Mai Pierce
Charmaine Champagne
Chapter three is now playing on a computer screen near you! Woo-hoo! Now, a warning…this chapter is longer than the rest, and has what I would define as three sections or scenes. So I'm dividing it differently, and you should probably buckle up for a long chapter.
Now, I'm sure you readers (I know for a fact I have at least three!) must be wondering what Mai's gotten poor Valon into, so, without further delay…
CHAPTER TWO
A CLASS REUNION
Last time: Valon finishes his drink and tilts his head at the door, confused. "Mai?" He reaches for the doorknob and turns it. Locked.
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His confusion grows. He tries the door again, more insistently. "Mai?" He pauses, frowning. "Now, come on, Mai, don't play any games. I'm a nice bloke up to a certain point, but don't get me sore." He grabs the doorknob and rattles it. "Mai?" He bangs against the door with the flat of his hand. "Mai?"
Panic creeps up on Valon. He puts down his glass. After a moment's search, he finds another door, and tries to open it. Locked again. "Hey," he calls out nervously. "Hey, wotsa matta?" His shadow is long and dark on the wall.
"What kinda business is this anyways," he mutters as he stumbles around the house, searching desperately for an open door. But he can't find a single one on the bottom floor.
"Mai!" he yells as he nervously walks to the spiral staircase. Upon after a few steps he breaks into a panicked run. "Mai!" He races around the top floor, banging on doors, his shadow's spiked hairstyle throwing menacing light onto the walls. He hears a car's horn and sees headlights through the blinds as he rattles another useless door. As his mad search continues, he runs through the sitting room and accidentally knocks a lamp to the ground.
It falls next to Kaiba's lifeless body.
Valon's eyes widen in shock. Speechless, he kneels over Kaiba to confirm what his sinking stomach tells him. The shock overtakes him. He gets up, slowly, eyes racing. his breathing quickens.
The phone rings.
One, two, three, four times, more than that. Valon's hand waves over it, as he frantically tries to make a decision. Suddenly his hand lunges and yanks the phone cord from the wall. He runs from the room with a last shocked look at Kaiba.
A headlight passes through a window, and then it occurs to Valon how to escape. He picks up a nearby chair and throws it through the window, smashing it. Kicking the rest of it out, he stumbles through the window. Broken glass slices the flesh of his hand as he runs across the balcony frantically down the backstairs.
On the overlooking cliff, a police car slows. One of the officers waves for his driving partner to stop. He notices a disturbance at the house. "Shine a light on that house," he says, leaning back to allow his partner room to work.
The light shines down on Valon's frantic escape. The cop, a tall, muscular man, curses. "I knew it," he says, getting out of the car and rushing to the cliff's edge. "Hey, stop, you!" he cries to Valon, shooting the sand around him three times.
Valon, caught, looks up helplessly through the blowing sand, clutching his useless hand. "All right, all right," he chokes out in his thick Australian accent.
The cops race down the cliff to apprehend him. As the cop's partner searches Valon, patting him down, the officer who spotted him glares. "What's the hurry, bud?" he asks.
The other officer, a slighter man with piercing green eyes and a die hanging from one ear, turns up to his partner. "No gun, Tristan."
Tristan sighs. "Better take a look in that house and see what's going on. That guy came through that window like he was shot out of a cannon." His partner nods and rushes up the stairs. Valon begins to examine his hand. The officer notices. "Get that coming out of the window?"
Valon looks up and glares. "No, mate, I cut myself shaving," he says sarcastically.
"Alright, smart guy, get going. You need some fixing." Tristan apprehends Valon and escorts him back.
Valon rolls his eyes. "Oh, brotha," he says. "I'm so smart it's a disease." He casts one look back at the house before Tristan rushes him up.
At the police car, Tristan bandages up Valon's hand. "What were you doing in there, pal? Picking up a few souvieniers maybe?" he says icily.
"No, pal," Valon mocks. "Nothing petty." He pauses. "Y'know, this is a pretty big night for you." Tristan doesn't look up from the gauze.
"Yeah," Valon continues. "Lot's o' excitement. There's a stiff in there." He glances back at the house.
Tristan stops what he's doing and looks up. "Is that so?" he asks, following Valon's gaze to the house. He turns back to glare at Valon. "And I suppose you were running right down to the station to report it."
Valon nods, and smirks. "Actually, yeah."
Tristan shakes his head in disbelief and turns to the window. His partner runs up to the door. "Duke," he calls. "He says there's a dead guy in the house!"
"You never saw deader," Duke agrees.
"Better call headquarters," Tristan tells him, finishing with Valon's hand.
Duke gets into the drivers seat and picks up the radio's speakerset. "Car 93 calling K-Q-V-B. Car 93 calling K-Q-V-B."
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Meanwhile, a taxi pulls up to the front door of a large estate. Mai exits the gray car, smoothing her skirt, and walks up to the front door. She pulls out her house key and enters.
Her shoes clack as she walks through the main entrance. No sooner does she return her keys to her purse than she is accosted by a young brunette who runs up to her, holding the skirt of her lavish nightgown, a flower pinned up in her dark hair. Distress contorts the features of her pretty face. "Mother, where have you been, they won't tell me anything," she cries, grabbing Mai's arm frantically.
"Who won't tell you anything, and who's they," Mai asks, forcing calmness into her voice.
"These men," the girl says, gesturing towards the parlor. Two men in trenchcoats stand in the center of the room, looking straight at Mai. The taller of the two, a large muscular blond, walks towards her. "Mrs. Kaiba? We're from headquarters. The inspector would like you to come down and have a little talk with him, if it's convenient," he addresses her gruffly.
"Why, what's the matter," Mai asks calmly.
"Sorry lady, we only ask the questions. Besides, we don't strictly know what the trouble is," he responds just as cooly.
"It's probably just something about the car, or something," his slighter red-headed companion assures her.
"At this time of night?" Mai's daughter, twenty at the oldest, asks with wide-eyed suspicion.
Mai stares at the blond detective for a moment before walking over to her daughter and caressing her shoulders to comfort her. "It's all right, darling," she reassures her softly, "Whatever it is, I'll take care of it. You're not to think of it. Now, go to bed please," she orders firmly, leaning in and kissing her on the cheek.
"Mother," the brunette whimpers.
"Vivian, please, go on," Mai repeats. Her daughter finally responds and runs up the large staircase on the other side of the hall.
Mai, seeing this, walks over to the two officers. "Can't you please tell me what's happened," she asks quietly.
"We'd better go." The blond takes Mai by the arm and escorts her out the door.
"What's wrong, what's the matter," Mai asks again as soon as they're out the door.
"We didn't want to say anything in front of the daughter," the redhead explains.
"It's your husband. He's been murdered." the blond grunts.
Mai gasps and turns to both of them. "Murdered?"
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The two gentlemen take Mai to a stately marble building: The Los Angeles Department of Justice. She is escorted through door number 220, the Criminal Division Main Office.
The waiting room outside the inspectors office is filled with smoke. The men escort Mai to the officer at the main desk, a tanned man with light blond hair and light purple eyes. "Raphael, Alister. What'd you get," he asks.
"This is Mrs. Valentine. I mean, Kaiba." Raphael says.
"Which? Valentine or Kaiba, make up your mind," the officer says harshly.
"Mai W--Mai Valentine Kaiba," Mai stutters.
"Ok, wheel her in," the officer says, writing her name on a piece of paper. He goes back to sorting through some kind of playing card.
"Right over there please," Alister says. Raphael has already vanished. Mai walks up to a chair in front of an old desk cluttered with papers. Alister says to the old gentleman working the desk, "Mrs. Kaiba just came in."
The old man looks up through his spiky gray hair. "Well," he says. "Sit down. He'll be right with you."
Mai takes the seat and sits there, looking around. She looks over her shoulder and sees, to her horror, her best friend sitting behind her in Raphael's custody.
The brunette leans forward to say something, her blue eyes questioning, but Raphael reprimands her. "Look," the woman snaps, snatching her arm away from his grip. "I bruise easy."
"Tea, what--" Mai starts to say.
"No talking," the old detective says, snapping a ruler on the desk in front of Mai. Mai glances back at him, but keeps her focus on Tea.
The old man puts an end to that by picking up a phone. After a moment, he nods at Raphael. "Tea Gardner."
"Thanks, Solomon," Raphael says, leading Tea away into the inspector's office.
On the way to the office, Tea walks past Valon, who is in Tristan's custody. "Well, what is this, a class reunion?" Tea smirks at Valon.
"Looks like it," he says in response as he listlessly walks by. As Tristan leads him past Mai, he glares at her and says, "I'll have a tough time talkin' my way outta this one, wot."
Mai turns her attention to the desk in front of her. Solomon looks up from his paper, his eyes roaming the area around Mai's face. She looks to him anxiously, eager to receive instructions, reprimand, anything but continue sitting in that chair. She notices with some disappointment that he is in fact looking behind her, to the inspector's door.
Raphael shortly emerges from the darkened room, escorting out a tall, wiry man with a shock of dirty blond hair and hard brown eyes. Mai turns in curious desperation, and seeing Raphael's charge, gasps. She grips the back of her chair to twist her body around in the uncomfortable chair, better aligning her body with his. He walks out slowly, glaring at all the officers. Then he sees Mai.
His expression softens and pace quickens as he crosses the floor to stand in front of her. She looks up at him, breaths coming short and faint, and for a moment he sees something in her eyes so tender and beseeching that he is moved to speak.
"I'm sorry, Mai, I just couldn' help it--"
"No talking."
The man glares intensely at Solomon before looking back to Mai. Nothing dramatic has changed in her expression or postures, and yet he is keenly aware that the promise that momentarily flickered in Mai's beautiful features is gone, replaced by an accusatory glare that he is quite familiar with. 'I swear to you,' her glare tells him, 'if you fucked this up so help you God I will hate you until the day I die.'
He clenches his mouth, making no attempt to move until Raphael comes up and taps him on the shoulder. "Take a seat," he growls in a way that turns invitation to command. The man follows with a last heavy glance at Mai before settling into a chair at the other side of the station.
Solomon flicks a page of his paper, but otherwise does not look up. "Know that guy?" he asks.
Mai glances up at the sheet of newsprint separating her from her guard and allows her poker face to slightly dissipate. Her eyes tilt and glimmer, sadness creeping into her voice. "Yes, we were married once."
She looks over to the man's chair, and sensing her gaze, he looks up. He fixes his eyes on her for a brief minute, fixated on the sad nostalgia that Mai has allowed to fill her face. He tries to angle his head away from Raphael and gazes apologetically at his ex-wife. They remain like this as long as they are able.
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A/N: Well then! That's that! The gang's officially all here!
Now, I swear to you, loyal readers, that this IS the last "intro" chapter. This basically means that the next chapter there will begin the workings of an actual story, with explicated plot and everything!
Hope you like it enough to continue on, and do remember while reading that this will soon turn into a full-blown mystery…be sure not to miss a beat!
