“Here you go, Maya,” Meghan announces as she turns and hands me my own champagne flute. “Does everyone have a glass?”
After we all hold our glasses up, Lisa makes a toast. “Bitches we might be, whores we are not. Regardless of what happens in the club, find a guy who’s hot!” We all fall apart in giggles, pausing only to drain our glasses.
Normally, it wouldn’t take us long to get to club district, but since Club Isis is in New Leonsburg, which is an hour away, we settle back for the long car ride.
“Okay,” Jillian pipes up, “we need to play a game for the road. I vote Truth or Dare. We’ve not played that since high school when Dana got her braces tangled with Jean Michel’s.”
“Oh my God! I remember that!” Lisa flops back into her seat. “I felt so bad for her because the paramedics had to clip their braces. I heard her dad grounded her for a month afterward.”
“It was only a week, and it didn’t stop her from sneaking out and fucking Jean Michel the next night. Who didn’t fuck the French guy, anyway?” Renia says, joining in.
“I didn’t,” Thierny volunteers with her hand up. “I let him eat me out and he sucked at it. My mom once drunkenly told me that if a man couldn’t give good face, he wasn’t going to be able to fuck worth a damn. That’s one of the few things she’s ever been right about.”
“Did you see how big his dick was?”
“Unfortunately. How is it he got laid so much? Even hard he was barely as long as my palm.” Thierny turns her hand over, showing us her palm. She’s almost as small as I am so that poor boy might have been three inches long.
My stomach starts to cramp, so I rub it. I hope that it is just residual nerves from yesterday and the missing briefcase. “I never had sex with him. But I did have sex with his host dad,” I blurted out.
“OH my GOD!!” Jillian screams.
“Oh, wasn’t that Mr…shit, what was his name?” Lisa says, tapping her chin with her champagne glass.
“Mr. Eliot Dahlhaus,” Renia sighs. “I had such pornographic dreams of that man.”
“Wait”—Meghan looks around at us—“Mr. Dahlhaus, the mathematics teacher?”
“He could plug his integer into my equation any day,” Thierny says dreamily.
“So, Maya, you let him put his penis in your vagina?” Jillian is still set on task. Sometimes she is like a dog with a bone.
“Well, yes, though that’s not how I intended it to go when I went over there. I guess I was just naïve about how all of it happens. I was only fifteen at the time.”
“Ohh, you have to divvy the deets!” Renia hops in her seat excitedly. “I need to live vicariously through you. B.O.B. needs to come out to play.”
I sigh. “Well, you know. I went to see Samantha and he was there, and one thing led to another.”
“Oh, no, missy! There’s more to the story than that,” Jillian says, swatting my leg.
My stomach starts churning.
“Fine. Fine. I went to his office and he was sitting at his computer playing with himself. I guess he was watching porn or something. I was curious so I continued into the room. By the time I got to him, he already had it out and he told me to suck. So, I did the best I could, then he pulled me up and sat me on his desk in front of him. He started giving me oral sex. At first, I was embarrassed because he was putting his face down there. Because what if I smelled.” All the other ladies in the limo nod their heads.
“I remember having that fear, too,” Thierny interjected.
“Then we had sex. Nothing fancy. I went back upstairs afterward and that was it. But this was all when I was young and stupid and didn’t think about reputation or anything.” I’m giving them the watered-down version. They don’t need to know that my affair with Mr. Dahlhaus continued until he moved away four years later.
I’ve since learned that reputation is everything. That’s why I haven’t had many lovers in my life. Only five, Mr. Dahlhaus being the first. Then a bumbling teenager named Raoul, one of my father’s charity cases. Ed is my third, the fourth is P.A., then a few months ago, at a party with Geoffrey, he and I did it in the closet. I don’t think he remembers; I barely do and I wasn’t as messed up as he was.
My stomach cramps hard enough for me to double over and I groan. My skin gets instantly damp like it does when I get sick.
“Maya, are you okay?” Jillian asks, concern filling her eyes.
“No, my stomach is really hurting. I think I might have gotten something bad at Pierre’s.”
“I’m going to give them a bad review online. I can’t believe they would give you spoiled food!” Lisa’s fingers are already flying over her phone.
Meghan taps on the window and says something to the driver, then turns toward us. “Since we’ve not left Hartford yet, the driver is going to take you ladies on to the club and I’ll take Maya to my office to run some tests. I’ll call you when we find out something.”
“Shouldn’t she, like, go to the hospital or something?” Lisa stops typing her review long enough to ask.
“No, no hospitals. Papa won’t ever let me out of the house if I go to the hospital. I also don’t want to see our family doctor because he’ll tell Papa everything. I’ll go with Meghan. Thank you, Meghan.”
“No problem. I’m sure it’s nothing,” she says, her gaze fixed on me.
Jillian starts to protest. “We’ll come too—”
Meghan holds a hand up, stopping her. “I know you want to come, but security won’t let all of you up to the lab. So, go on and I promise to get back in touch with you.”
My stomach is clenched so hard, but I keep my face on for the girls. It isn’t so they believe me brave, but rather, I won’t let them see me as weak. When the driver stops the limo and they file out, looking back and telling me to call them or text when I get answers, I relax, letting the pain show.
The driver pulls us back into traffic. Meghan comes over and pulls out a pen light and her stethoscope out of her bag. She flashes the light in my eyes, then listens to my heart beat and takes my pulse.
A cramp doubles me over and I vomit in the seat next to me. All I can do is moan. I really think I might die from food poisoning. The rest of the ride is a blur of pain and vomiting. Meghan uses a bar towel and some water she finds in the mini fridge to wipe my face down with. Once we arrive at her office, she has a security guard carry me up to her lab.
The constant jostling of being in his arms as he walks, keeps me nauseous so I keep my eyes closed with the cold, damp cloth over my face. He settles me down and I can hear the door close. Meghan touches my hand. “Maya, I need you to open your eyes. We need to talk.”
I open my eyes and see her standing over me. Her face, which showed concern earlier, is now a mask of indifference. She’s in her element, so of course, she’s going to be professional. “You’re going to be okay. I just gave you a medicine known to cause stomach cramps and vomiting. You should now be over the worst of it.”
“Why would you do that?” To say that I am confused would be the understatement of the millennia.
She moves around the hospital bed and straps my legs down, as well as one hand before I begin to struggle. She’s a lot stronger than she appears and she has that arm buckled down in no time.
“I needed to get you here. Don’t worry. Your girlfriends will think that you had a stomach bug.”
“Won’t matter because as soon as I get out, I’ll be sure to tell them that you poisoned me.” Then a heinous thought strikes me. “Did Jillian know that you were going to do this? I know you’re gorgeous and all, but you’re really not my type.”
The only explanation for tying me down must be for some sexually deviant act. And while the thought is arousing, I want to be the one to abuse her, not the other way around.
She laughs and says, “No, of course not. No one knew. I just needed to get you here to ask you a few questions, not for some random hook-up.”
“You could have simply called and said, ‘Hi! I’m Dr. Meg
han and I have questions, please answer them.’” I know I have an attitude with her, but really, who does she think she is?
“I could have, but you wouldn’t have come in here. You would have met me somewhere else and there would have been bodyguards all over the place, and I wouldn’t have been able to ask what needs to be asked. I do need to inform you, however, that you are being recorded by both audio and video feeds.” She moves away from me, grabbing an attaché and a chair, and then sits next to me.
“What makes you think I’m going to answer your questions now? You’ve tied me down to this bed like I’m going to have a seizure and you gave me some drug that made me sick. Please tell me why it’s advantageous for me to talk with you.” My mom would be so proud of me. I’m not struggling, I’m not yelling, but I’m clearly expressing my anger.
“Because it’ll be less painful if you’re cooperative and honest,” Meghan replies as she pulls a laptop from the case and opens it.
“Painful? Why would you hurt me?” I’m back to being confused. Why would I need to be hurt for answering questions?
“What’s your full name?”
“Maya Evangeline Hauer. What’s yours?”
“Dr. Meghan Staples.”
“No middle name?”
“No middle name.”
“Why?”
“When is your birthdate, Ms. Hauer?
“February 14, 1990, Dr. Staples.”
“Oh nice! A Valentine’s baby.” Meghan smiles genuinely. “I bet your mom and dad were really happy about that.”
“I’ve heard stories,” I deadpan at her. “So, you poisoned me and tied me down just to ask me such inane questions?”
“Oh, no, these are to get a baseline reading on you. Remember we’re recording everything. This way we compare your answers with what we know about you. And if there is any discrepancy, then we investigate until we get the unvarnished truth.” Her nails clacking on the keyboard are distracting me.
“Can you quit that? If you’re going to ask me questions, can you at least have the decency to pay attention to me instead of your computer?” I snarl at her, annoyed. I’m annoyed with her, but mostly I’m annoyed with myself.
“I am just inputting the information that you give me directly into the system so there’s no delay. But I’ll stop if it’ll make you feel more comfortable.” Meghan looks up at me, closes her laptop, and folds her hands on top of it.
“It would, but what would make me most comfortable would be for you to remove these restraints and let me go home.” I take a deep breath because I’m starting to show my temper, and a lady never displays a temper. Never. My mama would never do such a thing and I won’t either.
“I’m sorry I can’t do that, Maya. It says in our files that you’ve got a bachelor’s degree in finance and economics, yet you’re not working any sort of job.”
“I work with my father, and since I don’t have any bills, I don’t really have an income. I just ask for money and get it if it’s over my weekly spending allowance.”
“Speaking of your father, his name is Timo Sebastian Hauer, correct? And your mother’s was Nicola Giulia Hauer, née Scarelli, right?”
“Yes, those’re my parents.”
“What does your father do for a living, Maya?”
“He makes his money through his investments, but he keeps busy by heading a few charities.”
“And you work for him how?”
“I’m kind of like a personal assistant. I remind him if he has functions and if he needs to schmooze people for which charity.”
“Your mother passed away; can you tell me when and how, and if she worked during her lifetime?”
“She died before I turned a year old. She fell into the lake late one night and she was pulled under by the weight of her clothes, and she drowned.” This is old news to me, but I hate talking about it. It makes me so angry sometimes because I was denied the right to love and be loved by my mama. I know that’s the story my father gives me, but Nonna talked – especially when she was deep in the wine.
She has always said that she believes my father had my mama killed. She was visiting that night and they were arguing and when she woke the next morning my mama was dead. But I’m not going to tell that woman anything other than the story that’s been told for years.
“Well, that’s interesting. According to the autopsy report we found regarding her, she couldn’t have drowned because there was no water in her lungs. Though it hasn’t been proven, the chief medical examiner believed that she was killed before being submerged into the lake.”
The look of horror and shock aren’t masks covering my face, but real expressions. I can’t help myself. I never saw the coroner’s report nor had anything confirmed. I just know what my nonna told me. Papa said to ignore her because she was grief-stricken because my nonno died the year before I was born and she was stuck living with Uncle Si, my nonno’s familgia.
“Why would anyone want to kill my mama? She was gentle and kind and never raised her voice…” Tears scald their way down my cheeks. I hate myself in that moment. My inability to school my emotions is going to be the death of me.
Meghan leans forward and pats my arm. “I have no idea. I’ve come to realize that many things in this world don’t make any sort of sense at all.”
She gives me a moment to compose myself before pulling away. “Did she have a job that you know of?”
“No, she was my father’s wife and my mother.”
“Okay. Let’s switch gears. Your boyfriend’s name is Edward Champlain?” At my nod, she continues, “When did you meet him?”
“I met him a little over three years ago, at a fundraiser my father was throwing for Senator Wright. He’d just started as an intern for the senator and it was his first major gala event.”
“And how long have you been dating him?”
“It was three years ago on September 21st.”
“How would you describe the relationship?”
“I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking, Dr. Staples.”
“Would you consider you both in love, or casually seeing each other? Problematic, or smooth sailing?”
“We’re in love with each other, of course. Eddie and I don’t fight, so it would be smooth sailing.”
“How long have you known Phillip Allen James?”
My eyes shoot straight to hers. Why is she bringing up P.A.? What could her angle be? “Honestly? I don’t know, he’s just always been there. I remember him being a messenger for my father. Then he started working security, and eventually he became a part of my personal guard. But according to our employee files, he’s been working for my family for almost fifteen years.”
“What do you know about his death?”
“Nothing. I was in New Leonsburg when I was called and told about it. I had heard that some random car thief killed him and stuffed him in Geoffrey Wright, Jr.’s car.”
“He was found in the car that Mr. Wright, Jr. generally drove. As for the actual murderer, it’s still under investigation, according to the reports.”
“Well, I hope they string whoever it is up and feed them to the Bee Keeper.” I couldn’t help the poison from being in my words. I return to staring at the ceiling.
“I can understand you’re upset, Maya. You’ve known him almost your whole life and he was in your personal guard, but if he was in your personal guard, why wasn’t he in New Leonsburg with you instead of wherever he was?”
“Wonderful question, Meghan. One I’ve asked myself every day since I found out.”
“To completely switch gears again, Maya, have you ever met or heard of either an Angela Fawkes or a Mary Elizabeth James, née Fawkes?”
“I haven’t heard of Angela, but I have heard of Liz James. She was married to Phillip for a little while then passed away a few years ago, I think he said. Why? Do they have something to do with Phillip’s death?”
“No, no. Mary was his wife and Angela was her daughter. I was just curious
if he brought them to family picnic days, or to functions. Angela is a little bit younger than you, so I wasn’t sure.”
“Sorry, it doesn’t sound familiar.”
“It’s okay. Well, it looks like I have all your base data ready. My associate, Dr. Miller, will be in shortly for more questions.” Maya stands and pushes her chair back from the bed.
“Why would I be questioned by Dr. Miller? I thought this was it? When can I go home?” I twist myself so I can see her.
“Oh, Maya, we haven’t even gotten started yet. The real questions are from Dr. Miller, I was only asking for baseline readings.” I hear her footsteps leading away from me and the door shut behind her.
What the hell is going on?
When I came in here before, I felt too bad to look around. Now that I’m alone, I take in the space around me. The room is tastefully, albeit generically, decorated. The only thing that stands out is the stainless countertop. But we are in a doctor’s office, so it makes sense.
Twisting around further, I notice a door beyond the head of the bed. That’s the one Meghan disappeared through. Thinking of her makes me angry all over again. Who does she think she is, drugging me and dragging me here? When I get out of here I’m going to personally oversee her dismemberment.
The door opens and a short man walks in. He has brown hair that’s in need of a haircut. The sides brush the tops of his ears, curling up slightly. He has a short beard. That, too, needs to be lined and trimmed. He has black wire frame glasses on. Though he’s in a lab coat, he’s very unprofessionally dressed. He’s wearing sneakers like the old basketball players wore, as well as jeans. He shuts the door behind him and I can tell he’s wearing a T-shirt under the lab coat by the missing tie. Ugh. How hard is it to look presentable?
Upon seeing me stare at him, he smiles warmly. It appears to be genuine because his whole face is involved.
“Oh hello, Miss Hauer! How are you? Are you thirsty? Dr. Staples said she forgot her manners and never offered to get you something,” he says as he approaches the bed.
The Bee Keeper Page 14
