Page 10 of The Beachside Cafe 2
“You didn’t have any trouble getting in?” Jaymee was a little surprised by that.
Cameron shook his head, not taking his eyes from the screen. “No, this being his computer, he stayed logged in. I guess he didn’t have anything he thought he needed to hide from you, Jaymee.” Cameron turned to look at her. “Unless you just never checked his computer.”
Jaymee didn’t think twice about it. She shook her head. “This is his work computer and even if he did personal stuff on it, I didn’t care to look. I’ve never been a snoop. If you’re going to deceive me, you will be the one doing the wrong, not me.”
Cameron looked impressed, which made Jaymee happy. She returned her eyes to the screen as he kept scrolling. Finally he clicked on a folder on the left side of the screen titled “Pictures”.
Jaymee was immediately struck by how good-looking she thought Doug was. A tall man with broad shoulders, a light cropped style haircut that was only about an inch or two off his head all the way around, a strong jaw line, kind eyes.
No wonder people were fooled. She wondered how many women he duped and if he did anything more with them than take their money.
Her anger simmered in her belly. She couldn’t believe she’d been so fooled by the man.
“Look, this one is labeled me and Martin. From two years ago.”
The two were immediately focused on the picture, which Cameron brought to full screen.
“Martin and I on the beach at Congo Beach Hotel, Site District Conference, East Hampton, Utah.”
“I remember that trip,” Jaymee said. “He stayed with a group of men in that hotel and they celebrated each other’s successes the whole time. He called me a lot. He wanted to check in and make sure I was okay.” Jaymee smiled at the fond memory. “I remember thinking it was so sweet but I really thought he was checking to see if I was with another man. Like I’m going to let another man answer the doggone phone. Especially mine.” She laughed, shaking her head. “No. He stopped doing that a few years ago. What’s the date on this? I can’t remember how long ago it was.”
“Well, Doug looks at least ten years younger,” Cameron said in a low voice, leaning forward to search for a date on the photo. “No date on the folder, let’s try the upload date.”
“Oh that was five years ago. Surely this isn’t the guy he’s blackmailing.”
Cameron didn’t respond. He clicked on different areas of the photograph until he came up on a name.
Chills covered Jaymee when he pointed the cursor at it. “His last name starts with a G.” Cameron’s voice was deep. He swiveled in the chair to look up at Jaymee. “I think we may have found our first suspect. Martin Granger. Looks like he’s a biologist for a research company. They must have sent representatives to that conference you remember.”
“Yes. That sound reasonable. But now how to do we go about finding a Martin Granger here?”
“The best thing about it is that now we know a face. We can put a face to a name.”
Jaymee frowned, pulling half of her lips down. “But wait. Even if we find this particular Martin Granger, how are we supposed to prove he’s the one Doug’s been blackmailing? And how do we tie him to Doug’s disappearance?”
“I can think of a few ways.” Cameron’s voice sounded hollow and like he was talking to himself. “But we’ll have to get access to some things at the police station, like criminal records and stuff like that.”
“We don’t even have an address.”
Cameron shook his head. “We’ll have to start with the phone book.”
Jaymee raised her eyebrows. “I don’t even know where to get a phone book.”
Cameron laughed. “I do. You can get one at the library, I mean look at it anyway, if you don’t have one.”
“I thought they stopped making them a few years ago because everything went online.”
“Yeah, it’s a shame really. It’s hard to prank call people when you don’t have a phone book to open and randomly pick from.”
Jaymee laughed.
“So what’s the next step?”
“I’m going to take a copy of this picture to the guys downtown and ask them to make a search for him in the database. If he’s a criminal, they’ll have his mug shot and then we’ll have all the information we need on him.”
“If it’s current,” Jaymee added. “Those guys don’t like to stay in the same place for very long.”
“That’s true they don’t. But if that’s the case, we’ll just follow whatever lead we can get. I’m sure we’ll find him. I’m not sure if he’s responsible for Doug’s disappearance.”
