ago, the bungalow she was renting caught fire and she died.”
“Do you know how the fire started?”
“According to Fire Marshal Bennett, it was arson. He told me earlier today that the arsonist used the gas from her lawn mower as the accelerant. But other than that, I don’t have much more information.”
“The paperwork that Bennett sent to me suggested that the arson was merely to cover up her death. He said that she was alive when the house caught fire, but that she should have gotten out of there because it didn’t burn fast enough for her to not have time. Plus, her bedroom wasn’t the origin of the fire. That was the kitchen/living room area. So, he concludes that something kept her there at the time of her death. Toxicology came back with her results. There were large trace amounts of her sleeping medication. The amount is more than twice what she was prescribed. This wouldn’t be alarming if it was possible she could have set the fire herself—we could have considered this a suicide, but that’s not possible.”
“I did not know all this. That’s truly sad.” I say. The subdued reaction isn’t faked, I’m quite sick to my stomach about it. Bennett hasn’t been nearly as forthcoming with me on the information as I had hoped.
Dr. Miller stands and moves around to the other side of the bed, his back is to me, and he’s obviously moving things out of the cabinet. “What do you know about her relationship with the senator?”
“She was a junior intern. She would fetch coffee and would write some op-ed pieces for magazines and newspapers. Sometimes she would draft something to go out to the television or radio stations.”
“Beyond that. That’s a stock answer. I want a truthful answer, Edward.”
“That’s a truthful answer.”
“Technically speaking, yes, but that’s not the truthful answer and you know it. Now, I need the truthful answer.” He turns around and he has this weird looking clamp in his hand.
What the fuck is that about?
Jack walks closer to me and the thing in his hands looks like the type of flat clamp used to press glued wood together. It’s fairly large, almost big enough to put someone’s head in. As he moves closer toward the foot of my bed, keeping himself facing me the whole time, his expression is no longer an analytical one, but rather a little more severe. A frown line gathers between his eyebrows. “Ed, I am surprised you’ve been as honest as you have been so far. You’re quite the weaver of lies.”
“I—” I begin, when he uses both hands to crack the clamp across my shin. My leg explodes in pain. I know I shriek a very unmanly sound, I know, but I can’t help it.
“Be quiet, I’m not finished,” he says quietly as if he didn’t just damn near shatter my shin bones.
“Bu—” He hits the same place again, and it has me crying, the pain is so intense. There are some sounds you only hear because they are within your body. Maybe you don’t hear them, you feel them, but they seem to be heard. That’s how my shin splintering sounded to me.
“Quiet!” he says, louder. “As I said, I’m surprised you’ve been honest up to this point. But now I want to know the truth to my question, not a truth. So, let me repeat it in case you’ve forgotten already. What do you know about her relationship with the senator?”
I know I can’t answer this. I can’t because that will cost me my job, but I’ve never hurt like this before, and based on the cool, measured look on Jack’s face, more will come. So, hopefully, what little truth I give him will keep everyone happy. “She spent a lot of time alone with the senator. I was never told what they did privately.” Which is mostly true. She never told me what they did and neither did the senator, but she’s not the first or only person I set up dates for.
Jack, the bastard, places the clamp under my left foot. He broke my right shin and now he’s putting the fucking clamp around my left goddamned foot. I twitch and jerk my foot, trying to get it out from between the wooden planks that form the top and bottom of the clamp. He doesn’t say anything, he just tightens it down until it’s snug, which is turned on its side.
He walks up the bed until he’s nearer to my head. “Warmer, Ed, but still not hot. Let me explain how this works. Your honesty determines how many bones I crush. The more honest, the fewer the bones. The less honest, well...let’s just say you have 206 bones in your body. Several of which are long bones that can suffer many breaks. That means we can be here a while, but I can assure you, you won’t survive me crushing them all. So, cut the shit. You are in charge of his day planner. You know he keeps notes on everyone. Everyone. You know everything about what comes and goes in his life. What was their relationsh—strike that. What do you know about her death, Ed?”
My heart stops. He knows. His eyes are clear and cold, not angry like he sounds. But he knows.
“I’ve changed my mind. Don’t answer that just yet. Let me ask you something else.” His face relaxes and his shoulders ease down some.
I’m having a hard time keeping up with him. He’s changing topics and the pain in my leg and the fear for the rest of me is making it hard to concentrate. “What?”
“Tell me about Junior. Why are you his friend when you can’t stand him?”
“We’ve been friends since boarding school. How can I just not be his friend anymore?”
“I had him in here a couple of days ago, and the way he talked, he was more trouble for you than not. So how can you remain his friend, especially when it could cost you any chances in the political arena?”
“He’s just always been there for me. I’m not understanding why we’re talking about this.” I am really confused. Jack moves to the foot of the bed, and this makes me very nervous. He tightens the screws on the clamp until it’s extremely uncomfortable on my foot.
“One or two more twists, Ed, and I’ll be breaking several of the bones in your foot, so why don’t you tell me the truth. You aren’t that benevolent a person.”
“You’ve talked to Geoff?”
“Yes, I have. This is the last time, Ed; why are you still his friend?”
“I already told y—” The scream shreds my throat as the bones in my foot pop. That sadistic bastard really did turn the screws.
“Tell me a story, Ed,” he says, once I calm down and can hear again. “Tell me about the day you found Geoff in your condo talking to the phone sex operator.”
Sobbing, both my foot and leg in intense pain, I know I’m in deep shit now. If he’s asking about this, it really has nothing to do with Dani, but the briefcase. Then it dawns on me. I knew I’d heard his name somewhere before. The senator has talked about him. I can feel my eyes widen as I look down at the man who’s been mentioned only a few times by Geoffrey Sr., and always in whispers.
“You’re the Bee Keeper?”
“You’ve come to this conclusion how?”
“The senator, he’s mentioned you a few times in reference to the Bee Keeper. I didn’t put two and two together before now. Oh my God. I’m going to die.”
He doesn’t really respond to anything I’ve said, just simply hums “Hmm” and motions that I continue, mouthing the word, “Story.”
“The day Geoff came to my condo I’d worked an extra-long day for the senator. He was just starting his campaign fundraising. I had been going from one large contributor to another trying to get an approximate tally for the $500-a-plate dinner
he was starting to plan for.”
I pull into my space in the parking garage of my condo building, grateful that it’s Friday. I worked a longer than normal day, though this is the usual time I came home. I’m tired and I have a date to look forward to with Maya. She’ll shit herself if I cancel on her.
My day started at 3:30 AM, when the senator called and asked me to remove a crying Dani McDermitt from his townhouse. Apparently, she’d overstayed her welcome and he was giving her the boot like he had all the others.
I get to my condo door and I can hear Geoff on the other side shouting. Fucking hell, I regret giving him a copy of my house key. I push open the door to find a drunk-as-hell Geoffrey pacing my living room floor with his pants undone, his flaccid dick hanging out, yelling at someone on my phone. My phone.
“Geoffrey, what the hell are you doing in my house and why are you on my fucking phone?” I ball my hands into fists and put them on my hips because I want to beat the fuck out of him. This is not a good day for his bullshit.
“My fucking father says that if I don’t join his crony camp, I’m cut off for all eternity! Can you believe that? He’s talking about cutting off my money, my car, kicking me out of the house, everything.” He flounces on the couch, the phone still clutched in his hands. I take it from him and place it back on the cradle.
“Geoff, let me make you some coffee and get us some food because you’re not making much sense.”
I walk into my kitchen and grip the counter. He’s such a fucking spoiled brat. His dad is willing to hand him everything on a silver platter. And all he has to do is fucking hold his hand out and take it. He doesn’t deserve any of it, but that’s Geoffrey for you, charmed as all shit and doesn’t appreciate a damned bit of it.
I know I shouldn’t be angry or surprised by this. This is a consistent source of drama in his life, and that means he brings it into my life. I start on the pot of coffee and sift through the takeout menus trying to find something help absorb some of the alcohol in Geoff’s stomach. Fucking prick. I find one and pour us both a cup before migrating back to him on the couch.
Geoff is sitting there with his head in his hands mumbling about how he can never control anything in his life. From the clothes he wears to the woman he’s going to marry, it is all dictated by his father.
“Geoff, you know your mom isn’t going to let him do any of that to you.”
“Sometimes, Ed, you’re a fucking imbecile, you know that?”
“Fuck you, Geoffrey. If I’m such a ‘fucking imbecile,’ why do I have to keep bailing your ass out of trouble?” I’m going to dice him into chunks and throw him into the river if he doesn’t shut his fucking pie-hole. He has me so pissed.
“Oh fuck me, I said that out loud?” He takes a gulp of the coffee. He knows he’s really screwed up now. There’s only so much I can tolerate.
“Yes, you did, fucktard.”
“You know I didn’t mean it. Everything is just shit today. I’m really sick of his controlling everything, Ed. I’m going to go off the deep end. I’m going to kill him.”
“You aren’t going to kill anyone, Geoff. You don’t have it in you to do that.” I scoff at that because Geoff is a lot of things, including a hothead, but he’s not a killer.
“I’m a desperate man, Ed. He’s threatening to take away everything if I don’t join his campaign. I’m twenty-five, I have plenty of time before he’ll be ready to turn everything over to me. Why can’t I enjoy what little life I have left?” Geoff has always been melodramatic. I think he gets that from his mom, Linda.
Regardless of how he feels about his mother, I can’t help but think of her fondly. She’s definitely not the mother I never had, but she gave me many of my firsts growing up. That’s something I’m positive neither the senator nor Geoff know. By the time we ever went to Ingleton, I’d been screwing Linda Wright for a few years. We’ve since moved on to younger and more delectable treats, but I can’t look harshly on her.
I half-ass tune him out because he moves on to comparing how terrible his life has been to mine. It’s the same old shit: “Oh poor me, my daddy makes me do something I am too lazy to do. My dad won’t let me party all the time and supply me with whores and drugs.”
Boo-fucking-hoo.
For some reason, he thinks my life is amazing. My parents love me. My desire to gain power is only eclipsed by my father’s. He knows there’s nothing he can do for himself, so he has placed all his eggs in my basket. In the past when I didn’t perform up to his standards, he’d beat me until I could barely move.
“…would Maya feel about you fucking that hot piece of ass, Regina?”
“Say that again?” I ask, back in the conversation.
“Maya. How would she feel if she knew you were fucking Regina? That would really fuck up your long-term plans wouldn’t it, Ed?”
“Fuck you, Geoffrey! You would have Regina killed? For what? So I can help you ditch your dad. That’s some fucked up shit.” No one understands that Maya is a force to be reckoned with all on her own. She doesn’t need her father to do anything. She won’t hesitate to have someone killed if it suits her.
The fucker laughs. He seriously just fucking laughs about it.
“You don’t know what Maya is capable of, Geoff.”
“She won’t have anything done to Regina, Ed, so chill your tits. You have a sweet woman. But I have a plan, and I will need your help and probably hers.”
“Umm hmm. Let’s hear this plan.”
“You know everything my father does. So, you know he’s in deep with Timo. Have her gather intel from her father’s side so we can use that information to blackmail my father for more time.”
It’s because of all the information that I know about Timo’s business dealings that got me in with him in the first place. He’d never consider me for his daughter if it didn’t benefit him. He has this strange fascination with his daughter.
“This will look like it’s coming from Timo or his people, and while he’s busy dealing with that, he’ll forget about me and give me more time. You know how slow these old assholes are, it’ll buy me at least a year,” Geoff continues.
“This is a shitty idea. If it fails, we’re all fucked.”
“It won’t fail because you’re going to plan the details out. You’re too awesome for it to fail,” he says, trying to placate me and bolster my ego.
“You guys concocted some scheme to get intel from and about both Timo Hauer and Senator Wright. This was supposed to pit the two of them against each other. Right?” the sadistic bastard—Dr. Miller—asks, sitting down in Meghan’s chair.
My leg and foot are throbbing with my heartbeat. He’s shifted the clamp down onto my foot just below my ankle. I don’t even want to imagine how badly that would hurt.
“Yes. That was the goal, anyway.”
“What I’m not understanding is, what does Maya gain in all of this? I know what Junior stood to gain. I know what you, potentially, stood to gain. But Maya, she’s the one I can’t figure out. Why would she put her father and her potential future at risk for a ‘spoiled brat’ like Geoff?”
“Because she loves me, and she knows that no matter what happens with her father, I’ll always take care of her,” I answer, because regardless of what I do outside of my relationship with her, I do care about her and don’t want her here in this room with this man.
He tsks me. And pushes a button. He sees me looking at the remote in his hand. “Oh, yeah, this,” he says offhandedly, “this is for those bones that torquing by hand would be too time-consuming. This”—he waves the remote around—“makes life so much easier.”
Before he finishes what he’s saying, the pressure becomes so bad in my ankle, I’m peeling off the bed. The sounds of a deafening pop and grinding noises are only eclipsed by my screams. Spots dance before my eyes, then darkness takes over.
There’s a tapping on my cheek. The fuck is going on? It takes a moment before the pain registers. There’s a stinging pain in my fo
ot and a glance down shows that the skin is torn, and it’s raw and bloody. This is only added to the throbbing in my foot and the shin on my other leg. My legs belong to someone else but I’m the unfortunate idiot who suffers for it.
“Good, you’re awake. I would say you have a low threshold, but what I’m doing is extremely painful. So, now, are you going to be truthful or do I need to break your kneecap?” The hazel eyes look down at me with no emotion. It’s like he’s asking me if I want sugar and cream in my coffee instead of breaking my knee.
“The fuck?”
“Is that your final answer?”
“No! No, no, no! Wait, no! It just hurts so bad, it’s hard to think. What was the question?”
“What does Maya stand to gain from this?”
“Everything.”
Maya’s legs curl around my hips and her arms cling around my neck. I bend down and kiss her deeply. That draws a moan out of her. Maya’s moans are breathy and quiet. It has taken me a long while to figure out her body cues. She’s so quiet, and she doesn’t move much.
Frankly, she’s one of the most passive women I’ve ever fucked. Correction, “made love to.” If she even thinks that I use the word “fuck” near her name, she would go ballistic.
Slowly I start grinding my hips into hers. Her breath hitches and I can feel her nipples pebbling against my chest. There it is. I lean on one elbow and shift one hand between us and rub her as I start thrusting into her. If I don’t get off with her, then I won’t be getting off. Maya doesn’t believe in handjobs or blowjobs. When she’s done, everyone’s done.
If I’m honest with myself, I don’t really like having sex with her. I do it because she’s valuable to me. I do it because I hope that she’ll learn to relax some and start actually participating. If not, my life is going to be one torrid affair after another.
I can feel the walls of her pussy vibrate around me as she clenches tighter. Her breath is a little more ragged. Shit, I’m not as close as I need to be. So, I slow it down, prolong her release, and imagine myself teasing this girl I had sex with the other day.
The Bee Keeper Page 10
