Chapter 07 -- The Island
The following day, Friday, was uneventful. It was typical for any day her Mistress had to work: Trish got up and served breakfast, then went next door and spent the day picking mangos and other fruit from the two yards. She learned how to cook a couple of new food items and how to wash clothes by hand. She served dinner at Flora's house and cleaned up. Finally she bathed her Mistress, got in bed with her, and fulfilled her most important duty by bringing her to orgasm.
The following morning Trish began her routine for the third day. As she waited for the water to boil, she decided to sneak a look at Eve's computer. It was an old clunky desktop that had been given away as surplus by the police department. The CPU had a small door. When Trish opened it, she was deeply disappointed to discover the C-drive was missing. The CPU was designed for law-enforcement and had removable drives. Trish looked around the desk and noted a small safe sitting on the floor. Fuck. Undoubtedly, because she was a cop, Eve knew all about securing computer equipment so no one else could use it.
Trish did not notice that her Mistress had woken up and was quietly watching her from the hallway. Eve slipped back to her room and got dressed. She was tempted to confront her ward about looking at the computer, but decided to keep that discovery to herself. It was an important piece of information: that Trish wanted to access a computer, probably to get on the Internet. So, it turned out that she was not totally resigned to spending the rest of her life on Santa Eduviges as Eve's slave.
Eve knew, even more than her servant; that it would be impossible to escape and get off the Island on her own. However, she was not sure who might be able to assist Trish from the United States or some other country. The main concern was the possibility that she would contact someone in Baton Rouge and, through her financial manager, somehow arrange a way to extract herself from Santa Eduviges. Admittedly, that was a long shot given the Island did not have diplomatic relations with the US, but Eve needed to eliminate that possibility altogether.
The Mistress got up for a second time and ate breakfast. She could tell Trish was a bit nervous. After eating, she decided to send her servant next door so she could get online in private.
She researched the Bousquet family of Baton Rouge to learn more about the rift between Trish and her cousins, trying to figure out how she could turn that to her advantage. First, she learned that the elder Bousquets were killed in a private plane crash when Trish was 18. Through reading her Facebook comments, Eve could tell that Trish was not particularly upset by their deaths: she had grown up in European boarding schools and saw very little of her parents during her teenaged years.
Eve then researched the rival branch of the Bousquet family, a sister of Trish's father called Beatrice Bousquet-Davis who had been cut out of a will by her grandfather. Trish's father had partly reconciled with his sister before he died, to the point that in his will he had stated that if anything happened to Trish, she and the cousins would be granted control of the family fortune.
The will also stipulated that Beatrice Bousquet-Davis would have some say in spending the family fortune and that the financial manager had to consult with her. However, that part of the will had been ignored by Trish and the manager. Eve suspected that the manager might be taking advantage of Trish's spendthrift lifestyle to help himself to some of her money. Looking through the court documents of the lawsuit filed by Beatrice, it seemed that the legal dispute was very bitter. The judge ruled against the aunt and cousins, but in his comments he expressed reservations about the ruling.
There was no way Eve would contact the financial manager. However, Beatrice was a different matter. She figured that the disinherited side of the family would be more than happy to learn that Trish was serving a life sentence on an island that had no diplomatic relations with the US. She decided to e-mail Beatrice and tell her what had happened to her niece. She got a response within five minutes, with a phone number and a request that Eve call her and reverse the charges.
Sure enough, Beatrice was elated over Eve's message and pressed her for more details. Eve responded by hanging up and e-mailing a copy of the arrest report, the prisoner's travel itinerary from Panama, and pictures of the cocaine pellets. Then the officer got back on the phone. The aunt was beside herself with joy. Eve advised Beatrice to talk to her own attorney before saying anything to anyone else. The response was:
"Of course, Officer Bousquet. I'm not telling that shyster manager of hers a damn thing. He'll find out soon enough."
After expressing profuse gratitude, Beatrice finally asked where her niece was now. Eve responded by telling a portion of the truth, that under the laws of the Island, Trish was a prisoner and that she had been awarded custody.
The conversation concluded with Eve commenting that the next-of-kin needed to be notified of the arrest and conviction, given that there was no US Embassy to handle the matter. She would send an official e-mail that the aunt could use as legal documentation that the officer had fulfilled that obligation. And that was the truth. Beatrice and the cousins were Trish Bousquet's next-of-kin.
After hanging up, Eve drafted a standard note that, under the laws of Santa Eduviges, served as official notification for the next-of-kin documenting the arrest and conviction of a criminal. She sent that off and got a grateful response.
From what she knew of the family dispute and US law, Eve figured that Beatrice would return to court with the notification letter and arrest documents to request being granted Power-of-Attorney over the Bousquet estate. Since Trish was in no position to make any financial decisions, it would be logical to award control of her finances to the next of kin. It looked like Beatrice had every intention of moving as fast as possible with the request and that she would face a sympathetic judge.
Now the family dispute was taken care of. Hopefully within a few weeks Eve would get notice that Beatrice Bousquet-Davis had seized control of the Bousquet fortune. When that happened, the possibility Eve's servant could access her money to extract herself from Santa Eduviges would vanish. So...whenever Trish did manage to sneak onto the Internet, she would be confronted with a very nasty surprise.