Stories By Bee

*a few swear words-sorry it really was necessary.  This is a LONG chapter, so make a cup of tea or coffee, settle in and let’s get started!

Dear Witness,

I’m running out of time, so this last report will be quick and straight to the point.  I have so many details to get in ranging in relevance from personal to incredibly important specifics of this scheme.

I thought I had made a big break when this happened at work:  I was walking the halls on patrol at the medical centre, when I passed a storage closet door and heard:

“Pssst, Jin.  Don’t look, just listen.”  So I pulled out my phone to make it look like I was checking messages.

“We need to talk.  Meet me out at the ruins at ten tonight.  There are things you should know.”   I nodded my head once, put away my phone and kept walking.

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Fall carried on as it had been and after a suitable amount of time Lily finally accepted a date invitation from a man who had asked her a few times before.  I can’t say it didn’t affect me, but I was also happy to see her getting on with her life.  He was quite well educated and extremely rich, so I knew they would get along well together and he would always be able to take care of her, if they did indeed “get together”.  One night in the kitchen I heard Lily telling her mom that Orlando had finally kissed her and it was unlike anything she had ever experienced.

“I felt like I was floating mom and the whole world just disappeared.  It was as if I melted into him.  Does that make sense?”

“Oh yes, my darling.  It certainly does.  You are a very lucky girl to have found that.”

“Is that how it is with you and dad?” Lily asked.

Charlotte paused, then smiled and said “I too have been lucky to have found it.  It’s an amazing thing and not something you ever want to let go.”

Not long after, I popped into the Cocoa Lush bakery to grab something for lunch when I walked in on Lily’s acceptance of Orlando’s proposal to go steady.Then I knew, and felt secure she would be well taken care of by Orlando.  He was a great guy, and I truly liked him a lot. I had gotten to know him quite well as he was always around the house with the family.   I couldn’t have picked better myself.

Fall turned into Winter and I must say it was strange with how warm the temperatures were.  But it was the lack of snow that really bothered me.In the mornings, you could see a light dusting of white snow that would disappear by mid day.  It really didn’t feel like the normal Christmas season at all.

Every year, the medical/science centre would hold a large Christmas party for the employees and their families and as Steve had stepped in as interim CEO of the board, it was his job to put it all together.  Charlotte took the task away from him and organized a very festive party at the Lucky Simoleon Casino across from the centre which involved plenty of food, music, karaoke and of course gambling.  As an employee of the centre I was of course a guest, but I was also there as Steve’s body guard.  Even though things had settled down and his paranoia has subsided, he still felt he needed someone watching his back.  So the idea was to attend the function as an employee without a date, but considering my break up with Lily, I really had no one to ask.  But then Steve came up with the idea for me to escort Cherry to the function.

“She isn’t an employee and I really want her there.  How else will I justify her presence there?”

I agreed, but I was not happy about it at all. Orlando and Lily entertained us on the karaoke machine, but between their terrible voices and the super sweet looks, I really wished they hadn’t. A little while later, I was headed to the bar when I walked in on this:

Kissing under the Mistletoe.  But it didn’t really matter anyway because, they were disturbed by one of the many paparazzi who were in attendance for the evening, who managed then to snap this picture:

I’m sure they were disappointed in not catching the kissing pic and I was even more

 

 

 

 

sure the pic he did manage to catch, would make the front page of many magazines the following edition.  I really hoped that Lily understood the life that she was getting herself into by becoming involved with such a high-profile sim.

So the evening was going well and Cherry was keeping herself quite busy chatting up all the guests. About half way through the evening, Steve received a call from the hospital.

“Oh……when?………….boy or girl? ……….healthy?………………mom doing okay too?…………name? ………….Okay good, thank you for calling.”  Then he hung up the phone.  See, what we didn’t know was that at the first pangs of pain, Bianca drove herself to the drive in theatre, and in the room they had so often shared, gave birth to a healthy baby boy.  She named him Ellis-Steven Monty.  Apparently Steven had put some sort of alert out to the delivery staff to call him when and if Bianca came in to give birth or have the baby checked after birth.  I was surprised she did, to be honest.  I mean she had to have known he would be checking.  Or maybe she didn’t think he cared, after their fight.

Just have to share a few more pics of the night:

Not long after the phone call I was cornered by Charlotte, Steve’s wife, and she was not at all happy.

“Where is my husband?  A bunch of people have been asking for him and we need to pose for pics.”

“He’s in the washroom, Mrs. Monty.”

“Jin, I like you, so please do me the favour of not lying to me. Now, when my husband emerges from whatever closet he has found to take his latest floozy into, tell him he had better be picture worthy and not stinking to high heaven of tacky perfume.”

“But Mrs. Barton, he really is in the washroom, just right there,” and I turned to point at the washroom behind me.

“Pffft, please Jin.  If you are going to work for my husband, you are going to have to do better than that!”

She “politely” stormed away, which is the only way to describe it, and I was completely stunned.  Either I just saw the real Mrs. Monty, or she became a completely different person once she started into the juice!  What happened to the loving wife she always portrayed herself to be and whom so adamantly denied there being any possibility of her husband cheating on her?

I didn’t tell Steven what his wife said but I wondered if he heard it from the washroom anyway, because after he emerged, he found his wife, dragged her back to the Mistletoe and dipped her into a kiss.  No paparazzi this time and I believe it’s important to point out, that he never went near Cherry once during the evening.  Nor any other female for that matter.

However, a few days later I drove him to the Monty house where he watched Mr. Monty leave for the evening, then got out but hesitated at the porch stairs.  To be honest I was surprised he was there at all.  Bianca’s little brother Devin opened the door and showed where us to Bianca. Needless to say Bianca was not happy when she saw him.  

“What are you doing here?” I heard her say from my position in the hallway.

“I came to see my son,” Steven replied.

“Your son?  He’s my son, and you made that perfectly clear when you suggested I take care of it.  You can leave now.”

Steve then lowered his voice and the conversation become muffled until I heard Bianca say “What I needed was for you to keep those promises you made while you were making love to me!  The promise you made to leave your wife?  So your word doesn’t hold a lot of weight with me Steven.”

More muffled conversation followed and then Steven walked to the crib, picked up his son and carried him to the window.  Bianca stood back by the crib until Steven held out his hand to her and said “Come”.  It must have been the look on his face or in his eyes that finally drew her to him.

“This little person, this little man in my arms makes us a family Bianca. Maybe not the family you were hoping to have, but we will be bound together forever because of this beautiful boy of ours.  I will take care of you Bianca. Of that I promise and it’s a promise, I will keep.”

As we drove away that night, I was so conflicted and didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing at all.  I had never seen that side of Steven before and it completely threw me for a loop.  However, I wasn’t the only one in that car feeling out of sorts, for all of a sudden Steven ordered me to pull over.  He got out of the car and began pacing on the side of the road.

“You must think I am a real cad right!  Man I know I would if our roles were reversed.  I really fucked up.  I’ve been fucking up for a very long time.”  More pacing following and then, “I want you to know, I love my wife and I always have.  This has never happened before.  I mean I have had one night stands over the years.” Then he turned to point at me, “I have never had an affair, not until Bianca.  The moment I met her…” Steven placed his hand over his heart.  “There was just something about her and I was instantly attracted to her!  Not the same kind of attraction I felt when I had those one night stands, but more you know. She is just amazing in so many ways and I had to explore it.”    He paused.

“Okay I know what you are going to say, I’m MARRIED, right? And I love my wife and yes that should have been enough to stop me from giving in, but have you ever felt that kind of attraction I am talking about?”  He turned to me with such an open look on his face, eyes wide in almost a youthful excitement.  My mind immediately went to Sun and I remembered, but just as quickly shook it off.

“I got to thinking that maybe I was missing something with Charlotte and didn’t know. I mean don’t get me wrong, the sex is amazing with her, but Bianca just opens herself up to me in everything she does.  I just had to know, you know?  I had to see if there was something I was missing.”  He rubbed his face with his hands and took a deep breath.  “I don’t want to do this anymore.  I need to fix this.”

Then he got back in the car, turned to me and said “There is something I need to do.” He asked me to drive him over to Cherry’s house.  “I’m going to tell her I can’t see her anymore.  Not like we were seeing each other.  I only slept with her the one time.  But I need to make a clean break. After this, I am going to work hard at being a better man.”

He left me in the car and I sat there wondering, if I knew this man at all.

Later that evening, I called my boss to give him an update and urged him to move forward with our plan.

“He’s losing it boss.  I mean he is seriously losing it!  I don’t know what he is going to do next.  I think we should move forward and finally bring  in the feds.   Get a search warrant, search his office and personal files.  Otherwise, I don’t know how much more I can do for this investigation.  But my gut is telling me, if things go bad, which I think they will, they are going to bad really fast.”

Calling in the feds meant putting the paperwork thru proper channels in the department but there was nothing else he could do. Perhaps he would find his proof once and for all who the mole in the department was.

Meanwhile, the next day and across town, Travis and Honor received a visit from Travis’s long time best friend.

“Remember what we talked about a few months back.? It’s time.” said Darius.

“Are you sure? I need to know you are sure,” Travis replied “You have no idea how devastating this will be to my family.”

“I have real proof now, solid proof.  I’ve done all I can do but you need to take care of what we talked about.  It’s all going to fall apart and fall apart hard.  Make sure you get out of the way before it does.  If I am lucky, I won’t be far behind you with my family.”

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Ten o’clock and I stood at the ruins waiting for my caller to arrive and hoping I wasn’t being set up somehow.  I was on my guard and my senses fully aware of everything around me.  Finally a car drove up and out stepped Darius Deluca.

“Jin, thank you for meeting me.  I’ve been trying to talk to you for a while.  I was brought in on this case before you as the inside man at the centre.  But when I realized this was more than I could handle, they brought you in. However I could never find a way to tell you without someone around to hear.”

I nodded.

“I don’t have a lot of time, so I will just get straight to the point. I’ve been working on a special project being headed up at the science centre. Some scientist started this on the other side of the world and it was brought to us, as the leading facility for genetics.  I want you to know I didn’t know exactly what we were working on.  None of us did, but by doing some secret testing of my own I finally figured out that we were working on a cure for the zombie curse, but it was like no other genetic virus I had ever seen.  Each week we were presented with new samples and I began to wonder where they were getting the samples from.  We were all working diligently on a cure and we are close but not quite there yet. But Jin, this zombie virus doesn’t follow the typical laws of the disease.  Its advancing, getting stronger.  Each set of samples was like the disease was becoming like the super germs we have that can no longer be cured so easily by antibiotics.  From what I can tell from the genetic code, anyone infected by this disease, would age quickly and die a most horrible death.  And Jin, you should know too, that this strain of zombie curse…..fairies can now be turned.

Alarm bells went off in my head and I felt immediate panic. Caerul and the kids!

“Jin.  Jin!”  Darius pulled me from panic by snapping his fingers in front of my face.  “I know what you are thinking but I need you to focus.  There is talk about a whole new batch of samples to be expected as soon as they can get them.  Do you know what that means? That means more people Jin!  They need to be stopped NOW!   I’m leaving town tomorrow after work, but before I go, I have the names of the files on the system you will need to find as proof of what is going on.”

I pulled out my phone, dialed my boss then filled him in about the things Darius had just told me.

“The project files will be called Project LEX, tell them to look for these files listed here,” Darius said as he pointed to them in the file.

I rhymed off the list to my boss over the phone. After that he wished me the best of luck and left.

I knew it was the wrong thing to do and I was risking blowing my cover, but I wasn’t going to stand by and do nothing.  I had to protect my family.  I rushed over to the Alula household and found Honor there.

“You need to leave town!” I blurted out.  “I can’t tell you why but you just have to go.”

“Jin, it’s okay.  I’ve already explained everything to them,” said Honor.

“Mom said,” Cameron’s breath caught in her throat. “She said, Caerul’s father is involved in this whole ugly mess.  That can’t be true.  Please tell me that isn’t true.”

I didn’t know what to say.  Dallas?  The mole in the department?  Could it be?

“He’s being paid to provide information to someone.  All this,” Honor said pointing around, “has all been paid for with dirty money.”  She turned to Caerul and placed her hand on his arm.  “I’m sorry Caerul to have to tell you this.  I hate being the one to tell you your father isn’t who he seems.  Didn’t you wonder?  Wonder how he somehow came up with enough money to first buy the fairy ranch and then this very expensive home with all the furniture included?  Your parents have never been rich people in this town.”

“He told me he had done well in the market.   I had no reason not to believe him”

“I know, but now you have to go.  Don’t pack just take the kids and go.”  She turned to Cameron, “Your father and I will meet you there.”

“But what about the horses?  You can’t just pick up and leave!”

“Travis is taking care of all the arrangements, you don’t need to worry.  We can be horse farmers anywhere.  Now time to go.”

I picked up Brenna, while Cam picked up Blossom and Caerul grabbed Brokk.  Together I walked my family out to the two cabs waiting and helped to get them all into the cars. Cameron turned to me, hugged me and with tears in her eyes she said “I fear we will never see each other again.”

“I’m only a phone call away” I said to her.  She nodded, then got into the cab.  Sadness caught in my throat as I watched my family drive further and further away from me, for I knew, Cameron was right.  Honor placed her hand on my shoulder and whispered “Stay safe,” before turning and heading home.

I spent the night in my safe house, not wanting to be anywhere near Dr. Steve Barton, for fear I would beat the living crap out of him.  I needed a break to recoup and rethink things. I had been content to sit back and wait for the Feds to show up, but with this new information I had to do something.  I just didn’t know what.

The next morning I received a panicked phone call from Steve asking me to come to his office.  When I got there, he was frantically going thru drawers and pulling out files, shredding some and tossing others to the floor.

“Dr. Barton?  What are you doing?” I asked him.

“I’ve got to get rid of the evidence.  Help me!  Take those files to the incinerator downstairs.”

“Slow down.  Help you with what?  What evidence?”

“I don’t have time to explain!” he nearly screamed at me.  “They are going to find out and then I will be finished. I’m going to lose everything!  Help me!”

My heart began to beat wildly in my chest and I saw an opening to finally find out answers.  “Who is they and find out what?”

“The FEDS!  The feds are coming and once they look through the files they will figure it out.”  His chest was heaving and his eyes were wide like a wild animal trapped in a corner. He groaned, “They will find out anyway.  What have I done?  I’m ruined!”

Steve sat down and laid his head down on his arms.  I wasn’t sure but I thought he may have been crying as well.  “Find out WHAT?” I practically yelled at him.  C’mon, just say it you bastard, I thought in my head.

Steve rose his head and looked at me with red rimmed eyes.  “I fucked up.  I told you I fucked up.  They are going to find out I’ve been using company funds to pay my gambling debts.  What am I going to do?  I’m going to jail…”

I felt like I had been slapped.  “Gambling?  You’re worried about gambling?  What about all those people you killed you bastard!”  I snarled at him.  “The zombies you have been working on?”

“What are you talking about?”  he screamed back.  “What zombies?”

Just then the Feds burst in and took command of the situation ushering me from the room.  I walked out of the medical centre completely in a daze.  After a meeting with my boss, we decided to wait and see what the Feds came up with.  I had to admit the town felt different to me.  With the Alula family gone and Mrs Monty’s death, it didn’t feel like home anymore.  I was going to have to make some tough choices for my life once this was over and done with.  I didn’t think I could stay here anymore and to honest, I could be a police officer anywhere.  Perhaps I should think about placing a transfer request now so it would have time to go through.

Cameron and her family had moved to Isla Paradiso, perhaps I should go there?  Or did I want to be brave and start fresh somewhere else?  Or,…… I could try to go home, but as I wasn’t welcome there, it would only cause more heartache.

Spring had arrived and the air was fresh and crisp with a bright sun.I spent the day pondering the case and thinking about my life as it had been.  As the day passed into early evening I was just thinking about getting something to eat when my phone rang.

“Hello.”

“Jin, it’s Darius.  They figured it out.  They’re coming for Katie!  You need to get her out of town. NOW.”

“Wait, figured what out?” I asked but all I got was a dial tone as he hung up.

I don’t think I have ever run so fast in my life, and when I arrived at the house, all Lily had to do was look at my face and my out stretched hand to know something was wrong.  She took it with no questions and we left, making our way to the safe house through dark fields.  We went in, keeping the lights off while I made a few phone calls to arrange for us to get out of town.

 

But just as we were just leaving the house, they were already there.  A man was just walking around the car to the side door.

“YOU! Stop, you’re under arrest!” I yelled. He turned to smirk at me before reaching down to open the door.  I expected to see Steve Barton or one of his employees, but the person who emerged was:

Charlotte Barton.  Lily’s own mother.

“Surprised?” she said to me mockingly.  “I’m sure you are.  You were expecting Steven weren’t you? Wrong, just  clever little me.”

“I must thank you Jin.  You have done such a good job keeping the focus of your investigation on my husband.  Well,” she chuckled.  “With a little help from me of course. You and Steven were so easy to manipulate, it was like playing with puppets. A little whisper in my husband’s ear here, a little forgery there, placing a few viles in Steven’s office for you to find……  Oh so easy.   Right about now, the police should be marching into his office to arrest him for fraud, murder and a whole slew of medical violations.  But now it’s over.  You lost.  I WIN.  Come Katie,” holding out her hand she continued.  “We’re leaving.”

“She isn’t going anywhere with you,” I snarled back.

“Oh Jin,” she chuckled. “We can do this the easy way, or these gentlemen will simply take her.  Your choice.”  When Lily didn’t move towards her mother, Charlotte nodded at the men and they started to advance on us.

“Wait!” I yelled.  I needed to stall for time, to figure out what to do so I decided to appeal to her vanity by saying,”Oh c’mon Charlotte.  You’ve been such a clever adversary in this.  Don’t you think I at least deserve an explanation before you take her? Like for example, who’s that,” I asked pointing at the man from the picture.

“This is John.  He’s my butler.” When John cleared his throat, Charlotte continued “and my secretary, and long time friend.  The men in John’s family have been our butlers for many generations and we grew up together, didn’t we John.”

“How did you know?  That I was working under cover?”

“Oh, well simple really.  I didn’t believe you had taken those bribes, and since you were dating my daughter, I started having you followed.  By Mike over there actually.”  Mike waved at me with a smirk.  “Then, when you moved in, I had cameras installed in the house.  Caught all your lovely conversations you had between each other about the case when no one was home.  A few of my husbands phone calls too.  They were ever so helpful.”

“So I know about the zombie curse and the people you have been working on.  What I don’t know is why.  Care to share?  What is this really all about?” I asked.

“I suppose it doesn’t really matter if I tell you.  These men are just going to kill you anyway.  Well, seven years ago on vacation I met the most amazing man, we had an erotic affair and fell in love.  I went to visit him as often as I could get away without making Steven suspicious.  I became pregnant and gave birth to a beautiful little baby boy.  He has been living with his father ever since.  Last year the three of us, took him on a trip to the desert where we explored some tombs that hadn’t been widely used.  While in one of those tombs, my son fell on a bottle, cutting his arm.  He seemed fine at first but a few days later he got very sick and then turned into the most awful zombie, unlike anything anyone had ever seen.  They tried all the regular cures on him, but since the zombie curse in that bottle he fell on was thousands of years old, we no longer have any cures for it.  I’ve had scholars all over the world looking for cures, but I didn’t want them to be experimenting on my son until they had the right one.  And I was right because all they have done is create an even worse form of zombie than my son is.”

“What’s his name?” Lily yelled out.

Charlotte seemed surprised at first, but answered “Joshua.  Joshua Lexington.”

“I don’t understand!  I thought you loved father.  The kind of special something you hold on to-you told me that just the other day.”

“I wasn’t talking about your father!  I was talking about Joshua’s father!  You see my dear Katie, I come from a very, very rich family but when I met your father and insisted I must marry him, my father disinherited me!  Marrying below my station he said to a man that wasn’t worth the dirt under his shoe.  I thought it was love, but I was young and what did I know.  That’s what comes from making decisions at such a young age.  No experience to go with it.  After a year of marriage I knew I had made a mistake simple because you father didn’t seem to understand that even though we were married, he was expected to stop “dating” other women.  That was why I was happy you found Orlando.” Then she shook her head at me.  “No offence Jin.  Anyway my father died and I found a loop hole to gain all the family money and since I am the only child; well I am quite rich myself now.”

“I don’t understand,” Jin continued hoping Lily would be quiet.  “Why do you need Lily?”

“I need Katie,” she yelled “because they have finally figured it out.  All this wasted time, all those dead people and the solution was so simple!”  Charlotte had become quite angry at this point. “All I need to do to save my precious boy is sacrifice my darling daughter!  He can only be cured by a blood sibling!!”  Charlotte seemed to take deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself, and the poised women returned.  “So you see Jin, now I need Katie.

“You won’t be laying a hand on her!”  I threatened.  Charlotte turned, knocked on the window and a man stepped out.  None other than Mr. Patrizio Monty.

I actually laughed. I couldn’t help myself.  “I should have known,” I said shaking my head. “I should have known you would be involved in this.  You sacrificed your own wife!  You’re more evil than I knew.”

“Wasn’t hard for me to join in the scheme when Charlotte came to me.  Steven has been stealing from my medical centre and then, well what he did to my daughter! I had my wife infected, cried the grieving widow and stepped down, allowing Steven to jump into my place.  It was all so easy really.   Just reporting him the Feds wasn’t good enough.  I wanted to DESTROY him and I think we did a pretty good job.  Don’t you Charlotte?”  She smiled in return.

“Enough stalling Jin.  Katie, it’s time to go.”  When she didn’t move, Charlotte’s glared at me.  “Are you sure you really want to be doing this Jin.  I mean shouldn’t you be thinking about your own family?  Way out there all alone on that Midnight Sun island with no protection.  Oh and that precious little baby, already without a mother.  You don’t really want me to kill a little baby?  Do you? All I have to do is open my phone, start dialing and your family will all be dead by morning.  So I will make you a deal Jin.  I won’t kill you but you have to choose, Katie or them.”

“Even if you kill me, there is too much evidence now and too many people know.  You will never get away with this.”

“People?” she said.  “Oh you mean Dr. Darius Deluca.  I’m sorry to tell you Jin, he’s dead.  I had him killed shortly after he called you.  So now what’s it going to be?”

When I didn’t move she  nodded at the men again.

“Katie run!” I yelled as I began to advance on the first man.  But she was easily caught.

Mr Monty walked over and gave Katie a needle.  She immediately went limp.

“Wait, I want to get a picture as proof! Bloody face and all.  Oh that’s a good one!  He looks quite dead.”

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To cut a long story short, after I came to and got back to the house, I found Orlando and we rescued Katie.  I’ve sent them to you in Plum grove along with a copy of my report of everything I discovered during the investigation. I don’t know if there will ever be enough proof to put Charlotte behind bars where she belongs.  So please, keep it somewhere safe. You are the only one I can truly trust with this.  The only one who could see her brought to justice.

I’m heading to see my family, enjoy the bright sunshine and relax from all the stress I have been under.  I will never return to Monte Vista again.  Of that you can be sure.  I will keep in touch as much as I can.  Best of luck to you all.

                                Callie Cobbs.  Daughter of Jason and Lady Maria Cobbs

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CC & Mods – Poses            

 

 

 

 

Next Chapter- The Alula Family in Isla Paradiso