Page 2 of The Beachside Cafe
He’s not answering his cell. I haven’t seen him since breakfast this morning. He was supposed to meet me and my boss for lunch. He didn’t show. I was embarrassed then. Now I’m worried. It’s been four hours. Can you come home?
Jaymee pulled her eyebrows together. It wasn’t like Doug to stand up his daughter. Cheyenne was the light of his life. If he wasn’t showing up for her, something had to be wrong.
Concern shot through her like an arrow, leaving behind a chest tight with anxiety.
I’m on my way,she tapped back as she turned and left the terrace behind, her joyful mood forgotten, the beauty around her unseen as she hurried to her daughter’s side.
TWO
Jaymee hurried up the porch steps and through the tall front door of her three-story home calling out for her daughter.
“I’m in here, Mom!” she heard Cheyenne’s voice from the den. She crossed the foyer, not hearing her boots as they tapped on the tile floor. The door to the den was standing open and she passed through, going immediately to the fireplace, where her daughter was standing, looking worried. She had a glass of white wine in one hand and was sloshing it back and forth instead of drinking it.
“Have you heard anything?” she asked.
Cheyenne looked at Jaymee, shaking her head. “No. Mom, I’m really worried. Dad wouldn’t do this to me. He knows how important that lunch was. At least to my boss. It’s not even about me. It was about the stocks Dad recommended to Mr. Brady and the rest of the firm.”
“You aren’t at risk of losing your job, are you?” Jaymee asked, a new worry popping up in her mind. Cheyenne worked for the most prestigious law firm in the town of Oceansview. She was well-respected and well-liked. It would be a shame for her reputation to be ruined for something so slight and something she had no control over.
“No, no,” Cheyenne replied, much to her mother’s relief. “They won’t fire me for this. But I know he wants to talk to Dad pretty badly. I don’t know what it’s all about, they wouldn’t tell me. All I know is that it has something to do with those stocks.”
Jaymee chewed on her bottom lip. She didn’t want to think that Doug had done anything wrong that he might be running from. But now that he was missing and hearing he didn’t show up for an important meeting with Cheyenne’s boss – putting his daughter at risk of shame and humiliation – she thought it might be a possibility.
She was immediately ashamed of herself for thinking such a thing. She needed to trust her husband. If he wasn’t showing up, there had to be a good reason. Someone was preventing him from showing up. There could be no other explanation.
Could there?
And even if that was the reason, that wasn’t exactly a good thing either.
Her heart slamming in her chest, Jaymee went to the curved bar and reached down to pull open the small refrigerator door. She pulled out the wine bottle Cheyenne had already opened and poured herself a glass.
“What do you think we should do?” she asked, lifting the glass to her lips and taking a sip. The liquid went in cold but was warm in her stomach. “Call the police?”
Cheyenne nodded. “I think that’s the only thing wecando. They can tell us what our options are. But I swear, Mom, if they say they won’t do anything, I’m gonna go looking for him. He has to be somewhere. I don’t care if I have to traverse from here to the west coast, searching every hotel, I’m going to find him.”
When her daughter said “hotel”, chills covered Jaymee from head to toe. It couldn’t be true. That just wasn’t possible. He wasn’t having an affair. He hadn’t run away. He had been completely involved in helping Jaymee secure the café and had financed the renovations. He had kissed her goodbye that morning before leaving for an appointment he said he had. He loved her. She loved him. He wouldn’t just run away, even if he was in a pickle.
Jaymee believed they had a solid marriage. There were no secrets between them. At least, that’s what she’d thought. Until now.
Married to the man for 21 years. A 20-year-old daughter between them. Never any fights, no problems with drugs or alcohol. Her life was perfect.
Or so she thought.
Now Doug had disappeared. It just didn’t make any sense.
“Call them.” She walked across the room, picking up the cordless landline phone and handing it to her daughter.
Twenty minutes later, Jaymee pulled open the front door to let in the two police officers. She stepped back, realizing she was clutching her cell phone so tightly, it was making her hand hurt.
She relaxed her muscles and led them into the large living room, where Cheyenne stood anxiously in front of the window, her arms crossed over her chest. She gave the police officers suspicious looks but Jaymee knew it was only because she didn’t believe they would do anything to help.
In the end, she was mostly right. They took Doug’s information, told her that they couldn’t file a missing person report for 48 hours but that they would put out a BOLO for Doug’s vehicle. Jaymee thanked them and got them to leave before Cheyenne could lose her temper with them. She could tell by her daughter’s red face that she was getting more upset by the minute.
When she returned from letting the police out, Cheyenne had dropped onto the couch and stretched out, resting one hand on her forehead and closing her eyes.
“They aren’t going to go looking for him, Mom,” she said, turning her head to look at her mother. “We’re going to have to do it. They aren’t taking this serious. They think he ran off with another woman.”
Again, the thought that Doug could have been cheating made Jaymee’s heart squeeze painfully. She gave her daughter a worried look. “Do… do you think he was…”
