Page 3 of The Beachside Cafe
Cheyenne looked sharply at her. “No, Mom. I don’t think he was cheating. I don’t think he had time for you, much less another woman.”
“Maybe he didn’t have time for me because of another woman,” Jaymee reasoned.
Cheyenne pushed herself to her feet, shaking her head. “No. Dad wasn’t cheating. He worked. All the time. I don’t think that’s what happened to him.”
“Then what do you think happened to him?”
Cheyenne pulled in a deep breath, turning away. “I think… I think something bad happened. I think someone did something to him.”
Jaymee’s chest tightened. “You don’t he’s d… dead… do you?”
Cheyenne didn’t answer. Her eyes misted over. She shook her head and shrugged.
Jaymee lowered her head, pressing her forehead with her fingers. “Oh, I just don’t think I can take this. Everything was perfect. Perfect! How can this happen? Where is he? I’m so worried.”
“I’m going to call some of his business partners,” Cheyenne announced. “I’ve dined with them with Dad before and they’ll remember me. Maybe they know something about what’s going on.”
“I’ll call our friends. And we can do that while we’re in the car. Let’s go look for him.”
As the two women set about searching for Doug, Jaymee became more and more apprehensive. They didn’t see Doug’s SUV anywhere they went, not at his gym, the restaurants he frequented, or the stores he often visited. Cheyenne called the airport but if Doug had booked a flight, he’d done it under a different name. None of their friends knew where he was, his business partners and investors had no appointments with him. They even checked the bus station, though there was no way Doug would take a bus anywhere he could drive to himself.
The time went on and Jaymee was beginning to feel a bit of panic coming. So far, she had managed to control it. But now, with no trace of her husband anywhere, she was beginning to let the reality of the situation settle in. It seemed they weren’t going to find him. It was as though he had vanished off the face of the earth.
“People say it will never happen to them,” she mumbled, turning the car back into the driveway when they had exhausted themselves of places to look.
Cheyenne heard her and gave her a cynical look. “And then it happens to them. Oh, where could he be?”
Jaymee heard the tears in her daughter’s voice. It hurt to hear it.
“I don’t know, baby,” she said, stopping in front of the garage door instead of pulling in. She turned to Cheyenne and put one hand on the back of her daughter’s head. Her hair was so soft. She gave Cheyenne an affectionate smile.
“We’re going to find him. I’m not going to stop looking for him.”
THREE
Later that night, Jaymee forced herself to take a shower. She hoped it would relax her. After, wrapped in a towel with another on her head, she sat on her bed, thinking. Her eyes wandered around the bedroom she shared with her husband. His things were in his closet. The book he was reading sat on his nightstand. Nothing was different.
Except he wasn’t there.
She got dressed quickly and headed to their study. The room was large, with two desks, a four-drawer file cabinet, plenty of walking space and extra chairs for people who might visit to discuss business. It was where Doug ran his company from. Jaymee knew very little about stocks and bonds.
But it was her room and her house, too. She shouldn’t feel bad for going through Doug’s desk.
She did, though.
She pushed the feeling down and sat in his chair. His laptop was closed and various papers were scattered around it. If Doug was intentionally going to leave, he wouldn’t have left that behind. She wished she’d told that to the police. It might have made a difference.
She pulled open the top drawer and rifled through the papers stacked in it. They were all data sheets, with names, numbers and letters that made no sense to her. She pushed the drawer closed and pulled open the one underneath.
She had to chuckle a bit. This was what anyone else would have thought of as a “junk drawer”. There were small boxes of candy, individual size chip bags, tape, extra staples, the stapler and many other items dropped into that drawer “just in case” they were needed later.
This personal piece of Doug made a sharp pain strike Jaymee’s heart. Where was he?
She closed the door, her joviality gone, replaced by a heavy sadness that made Jaymee take a moment to recover.
She pushed the chair away from the table slightly and pulled open the middle drawer. Yellow sticky pads, pens, paper clips, the usual office supplies. Even another box of staples.
She was about to close the drawer when she spotted something written in Doug’s handwriting on one of the yellow sticky notes. It looked like it had been intentionally put up at the back of the drawer so it wouldn’t easily be spotted if the drawer were casually opened.
