The Beachside Cafe (Saltwater Secrets Book 6)

by Sage Parker

  “I was disappointed to hear of his passing,” John replied. The Doug Lent I knew was my friend. A polite, somewhat reserved man. I considered him when I made decisions and sometimes called to ask his financial advice. He never steered me wrong. He was a laugher, as everyone in the office knew. I’m sure you understand from having been married to him. He must have made you laugh a lot.”

  Jaymee couldn’t remember really laughing much after maybe the fourth anniversary of their marriage. Doug had lost his sense of humor. She didn’t have any fun with him shortly after the birth of their daughter. She’d become distracted, too. She couldn’t put it all off on him. Unfortunately, the distance that grew between them became a gap so wide it was uncrossable.

  She gave Cameron a skeptical look but didn’t respond. When the pause grew long enough to be uncomfortable, Jaymee asked, “Did you watch the video?”

  “With his permission, yes, I did.”

  “Then you must realize that we weren’t the happiest of couples. Did you participate in the blackmailing?”

  “No, I didn’t know where the money was coming from until I saw the video. As far as I knew, the payments being deposited were from paying clients. I am surprised to find out he was doing that but not surprised by his reasons, selfish as they may have been.”

  “Selfish is an understatement,” Jaymee said, feeling some irritation from the callous way the captain was talking about Doug’s misdeeds and unlawful behavior. Carmine came to mind. With the help of IDL, Doug had effectively destroyed Carmine’s life and then they tried to take it. It was Cameron and Jaymee that kept the older man from being murdered by hanging. If they hadn’t gotten there in time, he would surely have died. “Doug drove people to despair. People who didn’t actually deserve it.”

  “That was not my impression,” John replied. His voice continued to be warm and friendly, though it had to be obvious Jaymee suspected he’d had more to do with the blackmails than he was letting on. He may have been Doug’s partner for all she knew.

  “Well, it’s the truth. He made a victim out of people who were already victims of IDL. How can that be okay? Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

  “I agree,” John responded. “Please don’t take me wrong. I know what he was doing was wrong. I had nothing to do with it other than collecting the payments, which, as I said, I thought were from legitimate clients. If it makes you feel better to suspect and accuse me because he’s not here to do that to, feel free. However, I am blameless and you would be placing blame and suspicion on the wrong man. I’m merely an accountant for another accountant.”

  “Didn’t you ever stop to wonder why an accountant would need another accountant?” Jaymee asked. She was finding it harder and harder to suspect John. He was calm and collected. He didn’t sound arrogant and hotheaded like Doug would have. She was surprised the man saw anything good in Doug. They didn’t seem to have the same personality traits at all.

  John laughed softly at her question. “I am in another country. There are many, many accountants who keep their money safely hidden away for one reason or another. Usually greedy relatives. In this case, the money was not legal. Which reminds me, do you want me to send you the documents so you can receive the money in the next few days? Once all the proper documents are in place, I’ll transfer it all into a bank account of your choice.”

  Jaymee glanced at Cameron, who was gazing down at his phone but his eyes weren’t moving, which told her he was listening to their conversation. Aware that she was looking at him, Cameron met her gaze. He sat forward, realizing she had been asked an important question.

  “I don’t know,” Jaymee replied, keeping her eyes on the man in front of her. “I don’t know if I want illegal money.”

  “That’s a lot of money to let the government seize when it wasn’t theirs to begin with,” John said.

  Cameron tilted his head to the side and gave her a look of agreement. He mouthed for her to ask how much it was in total.

  “How much money is it?” she asked.

  “Seventeen point five million dollars.”

  Jaymee’s skin lit up in goosebumps. Her eyes widened and she stared at Cameron, who’d adopted the same expression on his face.

  She repeated the number back to John, who confirmed how much it was.

  “It came from criminals, Jaymee,” John said. “Do you really want them to have their money back? It’s not like they’re going to sue you for it. That money is yours now. I recommend highly you take it.”

  “I’m going to have to think about it,” she said. “I’ll talk to my daughter and… get back to you.”

  “That’s fine. And take as long as you need. The money is only sitting there gaining interest hand over fist. If you aren’t using it, it will grow to be quite a nest egg.”

  Jaymee’s eyebrows shot up. “Grow? Grow to be a nest egg?” she laughed. “You have a good sense of humor, John. I’ll call you back tomorrow when I’m not in shock by all this. And after I get a chance to talk to Cheyenne. I’ll talk to her later today and call you back.”

  “Sounds good. And by the way, Jaymee,” John said. “He really did care about you. I want you to know that. He may have not shown it like he should have but he never spoke badly of you or your daughter. I knew how much he doted on his daughter. Give her my condolences on all that has happened, will you?”

  “I will. Talk to you tomorrow.”

  “All right. Good bye.”

  “Bye.”

  Jaymee pressed the end button on her phone and tossed it gently on the coffee table. She continued to stare at it for a moment, lost in thought.

  “That’s an enormous amount of money, Jaymee,” Cameron said, leaning forward and setting his own phone down next to hers. He turned his head to look at her directly. “What are you going to do? Like he said, you can’t give it back to them. That would be ridiculous.”

  “Yes, it would,” Jaymee said. “But I’m going to talk to Cheyenne and get her take on this first before I make a decision.”

  SIX

  Cheyenne and Alex came through the front doors laughing about something. They were both speaking at the same time and finishing the joke between them together. Jaymee twisted her upper body and looked at the open kitchen door.

  “In here, kids!” she called out and immediately regretted it. It was likely Alex didn’t take kindly to being called a “kid” at his age.

  The two came around the corner and into the kitchen together, pretending they couldn’t both fit through the door together, though it was a wider door than most. They each had a foot between them and the wall but it didn’t stop them from squeezing through as if the passageway was narrow.

  “Good afternoon, Mother!” Cheyenne said, excitedly. The smile on her face was refreshing to see. Since they’d found the body of her father, Cheyenne had been in mourning, trying to rid herself of the grief by spending more time at her childhood home and with Alex.

  “Good afternoon, Mother,” Alex repeated what she’d said, dropping a wink at Jaymee while smiling from ear to ear.

  “It’s good to see you both.” Jaymee took the towel from the oven door handle and wiped her hands, going around the island to give her daughter a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. “My darling girl. And a good looking guy with her. Not bad.”

  They all laughed as Jaymee gave a hug to Alex.

  “Where’s my man?” Alex asked, slapping himself on the belly and leaning back to look out into the foyer, tilting his head this way and that like a chicken.

  “He’s in the living room. Probably watching the stock market or something. Sometimes he is very boring.”

  Cheyenne let out a bark of laughter that prompted the same from Jaymee and Alex.

  “Cameron is never boring, Mom. You know that’s a lie. Don’t lie like that. Sheesh.”

  Alex left the two women and they could hear his laughter out in the hallway.

  Once he was gone, Jaymee felt comfortable to say why she’d called her daughter there f
or dinner.

  “I didn’t just ask you here for dinner because I miss you, Chey,” Jaymee said, pulling out one of the stools that sat around the island and sitting on it. She gestured to the one next to her with her towel and Cheyenne sat down, giving her mother a curious look.

  “What is it, Mom? You look a little stressed. I haven’t seen you look like this since you were investigating Dad’s disappearance.”

  Jaymee nodded, admiring how in tune her daughter was.

  “I am feeling stressed, Cheyenne. I want to talk to you about something and I’m not going to make a decision without your input. Not on something like this.”

  Cheyenne took on a serious expression and nodded. “What is it, Mom?”

  “This morning I received a package from overseas. In it was a DVD, a letter and a jewelry box. Also a business card. It was from a man named Captain John Hastings, who is currently living in Puerto Rico. He’s the American Ambassador there. Apparently, there is a bank there that… well, all of your dad’s victims sent their money to that bank. He’s the accountant who took care of it.”

  Cheyenne sat back, staring at her mother. She said nothing.

  “I called the man after I watched the DVD. In the letter, he said it was a will. But it wasn’t really a will.”

  Cheyenne frowned. “If it wasn’t a will, what was it?” Her voice sounded alarmed.

  “It wasn’t anything bad,” Jaymee hurried to say. “It was… more of a confession. I want you to watch it. And then I want to ask you what we should do with the money he took from his victims. He wants us to have it. John says it’s ours. Cameron says we could do a lot of good with that money. It is technically ours.”

  “They don’t want it? The police I mean? For, like, investigatory purposes?”

  Jaymee shook her head. “The money is ours. It was taken from criminals. My only thought was that we should give some to Carmine. Make him the rich man he would have been if IDL and Doug hadn’t tried to destroy his life.”

  “Well, at least you and Cam rebuilt those apartment buildings he was living in. That was a real nice thing to do for this little California town of Grand Bay.”

  Jaymee smiled at her. “Thank you, honey. Look, let’s take the laptop out on the veranda and you can watch the video out there. Then we can talk more about this, okay?”

  Cheyenne nodded.

  Jaymee had brought her laptop with the DVD already in it to the kitchen with her because she had planned to have Cheyenne see it as soon as she got there. She slipped off the bar stool and retrieved it from the counter.

  Cheyenne followed her outside and they got comfortable in the long deck chairs sitting next to each other.

  “You go ahead and watch it,” Jaymee said. “I’ll wait.”

  Jaymee watched her daughter’s face change when she saw her father’s face on the computer screen. Tears came to her eyes as she listened to what he had to say. Jaymee wondered if it really was a good idea to let Cheyenne see it.

  Just before the video ended, Jaymee felt like she’d done the right thing letting her daughter see it. It may have hurt her to see her dad when he was still alive but some of the things he said were things she needed to hear. Jaymee would be devastated if Cheyenne got a complex or felt abandoned or unloved because of what her father turned out to be like.

  She wished he had shown them both love over the years. Then maybe she would believe his motives weren’t anything but evil. She didn’t particularly care that his other victims were perpetrators of crime themselves, hurting hundreds, if not thousands, of defenseless patients and test subjects. Most of those people were unaware they were being experimented on. People had died and been seriously injured.

  Doug could have put a stop to it but he didn’t. His greed won out. Despite what he claimed in the video, Jaymee felt like he wasn’t really putting that money aside for his family, for her and Cheyenne. It wasn’t until he felt like he was either going to get caught or hurt that he made the video. If he’d really meant any of it, he would have tried to be more loving like he said he would.

  But instead, he continued his practice of blackmail and was killed for it.

  Greed is a terrible thing, Jaymee thought.

  When the video was over, Cheyenne slowly closed the laptop. She sat there for a moment before leaning to the side to put the laptop on a small white iron table that sat between herself and her mother.

  “I see why you wanted me to watch that, Mom. Even though he didn’t really want me to see it. I… I guess I did need to hear him say he loved me one more time. I think I can let him go after seeing that. I really appreciate you letting me watch it.”

  “You are very important to me, honey,” Jaymee said. “I want you to be happy. And now that this has come up, I want your opinion on what we should do.” She didn’t believe Doug was truly repentant for his bad ways. If he had been, he would have stopped. He would have revealed what he knew about IDL and the experiments they were carrying out.

  “What we should do with the money?” Cheyenne asked.

  “If we should even take the money,” Jaymee replied.

  Cheyenne gazed at her for a moment before moving her eyes out over the horizon. Jaymee felt a cool breeze blow over her arms and face. She smelled the ocean on the air. It was one of the best things about living on the coast of California. She was so close to the water, surf and sand. It was a beautiful place to live.

  “I don’t know why we wouldn’t take the money, Mom,” Cheyenne said, her voice confident. “I think we can do a lot of good with it.”

  “That’s what Cameron said,” Jaymee replied.

  “I know. You told me. And I think he’s right. We don’t want this money in the hands of the government. They’ll just blow it. We could actually do something good with it. Right here in Grand Bay, probably. I know Cameron would have some good ideas for what to do. And yeah, giving Carmine some to set him up for the rest of his life is also a good idea. How much did you want to give him? How much is it in the first place?”

  “It’s 17 and a half million dollars,” Jaymee said, dropping the number and gazing at her daughter to see the response. Stunned, Cheyenne stared at her mother.

  “Seventeen and a half million dollars…” she said slowly. “Yeah. We can do a whole lot of good with that.”

  SEVEN

  Their dinner was lively conversation. Cheyenne and Alex ganged up on Cameron, teasing him about a business deal he’d made that had garnered him a large sum of money.

  “You know you don’t need any more money, Cam,” Alex said, lifting his drink and smiling at his friend over it. “You’ve got more than Gates and Bezos and Trump combined.”

  “I do not have that much money,” Cameron stated firmly, giving Alex a narrow look. “I made great money on that transaction, yes. But I also worked for that goal for six months. So if you take the money I got paid at the end and calculate it back over the last six months and the work I did in that time, I got paid a decent wage but no better than a lot of other hard-working stiffs.”

  Cheyenne tilted her head to the side and gazed at him. “Funny, I’ve never thought of you as a hard-working stiff. You do work hard, don’t get me wrong. But that’s just not something I’d say about you at all.”

  “I’m sure he earned every single penny he got,” Jaymee said, poking her fork into her green beans and eating a few of them before continuing.

  “I did. Unlike some people who made their money illegally. We won’t talk about that at the dinner table, though, will we?”

  “So what do you think we should do, Cameron?” Cheyenne asked. “With the money?”

  Cameron moved his eyes to Jaymee, who wouldn’t look up from her plate at him. She didn’t mind that Cheyenne had spilled the beans before she could inform Cameron of their decision. She also didn’t know if Alex had been informed about everything until Cameron spoke up.

  “So you’re going to keep the money, are you? I think that’s a wise move.”

  “I think so
, too,” Alex put in. “You can do a lot more good with it when you have it in your hands to control. Whenever you give it to someone else, it ends up going to things they think are important. They might not carry your same interests.”

  “I think the idea of giving Carmine some is good, too,” Cheyenne said. “What about you, Cameron?”

  The man nodded, a positive look on his face. “Yes. Definitely give him some.” He turned his gaze to Jaymee. “How much did you think?”

  “A million.” Jaymee’s blunt quick response turned their heads.

  “Seems fair since they tried to hang the poor man,” Cheyenne said. Her comment brought the image of Carmine hanging by the neck swiftly to Jaymee’s mind. She and Cameron had rushed to cut the man down. He hadn’t broken his neck but he was badly beat up and deprived of the proper amount of oxygen for some time. Left with little to no after affects, he’d become a good friend to everyone in Jaymee’s small “family”.

  “You know Amanda’s trial will be coming up soon, right?” Alex mentioned. “I read something about it in the paper today.”

  “I’ve been keeping track of it online,” Cheyenne said. She shook her head. “You won’t believe the kind of stuff that’s coming out on social media. Her Instagram and other platforms pretty much just got rid of her. The locals here really decimated her.”

  “It’s always hurtful and disappointing when someone in your own community is found to be a total scumbag,” Jaymee said.

  Cheyenne gave her an affectionate look and nodded. “Yes. A total scumbag is indeed what she is. The more I read about her the worse it is.”

  “Hopefully she will be put away for a very long time and we won’t have anything more to worry about. IDL is already closed, isn’t it?”

  “Nobody goes to work there anymore, I can say that. Whether it’s officially closed or not, I couldn’t really say.” Cameron glanced around the table. “It’s hard to say what happened to all the people who were victims of those people.”