Read Malevolent (The Puzzle Box Series Book 1) for Free Online

you, and a border collie was a decent size.
    I braided my hair, put on my coat and boots, claimed the golf cart, and drove into the orchards with Suki riding shotgun. Today, the lockblade in my pocket was a reassuring weight.
    The fog had turned bright and hazy as the sun burned it off. The almond trees showed buds like red spikes, and here and there a few white petals showed, harbingers of the clouds of flowers to come.
    The beekeepers worked among the hives, sliding frames around, and blasting gouts of white from their smokers. They were probably getting ready to move them around the orchard.
    Mal's hives were a little distance away from the rest. The bright colors of the paint made them stand out, and he only had fifteen hives. He was sliding frames around, too, and glanced at me as I drove up.
    I kept my distance. Last year I'd learned the hard way that beekeepers were importing Africanized honeybees to replace the dying European breeds. They were what the media called killer bees. They'd chased me all the way to the house, and I'd been stung thirty-six times. It made me respect the bees, all right.
    Mal walked toward me in his white beekeeping suit, and pulled off his hat with its protective screen. "Hello, Elizabeth."
    "Libby." I didn't move from the golf cart. Suki picked up my nervousness, and made a sound that was half-growl, half-whine.
    He waved an arm toward the hives. "Allow me to introduce you."
    "To the bees?"
    "To the bees."
    I slowly disembarked, and Suki followed, staying close beside me. Dogs hate bee stings, too.
    Mal's eyes crinkled in an almost-smile. Today they were a golden topaz color. "I apologize for last night. I was simply trying to locate my box."
    "What's in it? Your life savings?"
    "In a manner of speaking." He turned away to dismiss the subject, and gestured to the nearest hive, marked with a 23. "This is Queen Victoria. Victoria and subjects, this is Libby. Libby, say hello."
    Feeling silly, I said, "Hello, bees."
    Each hive was named after a British queen. Mal introduced me to all of them. The bees whirred around us, but nothing stung me.
    "Your bees are really tame."
    "I'm not a commercial beekeeper."
    "What are you doing here, then?"
    "We needed the money." He said we as if the bees were his family. "And your father's farm is a sustainable farm, not a monoculture."
    He pointed to a strip of overgrown brush in the center of the orchard. It was planted with every color of lantana, and weird coastal flowers like statice that bloomed in the winter. Chattering sparrows flew in and out.
    "My bees need forage while the orchard awakens. In the meantime, I feed them good honey, not corn syrup." He lifted the lid off a hive, and slid out a frame a few inches. It swarmed with a brown mass of bees, all crawling and buzzing the way bees do. The frame had the beginnings of wax honeycomb in the premade holes.
    This guy was crazy about his bugs. I tried to mesh beekeeper Mal with claw-glove Mal, and creeper on the roof Mal. "Um, so, about last night..."
    "Yes." He slid the frame back into the hive and replaced the lid, then straightened and gazed at me. "You said Robert gave you the box?"
    Of course, he wasn't going to explain tracking the box to my room.
    I shifted my weight from foot to foot. "Yeah, and he sent a note that said I should try to open it."
    Mal stood dead still, and his face blanked. For a moment I thought he was going to punch me. Then his eyebrows scrunched in an expression of pain. The skin around his mouth shaded toward green. "I see you tried."
    "I didn't get very far," I said in my defense. "Only until I found the paper with your name and address."
    For a moment I forgot my vampire theory. The guy looked like he was about to puke. I stepped back a prudent distance. Worse than that, though, was the knowledge that I should have given it back to him immediately. It was inlaid with silver, after all--clue number one that it was valuable.
    He laid a hand on Queen Elizabeth's hive, as if