The Honey Trap (A Honeybee Cozy Mystery Book 2) Read online

  “If you want to run a raffle, I don’t have any objections,” Alice whispered. The last thing she wanted was to contradict her friend, and she normally wouldn’t—but then again, Sally wouldn’t usually say something so rude. “It’s a gift, so you can use it how you see fit.”

  “That’s not the point,” Sally interjected, shaking her head, then wincing and putting a hand up to her brow. “The jars are a nice gesture for the children to enjoy. If we wanted to give money to the school, we wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble of bottling it up!”

  Alex Dunbar stepped back, edging behind the safety of his oak desk. “I’m sorry I brought it up. It was just a thought.”

  “It’s a great idea.” Alice moved a step toward him, still sending curious glances in Sally’s direction. Hopefully, whatever was troubling her could be dealt with later. The whole point of giving the honey to the school was to buy good favor to spend in case the talk tomorrow was a disaster. Giving it to them with a lecture on what they could and couldn’t do with it wouldn’t achieve that aim.

  “If you want to run a raffle, we’re more than happy to support that. In fact—” Alice pulled her phone out and shuffled through the photos in the gallery “—we have some stuffed honey bees from an old promotion we can donate to the cause too, if you don’t mind things being second hand.”

  She showed him the photos. The toy bees were in her back room at home, not much use for anything except the opening day promotion they’d been used for, but too cute to throw away. Alice had meant to take them along to the church donation box for ages but somehow it never made it to the top of her priority list. Now, she could kill two birds with one stone.

  “Oh, sure. He’s turning his nose up as our first act of altruism,” Sally grumbled, switching her arms up so they were folded across her chest. “By all means, give him more free stuff.”

  Alice shook her head and frowned. “It’s not altruism. The honey bees and the jars have our business logo splashed all over them. Everything has the name and address of our store on the little tags on the side. You’re the one who told me if we do that, it’s a promotional opportunity.”

  Sally glared at the principal, opened her mouth to say something, then closed it with a snap and turned on her heel to walk out the door. Alice stared after her, completely baffled.

  “I didn’t want to start a fight between you and your business partner,” the principal said. “Of course, the children will be happy with the gifts. The raffle will probably be more trouble than it’s worth.”

  His words left Alice in an even more confused state and she tapped the back of her hand, closing her eyes briefly when the room seemed to fill with glaring light. “If you want to run the raffle, it’s fine. The honey is a gift, not an obligation. I think it would be neat if you used it to raise money for the school as well.”

  She opened her eyes and saw Alex Dunbar was staring back at her with a smile. Good. Perhaps for once, she’d said the right thing.

  “Thank you. In that case, we’ll give it a try. Every bit helps.”

  “Especially out here,” Alice agreed. “Where the Ministry of Education doesn’t dare to tread.”

  The comment was a tag line she’d read on a forum about the fate of semi-rural schools in New Zealand, but Alex laughed uproariously at the sentiment. “I’ll have to remember that,” he said as he escorted her out of the office. “It’s a good one.”

  As Alice walked back to her car, she waved goodbye to Alex who stood in the doorway, watching after her. Sally’s car had already gone, taking its bad-tempered owner along with it.

  A woman pulled in front of Alice, not bothering to lock her vehicle as she got out and hurried toward the principal. When she reached him, the woman leaned up to kiss his cheek, but Alex pulled his head back to avoid the contact.

  His ex-wife? Alice shook her head and looked away. There were other things to worry about than whether the principal of a primary school was happily married. Something was wrong a lot closer to home.

  Considering she wanted to continue working alongside Sally for the next twenty or thirty years, Alice nosed her car out onto the road and headed for the cafe. No matter how irrational her friend’s reactions seemed at the moment, a good partner needed to stay loyal until they worked out any issues.

  Don’t go to bed angry might be a phrase applied to romantic couples, but Alice thought they applied just as well in a business relationship. A few minutes talking with Sally to work out what was happening, then she could go home and relax for the night.

  Or grow ever-tenser waiting for the ax to fall. One of those.

  Chapter Three

  The Bumbling Bumblebee Cafe was packed full of customers and Alice felt a niggle of unease. She walked through the door and immediately regretted her decision. Both the waitress and Sally were red-faced with effort, jostling amongst the customers to make sure every order was taken, and every treat delivered exactly how it should be.

  “I can’t talk,” Sally called out, and to Alice’s relief her voice sounded brighter than it had at the school just minutes before. “Come in tomorrow before your speech, if you want to. Or better yet, drop in afterward to tell me how great it all went.”

  “I will do,” Alice said, waving and moving back outside with a smile. Thank goodness. Whatever bad temper had overtaken Sally appeared to be a fleeting cloud. Not only that, their business was booming.

  Alice headed back home in a much-improved mood that didn’t flag, even when Chester showed no signs of interest in her return. She sat down beside him on the porch, and spent time stroking him, especially his silken ears—her favorite part. At one point, Alice leaned in close and inhaled his scent, breathing deeply and concentrating so she could remember it forever.

  “Well, that’s enough attention for you, old boy,” she said, standing. “If I don’t get a move on, I won’t have time for dinner and to stand in front of the mirror practicing my speech.”

  Alice already knew the words off by heart but wanted to spend some time molding the facial expressions that should go with it. She didn’t want to scare the children and sometimes, if she was concentrating on hard on other things, her face went so slack it looked half dead.

  At least, that’s what people, mostly gone from her life now, had told her.

  If other folks were aware of how much effort Alice spent every day, just trying to act like them because it didn’t come naturally, perhaps they’d cut her some slack. It would be nice, she sometimes thought, if the people who didn’t have social problems met those who did halfway. Maybe then, she’d have more brain power to spend on other things instead of walking around, half exhausted all day long.

  Then a motherly lecture sounded, “You’ll never get anywhere, Alice Townsend, expecting the world to change to fit you.”

  Oh, well. At least cooking up her dinner was a relaxing activity. If it all went horribly wrong, the only person to suffer was herself.

  Alice could have sworn the children kept multiplying every time she wasn’t staring directly at them. Each time she blinked, there’d be more of them. All with eyes hungry to devour every single motion of her body.

  “Hello,” she squeaked, her vocal cords apparently deciding now was the perfect time to play up. Alice tried clearing her throat but all that did was make her realize swallowing was a complex task designed to trip up unwary players.

  “Do you wear yellow every day?” a child called out from the second row back.

  Alice turned her head and forced a smile onto her face. “I do when I’m working at the cafe,” she said, pulling her T-shirt down so the children could read all the words. “The Bumbling Bumblebee is where all my honey products end up.”

  “Do the bees like yellow?”

  Even though Alice had designed her talk so question time came at the end, she tilted her head and decided she could flip the talk around. Usually, changing things at the last minute caused her acute anxiety, but since she was already in that state, it didn’t alter thin
gs one bit.

  “I don’t wear this top out when I’m handling the bees,” Alice explained. “Instead, I dress up in a white suit that covers me from head to toe, even my face, so I don’t accidentally get stung. I’ve seen no sign the bees prefer the color yellow, but sometimes I’ve seen them head straight for anything blue.”

  “Like what?”

  “Washing on the line,” Alice said, and a few children laughed. A pinprick stabbed at her chest, but she looked closely at the faces peering at her in rapt attention and decided it expressed pleasure, not mockery. “They love the small blue flowers on rosemary bushes and will dance around those for days.”

  A boy stuck his hand up in the air, wriggling on his seat and trying to stretch it higher. Alice nodded to him, “Yes?”

  “What happens if you go near the bees without wearing the suit? Will they sting you to death?”

  “Bees aren’t very aggressive naturally, but they are extremely protective. If I was standing nearby the hives, minding my own business, they probably wouldn’t bother me at all. If I made a move toward their queen, though—”

  Alice broke off and sucked air in over her teeth. The boy’s eyes widened with terror and delight. “What? What!?”

  “They’d sting me until I got the message and backed off.” Alice jumped back in her chair in demonstration, and the collective group of children gasped. Then she leaned forward. “Honeybees don’t like to sting you. If they do, they die, so it’s very much a last resort.”

  “I got stung,” a girl called out from the back of the room. She waved her hand in the air, too, but Alice worked out after a moment it was in demonstration of her injury, not to ask a follow up question. “I did a handstand out on the grass and there was a bee on the dandelion.”

  “Ooh. I bet that hurt!”

  “Still does.” The girl ducked her head down as the room turned, a sudden bout of shyness overcoming her. “My mom said I should think myself lucky it wasn’t a wasp.”

  “Oh, yes. Wasps are a different story altogether. If you see honey bees out in the field, they’re just working away, collecting honey and trying to feed the hive. If you see a wasp, walk the other way.” Alice frowned, making her face look as ferocious and grumpy as possible. “They’re in a permanently bad mood, and they’re quite willing to take it out on you.”

  Again, the children laughed, and Alice’s mind flicked back to the day before. Sally had been like the wasp, while she was like the honey bee, just trying to sort out her business.

  “Now, my talk today is all about bees, but feel free to ask me any questions if there’s something further you want to know.” Alice shifted on the chair, about to start the recitation from memory, when a hand shot straight up. Lucky she’d abandoned her plan, then. “Yes?”

  “You said honey bees are collecting stuff to feed their hive. Does that mean, when you collect honey from them, they all starve?”

  “That’s a good question.” Alice put her hands down on the chair and gripped it tightly, like she was in a boat upon the waves. “Bees work very hard to collect pollen and nectar to take back to the hive. Then, they turn it into honey and store it in wax so the colony has enough food to see it through the long winters. However, they’re very hard workers, so there’s always far more honey produced than they need. I only ever take the extra honey they make and leave enough for them to eat as much as they want.”

  “What if you take their honey and then they can’t make any more?”

  “I keep an eye on the hives and if production goes down, I top them up with some sugar syrup. That happens sometimes if it rains before they can collect pollen, or if we get strong winds that blow all the flowers away before they get ahold of enough nectar.”

  Another hand shot up, and Alice mentally waved bye-bye to her prepared speech. “Yes?”

  “My dad said bees are the only reason we have fruit. Is that true?”

  “It is, and it isn’t,” Alice said, rocking back and forth gently as she warmed to the subject. “Bees pollinate the flowers so they produce fruit because they carry the pollen in their leg sacks. When they travel from one tree or bush to another, some of that rubs off on the new plant, and that tells the flowers to produce fruit. But other trees don’t need that. They can produce fruit all on their own.”

  “How do the bees tell the difference?”

  “They don’t. The pollination happens as a by-product of them going about their usual business.” Alice sat back and tried to think of an equivalent in human terms, but couldn’t. People just weren’t as helpful to the environment as bees, but then again, nothing was.

  “The trees requiring pollination have adapted to grow flowers more rewarding to bees,” she explained. “So the bees flock to those plants more than the others.”

  Another hand. Another question. “What do you mean, ‘rewarding to bees?’”

  “The flowers are easier to get nectar and pollen from or have it in greater quantities. It’s like the difference between going to a fast-food restaurant instead of cooking up your own meal. They both feed you but one is quick and easy and perfect for a hard worker with a lot to fit in their day. Time is honey.”

  Alice’s nerves had dissipated and she settled into the routine of answering questions until she lost track of the time. When the principal tapped his watch, she gave a start. “Goodness. It seems my time is up, but thank you all for your questions. It’s been wonderful.”

  The children thanked Alice in return, then filed out of the assembly. As they passed by the door, a teacher handed each child a small collection of raffle tickets. While Alex Dunbar was in quiet discussions by the door, Alice overheard a teacher complaining behind her. “Another raffle, for goodness’ sake, and this on top of the auditors combing through the books. Why doesn’t he just beg the ministry for more money?”

  “An auditor?” Alice turned at the shock in the woman’s voice, seeing a redhead with tight ginger curls chewing at her lip.

  The man next to her seemed unperturbed, continuing on his tirade without seeming to realize the woman beside him was upset. “It’s ridiculous. We’ve got enough to do, teaching the children and making up the lessons without checking in every day to make sure they’re selling tickets.”

  “Why on earth does he feel the need to get in an auditor?” the woman asked, tugging on the man’s sleeve.

  He shook her off with a frown of annoyance. “How would I know? Because the books don’t balance? Why else would he do it? He’s only been here a year, and already the school has gone to pot.”

  Then a child near the door fell over, and the man sprang into action, running to the girl’s side and commiserating with her over what might turn into a spectacular bruise.

  Alice filed out behind the children, wondering if raffles were just annoying ventures in and of themselves, and that was why Sally had been so disagreeable the day before. She should check with Doug when she got home. He’d know and, best of all, he wouldn’t make her feel silly for asking.

  Chapter Four

  Alice helped Sally pull a fresh tray of biscuits out of the oven. The scent of baking honey and spice filled the small kitchen of the cafe, overwhelming all the other delicious smells already crammed into the space.

  “I think it went really well,” she repeated, her first comment having been lost in the ding of the oven timer. “The children seemed really interested and Alex asked if he could call me later to arrange another session.” She smiled at the memory. “He said since I’d survived the first unscathed, everyone would be happy to see me back again.”

  “That’s great,” Sally said curtly, pushing some strands of hair out of her eyes with the back of her hand.

  Alice frowned, then looked down at her fingers, tapping wildly in a gesture of self-comfort. Something was still very wrong with her friend. Instead of a smile, she currently wore a harried expression and everything Alice said seemed to strike the wrong chord.

  “Do you want me to clear some tables?” she asked, peerin
g through into the main room of the cafe. Only three of them were occupied, but the regular waitress was nowhere to be seen and the other tables needed to be bussed.

  “I’ll get to them. Harriet’s just gone down the road to fetch some milk, we’ve run low. The delivery this morning didn’t come in.”

  “What?” Alice’s general sense of unease spiked into panic. “Why wouldn’t they deliver? There isn’t a strike, is there?”

  Many years before, there’d been a strike on deliveries from their wholesale grocery supplier while a company battled out a staffing dispute. It had been sorted in a day, but the fallout from the industrial action left a large stain on Alice’s memory. Back then, her mind had been far more rigid, and the obliteration of her plans drove her close to a meltdown.

  “I didn’t get the order in on time,” Sally grumbled. “It happens. I’m sorting it.”

  To Alice, the unkempt tables didn’t look like Sally was sorting it out, but she kept her mouth shut. If good news was greeted with curtness, a criticism might invite open hostility.

  Once again, her friend’s appearance was unkempt, and her breath smelled funny. Sharp with a sour tang. It reminded Alice of wine, but she knew Sally didn’t touch alcohol so that must be wrong.

  “If I can’t help out here, I might head on home, then,” Alice suggested, and for the first time, Sally seemed happy.

  “See you tomorrow,” Sally said with a wave, picking up a bag stuffed full of royal icing. Then, just as Alice reached the door, her friend popped into the cafe to call out, “Where’s the tray from the honey?”

  Alice looked back, puzzled for a moment before the penny dropped. “It’s still at the school. I’ll drop by tomorrow and pick it up.”

  “No, don’t worry.” Sally’s face clouded over and she shook her head. “I’ll go out there again on my afternoon break and get it. Don’t you lift a finger.”