The Beachside Cafe (Saltwater Secrets Book 3)

by Sage Parker

  “Hey you two. I’m glad you stopped by. We have some interesting news. An update maybe.”

  Jaymee raised her eyebrows. “You’ve found Doug?”

  John looked down at his desk, his eyes searching for a certain piece of paper in the ones scattered there. “No, sorry. But we did find something. Here it is.” He pulled a paper from the rest of them and handed it to her. She took it and held it in a way that Cameron could also see it. It was a list of names and numbers.

  “So what are we looking at here?” she asked.

  “Those are lawsuits, aren’t they?” Cameron said. He pointed at them as he continued, “That’s a defendant, see? There’s the D. There’s a P before this name for plaintiff. And that looks like a court docket number.”

  “That’s exactly what that is, Cameron, good eye.” John held out his hand and Jaymee handed the paper back to him. “These are lawsuits against the people at IDL that have been brought up and covered up.”

  “What are they though?” Jaymee asked. “What kind of lawsuits, I mean?”

  “We’ve been doing some research to get that answer. So far, it looks like they’re from clients or customers of IDL.”

  Jaymee frowned in confusion. “That doesn’t make sense. They aren’t a company that has clients or customers. No one buys anything from them.”

  John nodded. “That’s what we thought, as well. So we did a little more digging.” He sat on the very edge of his desk on one side, propping himself up with one leg. He crossed his hands over his lap and gave them a satisfied look. “And we found out some very interesting things.”

  Cameron chuckled. “Do tell. Please.”

  John gave him an amused look before he answered. “Most of these lawsuits are from recruits for trial studies.”

  Jaymee was covered in chills. So the company was doing experiments on human beings. She shook her head in amazement. “I can’t believe it. I never would have thought something like that could be real.”

  John snorted, pushing off the desk and circling around to stand between it and his desk chair. “There’s a lot worse than that going on, I’m afraid. You’ve heard of Josef Mengele, I’m sure. The Angel of Death?”

  Jaymee gasped. “You can’t mean…”

  John shook his head. “I’m not saying those are the kind of experiments IDL is doing. That’s an example of something that shouldn’t be real. The experiments IDL is doing isn’t as bad as that, that we know of. But it is causing real damage to the people they are experimenting on. No matter how much money someone needs, they shouldn’t be forced to be a human guinea pig. It’s not right, not moral in any way.”

  Jaymee nodded. “I agree.”

  “I’m sorry, Jaymee,” John said, looking directly at her. “It seems Doug was on the list, too.”

  Jaymee raised her eyebrows in surprise. “He sued IDL?”

  John shook his head. “No. He was named in one of the lawsuits. Apparently it was part of his job to inject these people with something and study the results of what happened to them. Some of the experiments took years before real side effects happened. Unfortunately, he’s involved in the birth of a deformed baby after the mother went through one of their trials.”

  “Good Lord, how awful.” Jaymee shook her head, her heart heavy with sadness and shame. She had been married to a monster and didn’t even know it.

  “So what does that mean? Are you going to be able to shut them down?”

  “Not with this information we can’t,” John said. “These people sign agreements with the company. They are willingly being experimented on. If they sign away their rights, there’s nothing we can do about it.”

  “Did any of the people who filed lawsuits actually win?”

  “Not that I can see. IDL has a real good law firm on their side. McNally, Lianetti, and Barncroft. They’re notorious for helping criminals get away with their crimes.”

  Jaymee nodded, her stomach turning at the thought that she’d been in the office of such a slimeball. A charming slimeball at that.

  “Yeah, we know,” Cameron said.

  “Well, that was something,” Lou said, hanging up his phone and looking up at Cameron and Jaymee. “It seems the apartments over on Bridge street are being bought up by a rich couple.”

  Jaymee and Cameron looked at each other.

  “What?” they said in unison.

  Lou’s eyebrows shot up. “I just got off the phone with one of the men who filed a lawsuit against IDL. He said that a couple was just there and said they were buying up a lot of that land and fixing it up. That will be real nice for those people. They’ve been dealt a bad hand in life. It’s nice when people do something for the helpless and hopeless sometimes.”

  Jaymee’s heart sank into the pit of her stomach. She gave Cameron a mournful look. He shook his head, a comforting expression on his handsome face. “Yeah, that’s real nice,” he said. “There are good people left in this world, that’s for sure. Listen, if you find out anything else, will you give me a buzz? We’re still working on the case from our angle but we haven’t really got anything nailed down just yet.”

  “We’ll do that, Cam. You two stay safe out there and don’t get into any trouble, you hear?”

  Cameron laughed, grabbing Jaymee’s elbow and gently steering her toward the front doors. Once they were outside, Jaymee cried out, “What have I done, Cam? Those people! They’re expecting so much now. And they won’t get a thing. I feel so bad. So ashamed. I’m stupid for having said that and getting his hopes up like that.” She slapped one hand against her forehead, shaking it at the same time.

  “No, no,” Cameron said. “No worries, Jaymee. Really. Don’t let it trouble you.”

  “But, Cameron-”

  He stopped her words by putting a finger to her lips. “Shh,” he said softly. “You’re talking to a very rich man. If that property is for sale, I’ll buy it and we’ll make the repairs just like you said. How does that sound?”

  Jaymee gave him a surprised look, her heart warming over. “You’d really do that?”

  He shrugged, shoving both hands in the pockets of his suit trousers. “Not like I can take money to the grave with me. Better to use it on something good, right?”

  If Jaymee wasn’t in love with Cameron before, that moment solidified it for her.

  EIGHT

  Jaymee moved around the kitchen, fixing herself and Cheyenne some dinner. Her daughter was in living room, watching TV. She could hear the action movie playing, heard the sound of gunshots and men shouting at each other. Leaning to the side, she looked into the living room at the TV hanging on the wall. It was a war movie.

  She went back to what she was doing, thinking about Cameron and the apartments he’d decided to buy. They were planning to go back the next day to look around and maybe talk to Russo again, let him know the plans were going forward. They’d discussed telling Russo who they really were and what they were doing there originally and then to reassure him that Cameron was indeed going to buy the buildings and renovate them.

  She heard the sound of the TV stop and leaned again to see the movie had been paused. Cheyenne came through the door a few moments later, walking straight to the large salad bowl, grabbing a carrot from it and chomping down on it. She was giving her mother a contemplative look.

  “Mom?”

  Jaymee stopped where she was and stared at her daughter. “Yes?” she said. Cheyenne was acting very suspiciously.

  “I want to talk to you about something but I don’t want you to get upset.”

  Jaymee’s chest tightened with apprehension as it always did when she had to discuss something serious with her daughter. She set the spoon she’d been using to stir the noodles down on the stove and turned the heat down just a bit under the pot. Then she moved to the island in the middle of the kitchen and gestured for Cheyenne to sit in one of the tall stools on the other side.

  “I can’t promise I won’t,” she said honestly. “But I will certainly try to stay calm. What is
it? I don’t know anything new about your dad, unfortunately.”

  Cheyenne shook her head. “This isn’t about Dad. He’s been gone for almost two months. I really don’t think he’s coming back. If he’d left willingly, we’d know somehow. If he left unwillingly, they wouldn’t have just let him go, would they?”

  “He could be being held somewhere, you never know.” Jaymee didn’t want her daughter to feel hopeless or hurt by anything. This was something she couldn’t control, though.

  “This isn’t about Dad, Mom,” Cheyenne said firmly.

  Jaymee grimaced in an amused way. “Oh. Sorry. Go ahead.”

  “I… I think it’s time for me to move out.” She stared at her mother to gauge her reaction.

  Jaymee was taken by surprise by the announcement. She’d known it would happen eventually and her daughter was 21 and old enough to take care of herself. She could be a responsible adult all on her own.

  She didn’t need her mother anymore.

  Jaymee felt an intense sadness sweep over her. She tried to keep the look from her face but Cheyenne must have seen it because she tilted her head to the side and gave her mother a sorrowful look. “I’m sorry, Mom. I know you don’t want to hear that. But just think, you’ll be able to spend a whole lot of alone quality time with Cameron. You want that, don’t you?”

  “Yes. I do. But I can have that whether you’re here or not.”

  Cheyenne laughed softly. “I’m not sure you know the definition of the word ‘alone’.”

  Jaymee laughed with her. “I do, yes. I know what that word means. I just… I know it’s time for you to be on your own, Cheyenne. I just… don’t really want that to happen. But I won’t stand in your way. You know I won’t.” She added the last part quickly, so her daughter would know she understood why it was happening.

  She turned back to her noodles, hoping her daughter didn’t see the tears in her eyes. A moment later, she felt Cheyenne’s arms around her shoulders.

  “I love you, Mom,” she murmured. “You’re the best mom a girl could ever have. I hope you know that.”

  Jaymee patted her daughter’s arm, tilting her head so it touched Cheyenne’s. “And you’re the best daughter a mom could ever have. I love you, too. I’m sorry you had to grow up. I remember when you were first learning to walk and talk and I couldn’t shut you up. You used to dance through the living room singing at the top of your lungs, making up songs just to amuse yourself.”

  She sighed, turning the heat up on the noodles. “Let me finish this spaghetti and we’ll talk more about it.”

  “Okay, Mom.”

  She felt cold when Cheyenne left, even though she was standing in front of a hot stove with two burners going. She turned to watch her daughter return to the living room. A moment later, the war movie was back on.

  As she stirred the food and finished the hamburger, Jaymee fought with her emotions. She would be so lonely here without Cheyenne. Even if Cameron visited, she would still be lonely most of the time. It wasn’t her style to live with someone and Cameron had his own lovely mansion to go back to whenever he wanted. He didn’t seem to mind living alone. Then again, he had a lot of house staff and people wandering the grounds at all hours for various reasons.

  Jaymee turned around and gazed at the four walls in the kitchen, the decorations, the china cabinet, the high ceilings. The house was huge, luxurious.

  Way more than Jaymee required.

  She thought about Russo in his tiny little apartment with all his old furniture and his worn-down self. What kind of experiment had he been involved in? He said he was a researcher for IDL but it sounded from the lawsuit report like he’d been one of the guinea pigs, rather than an actual employee.

  Either way, it hadn’t paid the bills for him. She wondered what adverse effects the experiments had done to him. He didn’t look like he was in the best of shape, but he didn’t look sick either.

  She returned to cooking and when it was done, she called to Cheyenne.

  “Bring it in here, Mom, if you would,” Cheyenne called back. “I want to finish the movie.”

  “As long as you’re willing to talk when it’s over. We have a lot to discuss. Like whether or not you’ve found an apartment or if you’ve been looking for one.”

  “I will! I mean, we will. There’s not much left of the movie. Come enjoy it with me.”

  Jaymee wasn’t sure how much she could get out of a war movie in the last fifteen minutes. It turned out to be one she’d seen so she knew what was going on when she brought Cheyenne a bowl of spaghetti and sat with her on the couch to watch it.

  When Cheyenne picked up the remote and clicked off the TV as the credits were rolling, Jaymee braced herself. This wasn’t a discussion she really wanted to have with her daughter but it was high time.

  She pulled in a deep breath, reaching behind her for a glass of wine she’d left there for this exact purpose. She took a few swallows, holding up one finger toward Cheyenne so she wouldn’t start talking.

  With a grin, Cheyenne waited patiently.

  Jaymee set the wine glass back down and smacked her lips. “All right, I guess I’m ready.”

  “Okay, well, I’ve been doing some research and I think I know where I want to live. It’s a place over on West 4th street.”

  “An apartment complex?” Jaymee looked at the map of Grand Bay in her head. She didn’t see apartment complexes anywhere on West 4th street.

  Cheyenne shook her head. “No. It’s a house. A lovely little three-bedroom house. I can have my own office and a guest room and if I ever get married and have a kid, I’ll have room for him or her there, too.”

  “What if your husband has a house?”

  Cheyenne laughed. “I tell you I found a house I want to buy and you’re worried that my future husband might have one of his own? He’ll just have to sell his. Because if I get this one, I’m never moving from there. It’s a beautiful place, Mom.”

  “Have you been inside? Got a tour?”

  “Yep. Yesterday. And I want you to come see it with me tomorrow. Can you?”

  “I’ve got plans with Cameron but I can always fit you in, dear. I’ll get someone to watch the café so we can all go. You don’t mind if Cameron goes, too, do you?”

  “Not at all,” Cheyenne replied, shaking her head. “He has excellent taste and a great eye for quality.” She grinned. “Just look at the woman he chose to fall in love with?”

  Jaymee gasped and swatted at her daughter but a tingling pleasure slid over her skin when she heard those words.

  NINE

  Cameron, Jaymee and Cheyenne all went out to the Bridge St. apartments together. Cheyenne agreed with their assessment of the place and was gushing with admiration for Cameron upon hearing of his decision to buy and renovate them.

  “You sure you want to come inside with us?” Jaymee asked when they reached their destination. “You don’t have to. It’s kind of a rough atmosphere, I think.”

  Cheyenne shook her head. “I don’t mind, Mom. Cameron won’t let anything happen to me, will you, Cameron?”

  “I sure won’t, Cheyenne. Or to Jaymee either.”

  “See? Let’s go.”

  Cheyenne led the way into the apartment building but stopped just inside to look at her mother. “I really don’t even know where I’m going.”

  “We’re going to apartment four. I want to…”

  Jaymee looked up the stairs. Her words drifted off when she caught sight of the door to number four. “Cameron,” she said in a warning voice.

  Cameron and Cheyenne both followed her eyes up the stairs. The door to number four was ajar. It looked like it had been rammed open. Cameron bounded up the stairs with Jaymee and Cheyenne on his heels.

  “Carmine?” he called out. “You here? Russo?”

  Jaymee went into the apartment and was stunned to see it was ransacked. Why anyone would want to rip up the couch cushions and toss all of his utensils and plates on the floor was beyond her.

&nbs
p; And Carmine was gone.

  “Oh no,” she breathed, her worried eyes examining the scene. She looked at Cameron, who had swiftly pulled his phone from his pocket and hit one of the numbers on speed dial. He plunged one hand through his dark hair. Jaymee was surprised to see he looked as worried as she was.

  “Lou? You and John need to come to Carmine Russo’s apartment right now. Bring some blues with you. This is a crime scene. Call forensics and all that other stuff you guys do… yes, Russo, the one that you spoke to on the phone yesterday… because we had already been here and talked to him. We found him on Doug’s computer… no, we didn’t think we should tell you guys about it because it didn’t make a difference to the case. We didn’t know anything to really tell you… Yes, we’re the ones who said we were going to buy the place, look, we’re wasting time talking like this. Russo is missing and we need to find him. God only knows what’s been done to him. IDL is a dangerous company to mess around with… okay, good. Tell them to get here fast. We’ll stake out the place till you get here… no, we aren’t going to touch anything. You think we’re stupid? All right… Yeah… Bye.”

  He rolled his eyes and shook his head when he pressed the end button on the phone. “Lou’s a good man but he doesn’t use his time wisely. They’ll be here soon. We can’t touch anything. If you do, you gotta have gloves on.”

  “There’s no real point in that, Cam,” Jaymee said, thoughtfully as she scanned the small living room again. “We were here yesterday. Our prints are everywhere.”

  “Yeah but if there’s other prints for them to find, you don’t want to smudge them or cover them with yours, do you?” He hurried down the short hallway and pushed open the bedroom door. Jaymee saw a look of disgust come to his face. “I don’t see how anyone can live like this,” he said.

  “I know I couldn’t,” Cheyenne said in a firm voice. “No way. Too messy. Looks like it was messy before it was ransacked.” She moved to the tray table next to the big chair Russo had been sitting in the day before.